Re: Distance Reference for DSOs?

From: Fred (poster1234us_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/19/04 

Date: 19 Nov 2004 05:07:21 -0800

tony_flanders@yahoo.com (Tony Flanders) wrote

> Just out of curiosity, why do you care about the distances?

It's just an aesthetic thing: I especially enjoy views where objects
at greatly different distances are close to one another on the
celestial sphere: the open clusters M35 and NGC 2158 in Gemini or the
globular clsuters M4 and NGC 6144 in Scorpius. Looking at objects
like these makes me feel as though I'm looking far "into" space, and
looking up the distances later enhances this satisfying, three
dimensional feeling for what I've been looking at. And sometimes too
I like to think about how old the light is that is reaching us from
these sources and that of course depends on the distance.

By the way, thanks for your answer. It was very responsive and
helpful. I live in a large city and have a couple university
libraries available to me, so I'm going to follow your advice and go
to the literature.

Fred