Constellations from Cedar Key, Florida
We traveled to Cedar Key, Florida in February 2024 for a mid-winter vacation and I was able to
take some pictures of the southerly constellations that span the Milky Way from Carina to Scorpius.
Although from the latitude of Cedar Key (29° 9') you can't see these constellations in
their entirety, we can surely get a better view than we have in Virginia at latitude 38° 18'.
Unfortunately, we had a waxing gibbous Moon in the sky all week, so the sky is fairly bright
in all of these pictures, however we can still make out the main patterns.
The sky charts and images are arrayed so that the easternmost constellations are displayed on the
left, so Scorpius and Lupus are shown first. The pictures showing Columba, Pictor, Carina,
and Puppis are on the right. I was most interested to see how much of the False Cross, and
the Southern Cross I would be able to see, and whether or not α and β Centauri would be
visible. My horizon was almost but not quite to the water line, and there was some horizon
haze, so the end result was that I could see three of the four stars of each "cross" but neither
α nor β Centauri became visible.
The highlights of the observing for me were the great altitude of Canopus, seeing most of the
False Cross, the clear view of the loose open cluster IC
2391, also known as the Omicron Velorum cluster,
the Southern Cross, and Ω
Centauri. The cluster NGC 2451 in Puppis and IC 2391 in Vela are the first two of a string
of large, loose open clusters in the southern Milky Way, the others of which I have not observed
since the remainder of them (including NGC 2516, NGC 3372, and IC 2602) are too far south.
Lupus and Centaurus
Centaurus and Crux
Vela
Puppis and Carina
