Category Archives: Galaxies

A few more sketches

Here are a few more sketches from the summer/early autumn. These, too, have been scanned straight from the original sketch and processed a bit in PS Elements 6. I have tried to make the stars rounder but without making them appear bloated. By the way, the light patches in the corners and sides are the result of the scanning process: my sketchbook is spiral bound and so the scanner lid does not shut properly, causing light to leak in.

Click images for larger versions.

NGC 7662 ^

M33 with HII regions NGCs 595 and 604^
NGC 604 is the elongated patch just below centre, 595 is labelled at bottom left
NGC 205^

Binocular observing session 11-12 December 2009

Sod’s Law was in action last night as I had a severe cold which prevented a proper observing session with the 12 inch, and it was the clearest and most transparent sky we have had in ages. I had spent most of the day in bed with coughs, sneezes and fever, having been sent home from work at lunchtime, but something compelled me to look out of the window at 2330, I am not sure why I expected it to be clear as most of the day had been cloudy and a bit foggy. I felt a bit better and I hate wasting clear skies so decided on a short session; besides it would have been a bit foolish to have stayed out for any real length of time and get cold.
Obviously I didn’t feel like lugging the big scope out, or even one of its smaller friends, but I put on jeans, jumper and shoes and went out with the 8×42 binoculars instead. I also pulled out my UHC and OIII filters out to see what winter nebulae I could see with the binoculars.

11-12 December 2009; 2330 – 0005 GMT/UT
0.5

° above freezing
No wind
Excellent transparency apart from the odd bit of clouds on the horizon; out of 5, where 1 is bad and 5 excellent, it was 5. The seeing was reasonably steady too, Antoniadi II.
Naked eye limiting visual magnitude was 6.5

Of course, I just had to go for M42, the Orion Nebula. It is an irresistible object in any instrument, including binoculars, and is worth looking for even if it is the most observed deep sky object in the sky. I make a point of saying hello to it every year, as I do all my favourites, and I can’t wait to see it in the 12 inch. Huge, very bright, fan shaped, with four stars visible in the Trapezium. Needs no filtration, although UHC brings it out slightly better (OIII not as effective). M43 also visible as a little round patch.
Also looked at NGC 1981 and NGC 1980.

I also had a (over optimistic it has to be said) look for NGC 2024, the Flame Nebula, but I did not see it. I didn’t think I would in binoculars but, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

NGC 2237-8/NGC 2246; the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros.
Large, round and bright with the star cluster NGC 2244 at the centre. The nebula is only just visible without a filter, but the UHC makes it very easy to see. The OIII is also effective but it’s best with the UHC.

Ursa Major was low behind the trees but M81 and M82 were above the trees and easily seen with the 8x42s.

M31 was bright and huge through the binoculars, spanning the entire field of view. The core was bright and the spiral arms extensive. Good view of the dust lanes.

NGC 869 and NGC 884; the Double Cluster
Gorgeous through the binoculars. Very rich and large with the stars easily resolved.

Trumpler 2
Small fuzzy patch just SE of DC. Also NGC 957, another hazy patch.

NGC 1499; the California Nebula. This isn’t quite as easy to see as the Rosette, especially without a filter, but the UHC filter brings it out and you can see a hazy brightening of faint nebulosity extending east-west, immediately north of Menkib.

By then it was 0035 (GMT/UT) and I was getting cold and coughing a lot so I had to reluctantly drag myself away from the sky and head indoors and back to bed.

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The odds on me attending the 2010 Texas Star Party have slightly improved. I have got a temporary job until Christmas and have so far, managed to save nearly half the air fare. Hopefully, a run of employment between now and April will enable me to get there. The air fare’s most of the battle, with prices ranging between £350 and £550 (of course I can’t leave it too late before getting the plane ticket, must get that in January or February or it’ll become more expensive), while the TSP, including accommodation, is fairly cheap and doesn’t require a lot of saving for. The other big ‘expense’ is the cash for any goodies that might catch my eye when I am there such as a 2-inch UHC filter that I want for viewing large nebulae with my 35mm Televue Panoptic.

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I have retrieved my clear sky spreadsheet from the wreckage, scanned it twice with Norton, and loaded it onto the new computer. I had been keeping a note of the weather in the intervening period – not exactly hard when it’s mostly been cloudy! – and have been able to pick up where I left off. November makes dismal viewing with two clear nights and one partially clear night in the whole month, but I wasn’t able to take advantage of those clear nights unfortunately. As noted in a previous entry, it has been two months of nearly continuous wind and rain, with a large part of the UK affected by flooding.

Observing 26-27 September 2009

The third clear night in a row! So I lugged the scope out to cool down and went back inside to watch Casualty on BBC1 (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s sad, but I like Casualty – for those outside the UK, Casualty is a BBC-shown hospital-based drama series, not unlike ER) while waiting for the scope to cool and the first quarter Moon to set.
Once Casualty had finished I finished gathering my stuff together and decided to look at Jupiter, as I had not tried out the 12 inch on any Solar System objects before now. I know the blog title says Visual Deep Sky Observing, but once in a while I like looking at shallow sky stuff. Jupiter, despite being at quite a low altitude, gave me one of the best views I have had of it in the Northern Hemisphere. Bands and festoons were obvious and I could see the Red Spot. Even sticking the magnification up to 300x didn’t degrade it too much, although at that magnification the seeing, while pretty good wasn’t perfect, meant the image was a little unsteady.
Jupiter was also handy for aligning the Telrad and 8×50 finder.

Ok, onto the ‘serious stuff’. I planned to knock off some Herschels tonight, so that was to be the main part of the session.

Conditions:
Chilly: 8 degrees Celsius (later 6 degrees C) with 82% humidity – the dew became a nuisance later on. No wind, 1st quarter Moon set late PM. Seeing II, transparency II-III. Visual limiting magnitude with the unaided eye was around 6.2 to start with, increasing to 6.4, this is based on how many stars I can see in the Great Square of Pegasus. However skyglow, due to moisture in the atmosphere, was quite pronounced; on drier nights you hardly notice it.

Instrument: 12 inch Dobsonian

NGC 7619 and 7626, galaxies in Pegasus. I had to wait until Pegasus and Pisces were clear of the house roof before looking for these, which are part of the Pegasus 1 galaxy cluster. I saw NGC 7619 and NGC 7626 with no problem, although dew formation on my secondary wiped out the other, fainter, galaxies in the area. Dew is a major problem here in the UK and I am going to have to make a dew shield for both the scope itself and the Telrad (the latter being very prone to dewing up).
Both galaxies are oval, with brighter middles. NGC 7619 is the brighter of the two. Nothing else seen, due to the aforementioned dewing. 61x, 101x

NGC 7742, galaxy in Pegasus. Oval, fairly dim although easy to find and see. Slightly brighter middle. 101x.

NGC 205, galaxy in Andromeda. When I saw this on the Herschel 400 list I looked for it on the chart. I couldn’t find it on the chart, which was odd, but there was a reason for this; that reason is that it is better known as M110, one of the companions of M31. As Homer Simpson would say ‘D’oh!’. Large, oval, fairly bright. Brightens somewhat, gradually towards centre. In a nice starry field. Fainter than M31 although it would be a showpiece in its own right if it wasn’t overshadowed by its bigger, brighter and more famous friend. 61x

Looked for NGC 891. I have observed this galaxy before, with my 8 inch scope, but completely failed to find it this time. 891 is noted as being hard to find, but after 40 minutes of searching I gave up. I think I was in the right place, but the dew was making life awkward and wiping this already quite faint galaxy out.

NGC 752, open cluster in Andromeda. Large, loose cluster which fits neatly into 1 degree field of 40mm Plossl eyepiece, with room to spare. I started a sketch of this (although I hate sketching open clusters!) but didn’t finish it due to the secondary dewing up. 61x

NGC 1664, open cluster in Auriga. Small, triangular o.c. with a chain coming south-east from it, like a tail. In fact it does remind me of a cat, with two brighter stars as eyes. Not rich. Around 30 stars of uniform brightness. 101x

Because of the dewing, a bad back and cold feet, I packed up earlier than intended at 0230 BST. Not a bad session, and I managed to tick off some Herschels, but the dew was a major pain. I am going to have to fashion a dew shield for the OTA and one for the Telrad.

I have sent off to First Light Optics for a new laser collimator, hopefully that should arrive tomorrow, but with the Moon on the rise again and some more unsettled weather this week, I won’t be doing much observing for a while. As a footnote, I woke up this morning to a weird red glow over on the computer desk. Yep, my collimator had come alive; I must have left it switched on. This isn’t going to save it from the bin, though, its unreliability means that its fate is sealed!

Aggravation, clouds and some galaxies

The forecast was clear for the night, with a run of settled weather and high pressure predicted by the BBC weather website for the next few days, so I lugged out the 12 inch for – hopefully – a good long session.
Unfortunately the session got off to a bad start when my watch broke (the pins that hold the strap in place). Then once I’d set the scope up and had left it to cool for an hour I then discovered that the collimation, for some reason, was miles out. Trying to sort out the collimation made it worse and things weren’t helped when the batteries in the laser collimator died; naturally I didn’t have any spares, so with the most taboo swear words I could think of I hurled the collimator across the garden in the dark. Not a good idea, as I then had to get a torch and hunt for it among the bushes, fortunately I found it after a brief search. Also not a good idea as the near neighbours across the way may well have heard some exclamations of ‘for f**k’s sake!’, ‘s**t’ and even worse!

I got my visual collimator out and tried to use that, but visually collimating the scope requires a second person to look through the eyepiece or twiddle the collimation knobs or one person doing it but needing the reach of a gibbon to do both at the same time. I had neither so I adjusted it as best I could and left it at that. I tried it on the Double Cluster and, fortunately, the view was reasonable, although high powers left a lot to be desired, so I decided to get on with the session. I do need some stiffer collimation springs, so I will send off for some from Bob’s Knobs. These will improve the collimation no end, according to others who use the GSO/Revelation and Lightbridge scopes.

By this time I had wasted two hours sorting the bloody scope out, and therefore the observing session was shortened as a result. But I had all night…

Conditions: Chilly at 8 degrees C. Humidity was 82% so there was a fair bit of dew falling.
No wind. No Moon (waxing crescent had set earlier in evening). Limiting magnitude to the unaided eye was around 6.3 with seeing of II-III on the Antoniadi scale of seeing. Transparency, on a scale of I (excellent) to V (very poor) was III.

Instrument: 12 inch Dobsonian.

I began in Perseus, looking for the Perseus galaxy group, but failed to see it. This should not have been difficult, but the combination of hazy skies and less-than-perfect collimation probably conspired against me here.

Moving on to Pegasus, a rich galaxy hunting ground, brought some better luck. I quickly found NGC 7479. This galaxy looks, to direct vision, like it is an edge on; however averted vision shows it to be rounder and with the hint of spiral arms. The elongation seen with direct vision is the central bar of the galaxy. 101x

NGC 14, galaxy in Pegasus – small fairly bright. Oval. Elongated north-south. Slightly brighter middle. I thought I’d found NGC 7814, which is what I was looking for, but it looks nothing like it when compared to sketches and photos in books and on the net. It’s definitely NGC 14. 101x

NGC 23, galaxy in Pegasus – small, very bright. Elongated north-south. There is a star superimposed on the northern end of the galaxy. 101x

I had planned an all night session but, just to round off an incredibly annoying and frustrating session, unforecast clouds built up at around 0200 BST. So much for the Mess Office and their forecasts. So I packed up at 0230, after waiting for the clouds to clear. They did eventually, but left in their wake terrible transparency so I called it a night. Not a great session, a paltry three sketches made and not much done.

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As a little postscript, I went to a jewellers to get my watch fixed this afternoon, and while I was in there bought three button batteries for my laser collimator. Two small pins for my watch and three tiny batteries came to the princely sum of £13. Daylight robbery.

I have sent off to Bob’s Knobs for some collimation springs and secondary knobs. I don’t need new primary knobs as these are ok. Hopefully, these should enable the scope to remain aligned for longer.

Observing session 16 September 2009

Another clear night, we’re doing fairly well this past month or so (in the past month, we have had 20 – yes TWENTY! – clear or partially clear nights. Can’t use all of them, unfortunately, but it’s nice to see), so I lugged the scope out onto the patio for a, hopefully lengthy as I have no work on at the moment, observing session.

There was a nice sunset:

Conditions:

Cool: 11C, 75% humidity (no dew, thankfully) and a very slight breeze, which picked up now and again and died down at intervals. No Moon. Transparency was not too good at first, quite obvious from the higher-than-usual extent of light domes from nearby towns, picking up at around 0030 BST to 0200 BST, and there were isolated drifting clouds although they weren’t enough to interfere with observing. The naked eye limiting magnitude was not as good as usual, around 6.0 to 6.2.

Again I spent a little too much time hunting for elusive stuff, mainly faintish galaxies that I should not have bothered with, given the less-than-great transparency. However, I am pleased with what I did observe, and got some good sketches too.

Instrument: 12 inch f/5 Dobsonian.

I have popped some sketches into this post, but they are rough as they are the original sketches and not redrawn ones.

First up was NGC 40, a planetary nebula in Cepheus. Bit of a rough sketch, though – my writing is terrible and it’s not scanned properly! The nebula was bright and obvious, looking like a fat star at low power, and obviously nebulous at higher powers. It’s round with a bright middle, appearing fatter when looked at with averted vision. Averted vision also hints at a darker area round the bright middle portion. OIII does not enhance the view or provide more detail.


I also found NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball, in Andromeda, easily enough this time. Heaven knows why I failed to find it the other evening, probably a combination of factors, not least the dew making life awkward. NGC 7662 is strikingly sky blue, and round with slightly fluffy-looking edges. Hint of darker centre. OIII makes little difference to the view, UHC even less so.



I had intended to make the pn blue in Photoshop, as it appeared in the scope, but having scanned it in greyscale this obviously wasn’t going to work! The pic hasn’t scanned very well, also I think I need to draw the eyepiece representation circle a bit darker in future.

I also spent quite a lot of time on M33, the big galaxy in Triangulum. Ok, it’s a Messier lollipop, but I wasn’t looking at the galaxy as a whole, I was looking for HII regions within the galaxy. Using a chart from the net I identified NGC 595 and NGC 604. I thought I saw more, but a larger scope and darker, more transparent skies would be a help. NGC 604 is easy to find, a triangle of stars pointing straight at it helps in locating it, it looked elongated, east to west, and showed a bit of brightening within. NGC 595 was much smaller, a roundish knot of light. It is always interesting to see ‘objects within objects’ particularly within external galaxies (M31 also contains ‘objects within objects, as do the Magellanic Clouds, although these, sadly, are not visible from Europe or the United States).

I attempted the Pegasus 1 galaxy cluster, which at mag 11.1 should be accessible to the 12 inch, but there was nothing doing on this front, due mainly to the fairly murky sky. The same went for the Perseus Cluster, with ranges of magnitudes between 11.6 and 12.5. I’ll have another go at these, on a more transparent night sometime this autumn and, in the case of Perseus, when it rises a bit higher. By the time Pegasus was higher the galaxies were behind the garden shed and the 12 inch is not exactly portable so I didn’t bother to try again.

The last object – or objects – was Stephan’s Quintet (Hickson 92) again. The transparency had improved by this time and the part of the sky where this is located was high. The Quintet was easy to find, located at the end of a chain of stars just SW of the bright galaxy NGC 7331, although not so easy to see. I sketched them, although I couldn’t finish the sketch due to the fact the transparency gave out again and the galaxies vanished like smoke. Btw, what looks like a galaxy to the bottom of NGC 7319 isn’t, it’s a smudge on the paper I forgot to rub out and which I failed to see in Photoshop.

The last object of the night was NGC 7000, the North America Nebula in Cygnus. This large nebula is naked eye in the right conditions. I could see it without the aid of scope or binoculars. OIII made it more obvious but UHC was even better, making it very obvious, and I could easily see the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ dark area.

Called it a night at just after 0210 as the transparency was giving out again and the clouds, formerly the odd one or two, were increasing.

Observing 12th Sept 2009

After the previous night’s short session, I was hoping for a clearer night last night and fortunately it was, although very wet (85% humidity and falling dew) and a little murky. There is a music festival (it’s called ‘Bestival’ but ‘Craptival’ would be more accurate. There are some bloody awful acts on the bill and it has a ghastly ‘family friendly’ vibe to it) underway at the moment, a couple of miles away, and the sounds of dodgy music were floating down the valley so I got the iPod and listened to much better music instead. Not only that, this thing was flooding the north-western and western sky with light pollution – fortunately it’s only one weekend a year.
The dew was a nuisance, completely fogging the Telrad and finderscope meaning I had to keep wiping these off every few minutes. I need to buy a dew heater when I have some more money (unfortunately my car tax is due at the end of the month so I have to save for that).

Conditions:
Cool (11 C), 85% humidity, lots of dew. Limiting magnitude around 6.0 later on, due to rising last quarter Moonlight being scattered around the sky. No wind. Seeing steady but transparency not as good as recently (when clear!).
Instrument: 12 inch f/5 Dobsonian

Made a few sketches, of NGC 404, NGC 7332 and NGC 6910 before getting hacked off with the rubbish dewy conditions, light pollution from both the Moon and the pop festival and a bad arm (I have an infection in my left arm and hand) and packing my stuff away and going to bed at 1 am. I also spent far too much time looking for NGCs 147, 185, 7292, 7459 and 7662 but failed to see them. Given the conditions – constant dewing of Telrad and finderscope and the less-than-great transparency – it was not surprising I failed to see the galaxies (147, 185, 7292 and 7459) but failing to even find 7662, aka the Blue Snowball, a planetary nebula in Andromeda, was surprising.

NGC 7332, a galaxy in Pegasus, was easy to find. It is a bright, edge-on galaxy with a brighter core. 190x

NGC 6910, an open cluster in Cygnus, is a nice object. It is dominated by two bright orange-yellow stars and is shaped like a branch or crooked ‘y’. There are nine or so other stars, which are fainter, white ones plus some even fainter ones. 138x.

It was annoying to make so few observations but, as I had spent (wasted!) a lot of time looking for other stuff and the conditions were a pain it was better than nothing.

Awesome night, 28/29 August 2009

I am back in business with a 12″ scope so last night was its first time out. It took a while to set up as the tube is heavy, although more awkward than actually difficult trying to get it out of the house without knocking the tube. I had planned really to mess around with it, looking at ‘lollipops’ and getting it ‘just so’ but it turned into a full-on serious session.
The session didn’t get off to a great start as firstly, my laser collimator started acting up, only intermittently working and a change of batteries made no difference (it’s just over a year old, so I have emailed Telescope House about it), although I did manage to get the scope collimated very well in the end, and then a grasshopper jumped on my head. I hate bugs and when I felt this seemingly huge creepy crawly on my head and it’s disgusting little legs walking on me I yelled, jumped six feet in the air and ran indoors in a totally girlie display of cowardice. Fortunately my aunt, who hadn’t yet gone to bed, rescued me from this thing – or rescued it from me, depending on your point of view. I am an absolute coward about large insects, spiders and centipedes, etc, so I donned a baseball cap and a hooded top with the hood pulled over my head, to prevent any more unpleasant surprises. Yes, I looked like a complete chav but who cares in the dark? Better to look like a chav than be a convenient perch for various disgusting bugs!

Onto the session:
Conditions: Clear, the odd drifting cloud at first but then completely clear from around 10pm onwards. There was a waxing gibbous Moon at first but that set around midnight, so that did not interfere and it was very low in the sky.
Very breezy, around 20mph, did not die down all night. Humidity 68%; temp 12 degrees C (feels colder; very autumnal, due to the wind).
Seeing steady, transparency good with good contrast in the Milky Way once the waxing gibbous Moon had set. NELM 5.8 at first to 6.5 later on.
Instrument: 12 inch f5 Dobsonian.

NGC 6934, a globular cluster in Delphinus.
This was very bright and condensed. Slightly oval and brightens towards the core. It looks granular with direct vision and with averted vision some stars are resolved. 61x, 138x

NGC 6905, planetary nebula in Delphinus.
This took a bit of searching for but I eventually found it. Its located between Delphinus and the tip of Sagitta. Small, round and very bright. Slight ‘fluffy’ appearance. OIII brings it out well. In my notes I put ‘Very slight hint of’ and didn’t finish the sentence for some reason. ‘Very slight hint of…what’ I wonder? I’ll have to go back to that one I think. 190x

NGC 6207, galaxy in Hercules.
This galaxy is often overlooked as it is right next to the big showy globular M13. It is a nice edge-on galaxy, elongated NE-SW. It’s easy to find, mainly because it is so close to M13 and is easy to see in the 12″. It has a slightly mottled appearance with a brighter middle. I put it out of the field of view to observe it, but when it’s in the same f.o.v. as M13 together they make a pretty sight. 61x, 190x

Hickson 92/Arp 319 – Stephan’s Quintet, galaxy group in Pegasus.
Finally found Stephan’s Quintet with my own scope (I have seen it through other scopes in the past, but not found it myself). I have looked for this in the past, probably over ambitiously, with my 8″ from here and – maybe unsurprisingly – saw nothing, although I have read reports of people getting this group with scopes as small as six inches aperture (but they were under Arizona skies and not humid, particle laden UK ones). It is a short star hop just south west of NGC 7331.
Through the 12″ the group was faint and I saw the five (if NGC 7318A and B are counted as two and not one) members with averted vision, two reasonably ‘bright’ and the others fainter. These were NGC 7317, NGC 7318 A/7318B, NGC 7319, NGC 7320. I put the magnification up to 190x to darken the sky and this paid off with a better view of the group.
The galaxies are interacting here, hence the Arp designation. 61x, 190x, 304x

NGC 7331, NGC 7335 and NGC 7337, galaxies in Pegasus.
NGC 7331 is a very bright, elongated galaxy. The middle is very bright and looks mottled. NGC 7335 and NGC 7337 which are in the same f.o.v. are much, much fainter. Both are oval glows showing no detail. NGC 7337 is smaller than 7335, but both are equally bright (or not!). 61x, 190x

NGC 404, galaxy in Andromeda.
This one is always a piece of cake to find because it is located next to Beta Andromedae. Once B And is out of the field (higher magnification is needed here) 404 is easy to see being quite bright. It’s round with a brighter middle. I used a magnification of 304x which gave a nice view darkening the background and increasing contrast. 61x, 190x, 304x

NGC 278, galaxy in Cassiopeia.
Round glow with brighter middle. easy to see. 61x, 190x, 304x

NGC 672 and IC 1727, galaxies in Triangulum.
After the obligatory look at M31 (fantastic with the dust lane very prominent at 61x), M32, M33 and M110 it was back to the serious stuff. NGC 672 is very faint, nondescript bar of light elongated east to west. It’s evenly bright. IC 1727 which is in the same field of view is an even fainter, more nondescript object, a mere elongated brightening of the back ground sky. 61x, 190x, 304x

By now it was 0320 and by the time I’d packed away my eyepieces, atlases and notes and lugged the scope back indoors I got to bed at 4 o’clock. It was a fantastic session of serious deep sky observing, the first in a long time. I have sketches, but I need to redo them onto another sheet and scan them in, so they’ll appear later.
It was nice to see Orion rising in the east with the promise of long winter nights observing…

I’m very pleased with the 12 inch so far, it performs well at high magnifications and the contrast is good. The stars are pinpoints and the scope is easy to push round the sky.

Observing, 7th-8th May 2008

A much more transparent night due probably to a breeze that had been blowing during the day and into the evening. This died down when it got dark.

Set up the scope in twilight and wondered why, when I came to align the finder and check the collimation, I couldn’t see a damned thing. The secondary holder had become misaligned but a quick adjustment soon sorted that out. The nut holding it had worked its way loose so two seconds with a spanner tightened it up – I’ll have to keep an eye on that because the last thing I want is for the secondary to work loose and crash into the main mirror, which doesn’t bare thinking about!

Date: 7th-8th May 2008:
Conditions: Clear, slight breeze (this died down after dark), cooler than previous evening, more transparent (on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is cloudy and 5 is excellent, this was around 4).
Scope: 12″ f5 Dobsonian.
Place: near Sandown, Isle of Wight, UK.

As the conditions were more transparent than the previous night I looked for galaxies in Ursa Major – the ‘lollipops’ M81 and M82 were superb through the 12″ ( a real ‘wow’ factor with lots of detail) and other, small, galaxies in the vicinity were easy to see: NGC 3077, NGC 2976 and, further away, NGC 2787.
Hercules was rising, so I had the obligatory look at M13 – it was a fantastic sight in the 12″ with a dense core and arms of stars radiating out from it. I didn’t do a sketch, that can wait until later in the year. While in the area, I decided to have a look at the galaxy near M13, NGC 6207. At low power (37x) both M13 and NGC 6207 are in the same field of view. NGC 6207 is a slightly elongated oval smudge, evenly bright.
It was on to NGC 6229 a globular cluster in Hercules. At 37x, this was obvious, next to a couple of bright stars. It’s small, condensed, round and bright. Some stars resolved, but only just.
After this it was 1am and time to pack in.

Observing 6th-7th May 2008

A beautiful day yesterday (6th May 2008) led to a clear, dry night so, as I didn’t have to go to work the following morning it was time for a spot of observing.

Date: 6th-7th May 2008
Conditions: Clear, but milky sky (on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is poor and 5 is excellent, this ranked around 2.5 to 3), warm.
Scope: 12″ f5 Dobsonian
Place: near Sandown, Isle of Wight, UK

Sadly, the sky was fairly milky and a lot of the fainter stuff was not visible but I did do a sketch of M51 whose spiral arms and HII regions were visible. I also located and sketched NGC 4036 and NGC 4041, galaxies in Ursa Major (and objects on the Herschel 400 list). Unfortunately a lot more UMa galaxies I wanted for the Herschel 400 were behind the tree in the garden by the time I got round to them, and will have to wait for another time.

This observing session was not without incident – the collimation went out on the scope (I need to do a few mods, I think) necessitating a lot of fiddling with laser collimater and allen keys (it’s the secondary which is being a pain in the arse), I knocked my makeshift observing ‘table’ (an artist’s rucksack cum stool) over scattering charts, pencils and sketchpad all over the adjacent flower bed and then injuring my right knee while kneeling to pick them up (I have a damaged cartilidge and it ‘locks’ up – painfully – from time to time) which meant I spent five minutes in agony and doing a lot of (quiet!) swearing and no observing. Combined with crappy seeing, this was a slightly frustrating session!

After checking out the Ring Nebula which was rising above the trees it was time to pack up. By then it was 1am and I’d been up since 0630 the previous morning.

An hour of galaxies

I only had a short observing session last night due to having to be back at work today at 0730 (I am ditching this bloody job when I come back from Texas in June as the hours are crap) and I spent an hour poking around the galaxies of Virgo again. I didn’t make any sketches though, just looking and seeing what was there. So many galaxies, so little time! Like I said in the previous post my 12″ shows me so much more than the old 8″ ever did – small faint ones, large faint ones, large bright ones, small bright ones, edge-on spirals, face-on spirals, the lot. Wonderful!

I also added M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, in Virgo to my binocular Messier list – I have observed 70 Messiers with my 8x42s to date so I am going to send them off to the Astronomical League for a binocular Messier pin – you need to observe 50 or more to qualify for the pin – and I also attempted M68, a globular cluster in Hydra, but I totally failed to see it properly, probably due to haze and its low altitude. If it clears tonight I’ll give it another go.

Constantly wiping dew off the Telrad becomes tiresome very quickly and I spent a lot of time doing just that last night and the night before, so I decided to buy a dew heater off the net. Prices varied, from an outrageous £69 on one site to a more reasonable £9.99 from Telescope House, so I sent off for the latter and hopefully this should turn up by Tuesday (or Wednesday as there’s a bank holiday in the way). Buying new gear always guarantees clouds, but surely a tiny, ten quid dew heater shouldn’t attract the ‘new equipment curse’…?