Observing the Large Magellanic Cloud

Image by Humayun Qureshi, hqphotography.com.au

Page under construction

The charts:

These charts of the Large Magellanic Cloud have been designed for use at the telescope. You can either print the PDF file for each chart or browse the charts using notebook computer with internet access. The charts are in monochrome colour inverted format for ease of use with red light and for ease of printing. Click here to go to the key chart to start. I have marked some patterns of stars that I find helpful for navigation in a light green line that I hope will not be too intrusive. There are about 470 deep sky objects marked that are observable in amateur telescopes. I have selected fonts to suit the PDF files. Over time, I will improve the fonts on the web page charts. If you use binoculars rather than a telescope, a chart is available here

How these charts were made and acknowledgements

The starting point for each chart was a Digitised Sky Survey image downloaded via Wikisky. I browsed each image using Mati Morel's LMC Visual Atlas 2000 as a starting point. Objects that I could still not identify, I tracked down using the comprehensive catalogue of clusters in Archinal and Hynes "Star Clusters" and Mati Morel's excellent presentations of the Shapley Lindsay catalogue of LMC clusters and the Henize catalogue of LMC emission nebulae. I used the NGC/IC Project's excellent public database to clarify dimensions and classifications of NGC and IC objects. I am very grateful to all those who have put so much time into making these wonderful resources available. One limitation of these charts is that I have not included the myriad of varialbe stars in the LMC. If variable stars are your passion, I can highly recommend Mati's atlas which includes all variable stars of maginitude brighter than 13.

Tips for finding your way around

I have included a section of tips for navigation that you may find useful. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a very busy part of the sky and it's not hard to get lost. (under construction)

Observation notes and sketches - this section will contain observation notes on LMC objects. If you have notes or sketches that you would like to post please email me.