Category Archives: Projects

I have a long way to go!

I have just been visiting some of the links on my website. One of these is of the homepage of famed visual deep sky observer Barbara Wilson of Houston TX. On there, she has a page about her astronomy exploits and, on it, she tells us how many things she has seen. As you’d expect, an observer like Barbara has seen a lot. In her own words she has:

“…observed thousands of galaxies, hundreds of  galaxy clusters, completed the Herschel 400, the Messier 110, I have observed all but 25 of the Arp Galaxies, all except for 10 of the Milky Way globular clusters, hundreds of open clusters, asteroids, dozens of comets, several great meteor showers, including the Leonids of 1998, and 2001, planetary nebulae, diffuse nebulae, reflection nebulae, asteroid occultations, lunar grazes, (I once got 36 events on a graze of Beta Tauri), solar eclipses (5 total eclipses), dozens of lunar eclipses, iridium flares, earth x crossing asteroids, supernovae, and never have seen anything in the sky that could not be explained in one way or another.“
I hope that by the time I get to Barbara’s age I will have a comparable record, but I have a long way to go (I hasten to add that’s in terms of things seen!)! To date, I have seen a lot of things out there (and, like Barbara, never anything that cannot be totally explained) but not the sheer amount of objects that Barbara has seen. What I’ve seen probably numbers in the high hundreds, not quite the thousands, not that I’ve actually properly counted.

Another visual observer who has seen a tremendous amount is Steve Gottlieb of California, who has notes on the entire NGC catalogue. He is part of the NGC/IC project, which aims to correct discrepancies and errors in the NGC/IC catalogue and, as part of this project Steve (and others) has reobserved the entire NGC/IC and done an excellent job in clearing up the errors. Steve’s NGC notes can be found here, alongside those of Jeffrey Corder and others.

These are but two of those who have seen, if not it all, certainly most of it. These people have been observing a lot longer than I have, but it shows what dedication, a lot of clear nights and a lot of skill can bring. My current observing projects – the Herschel 400, Herschel II, then the rest of the Herschels, making the Herschel 2500, plus Arp galaxies and galaxy groups and clusters – will go a long way towards my goal of achieving this sort of accomplishment for myself. This is especially the case as I have done a lot of observing since 1993 but none of it systematic projects. Having a systematic project helps a lot in keeping your observing structured and thus, keeping track of things.
A larger scope will also help a lot, as will a few more trips south of the Equator.

Now, you might ask, what am I doing posting on here in the evening, when I could be observing and catching up with the likes of Barbara and Steve, et al? I wish I was out there, but unfortunately the Moon, clouds and a wrecked ankle after an accident in the kitchen earlier this week (I slipped on a wet patch on the kitchen floor and have torn the ligaments in my right ankle) all say ‘no’.
I can’t wait to get back into things, once my ankle’s better, the Moon’s gone and – hopefully – the clouds have cleared.

Observing 14th April 2010

Conditions:
Seeing II
Transparency III-IV – pretty ‘milky’ with some light scatter
Still, with no wind., although the slightest of breezes sprang up later.
Instrument: 12 inch f5 Dobsonian, 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), 8mm Televue Radian (190x), Lumicon OIII filter.
As the skies were really murky, and Virgo was washed out by the murk and a lot of light scatter in that direction, I decided to go to Draco for the Herschel 400 objects (and others) there instead. Things were a little awkward as Ursa Major was upside down and the charts difficult to relate to the sky without turning them upside down.
NGC 5866: Bright, fairly small. Elongated n-s, brightens gradually towards a diffuse centre. Bright star on one end and a slightly dimmer star on western edge. Dust lane? 190x
NGC 5907: Very thin, edge-on galaxy. Not much of a nuclear bulge, if any. Fairly faint, elongated n-s, quite large, stretching across field of view at 101x. 69x, 101x
NGC 5985: Very small and bright. Oval. Bright core, elongated n-s. 190x
NGC 5982: Very large oval galaxy, evenly bright, no brightening to middle. Slightly elongated, not face on. Looks like smudge or thumbprint. Very faint, not much brighter than background sky. 190x.
NGC 6543: Very bright and blue planetary nebula, even without the OIII filter. This was fairly easy to find, although at first I thought it would be too low, as the stars I was using to hop to it weren’t that far above the trees in next door’s garden. The OIII filter really brings it out. Small and round. Slightly fuzzy and definitely non-stellar at 69x.
At 190x it is uniformly bright with the middle being no brighter than the surrounding halo. No darkening anywhere within the nebula. 69x, 190x, OIII filter.
NGC 3147: This took a bit of finding, I had to star hop to it, using galaxies, rather than stars. I began with the easy to find M81/82 and went from there. 
Bright, round, with bright nucleus. 190x.

Because of work the next morning, I packed up at midnight BST. For a short session, it was a pretty good one, and I don’t have to return to Draco for any Herschel 400 objects.

Observing April 11th and 12th 2010

At last! A clear night – or was it? It certainly began promisingly enough with the skies clearing off so I set up just before sunset in the hope that I’d get some observing done.
Unfortunately this state of affairs didn’t last long and after the session began drifting clouds appeared and, as if in a devious conspiracy, they sat right where I aimed my scope. It seemed that when I moved to a different part of the sky they followed!
However, despite this, I managed to see the grand total of three objects on my H400 list.
Conditions:
Chilly +4C
Seeing III, Trans IV – Drifting clouds interfereing with observing, plus some high cirrus stuff
NELM 6.0
Instrument: 12 inch f5 Dobsonian; 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), 8mm Televue Radian (190x), Lumicon OIII filter
NGC 2392 – planetary nebula in Gemini: Easy to find. At 69x it’s round, fuzzy with bright middle. It’s a greenish-blue colour. OIII brings it out well. At 190x it looks very fuzzy with a very bright centre and a dark area between outer parts and centre. 69x, 190x OIII
NGC 2420 – open cluster in Gemini: Nice, fairly small o.c. Very rich and moderately bright. Irregular shape with c. 30 bright stars on a nebulous background which is many many unresolved stars. The brighter stars are all the same, or similar, brightnesses. 69x, 101x
NGC 5194 and NGC 5195 – galaxies in Canes Venatici: Fantastic. NGC 5194 (aka M51) is a large, face-on spiral. Spiral structure is easily seen and it has a big, bright nucleus.
The companion, NGC 5195, is much smaller. Round with a halo surrounding a bright core. 69x, 101x.

At this point, the clouds were becoming more than just an irritation, they were becoming a damned nuisance, so I packed in. As I came back outside to pick up the scope base, the clouds had filled the sky.

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The following night, 12th April, wasn’t totally clear, so I didn’t even bother carrying the scope out but, instead, decided to bag Melotte 111, the Coma Star Cluster, with my 8×42 binoculars. Mel 111 is on the AL Binocular Deep Sky list, which, apart from four objects in Cepheus and Lacerta, I have just about finished.
Easily seen with the naked eye, this huge open cluster is pretty spectacular in binoculars. It is harp-shaped, with 15 bright stars outlining the shape of the harp. There are many more fainter stars in among the brighter ones. The stars are all blue-white and the brightest ones all the same magnitude. Nice.

Herschel 400 blog

I have finally got round to updating my Herschel 400 observations on the separate blog created specially for this project. I last updated it in September, so I had a few things to add into it. I was considering deleting that blog, but have decided to keep it going as it helps me keep track of what I have seen and when. I’ll eventually do what I do with all my observations, type them out and print them off to put into a ring binder.

Herschel 400 blog

Quick session, September 10th, 2009

This was a very quick session, due to having to be at work at the uncivilised hour of 8am the following morning. I intended it to be a Herschel object session, and indeed it was, although it was one of ‘those’ evenings when I actually didn’t find many of the targets I was after. I was after open clusters in Cassiopeia and only observed two or three in the end, plus made a sketch of M103, which I think of as the Northern Hemisphere’s answer to the Jewel Box in Crux, and which I can’t resist.
I had forgotten my circle template for sketches (a plastic thing off individual coffee filters) and used a salmon tin – Tesco own brand salmon tins, at two and a half inches, are just not big enough for sketches and sketches end up squashed.
Another problem was the crap transparency. It had been clear all day and, typically clouds rolled in just as I’d set the big scope up and although they cleared the transparency was crap throughout the session.

Observed NGC 457, an open cluster in Cassiopeia – known popularly as the ET cluster (it does look somewhat like the hideous little alien in that ghastly film), the Johnny 5 cluster (it looks more like that little robot in Short Circuit) or the Owl cluster.

Also observed NGC 663 and then sketched M103, as mentioned above. All in all, a bit of a disappointing session but better than nothing as it looked like being earlier in the session. Packed up and went to bed by 11pm, due to having to get up for work the next day.

Herschel 400

I have started a Herschel 400 observing program and I have dedicated a seperate blog to it. All Herschel 400 observations will go into that blog, although ALL observing sesh’s will still be recorded on this one.
I have, in the past, seen a lot of the H400 objects although I have not systematically done a dedicated H400 program, until now but, as I have a new scope, I am starting from scratch, beginning with the observations made during my most recent session the other night. I was thinking of getting into the H400 a while back, but never got started, for various reasons including a dodgy scope, other commitments and downright laziness!

Herschel 400 blog

The Herschel 400

I have never been one for doing systematic observing projects, always instead doing my own thing and either just choosing targets for any given session or just deciding what to observe ‘when I got there’, so to speak.
However, having just seen most (70) of the Messier Objects with a pair of 8×42 binoculars which was a project brought on by financially-induced scopelessness a few years ago, I have decided to have a bash at the Herschel 400. I have probably seen a lot of the Herschel 400 anyway (I’ll have to dig out old notes to be sure) but observing them with the 12″ will be a fun project. I want to re-observe previously seen stuff with the 12″ anyway and I daresay this’ll pick up quite a lot of Herschels.
I have the Astronomical League book ‘Observe the Herschel Objects’ (I also have their ‘Herschel II’ book) so, using that as a reference, this will be an ongoing project. It’s going to take me quite a long time to complete because of the UK’s crappy climate and also other commitments getting in the way of observing.

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The Telrad dew heater arrived this morning and I discovered a bit of a snag. I need to buy a dew controller to make it work. Bollocks!!! Oh well, I need one anyway for my refractor, so when I’m a bit more flush, I’ll get one (they’re around £45).

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.

NGC/IC binocular project

While I was out with the binoculars the other night, an idea hit me. I am currently doing a project, just for fun, to see how many of the Messier Objects I can see with my binoculars. This has been ongoing since 2005 and so far I have observed 56 Messiers with the bins. Because binoculars are a fun, easy and undervalued way of observing deep sky objects I have decided to have a go at seeing how many NGC/IC objects I can see with them and, of course, the results will be posted here and on my website.

8×42 binoculars

It will be a good project for those nights where I’m too idle to get the scope out or the conditions don’t warrant the effort required to set it up. Binoculars are the ultimate grab-and-go scope and are very under-rated as an observing tool – and I have been as guilty as anyone of underusing them in my observing.

Raindrops keep falling on my head. Apart from a couple of days (and a single night) it seems to have been wet and windy almost non-stop for the past month. This isn’t climate change, it’s La Nina (the sister phenomenon of the more famous El Nino effect) which was also responsible for the appalling weather last summer. It’s based in the Pacific but affects the weather across the planet, causing torrential rain and high winds here and droughts in India, etc. Hopefully, it’ll die down soon.