Hartley, Neptune, Blue Flash and NGCs.. II

Continued..

Switched to Capri objects.

M30 : Easy catch.. can see it binocular as well. In 16" @ 100x, the H shape is very small, but the GC shows up fine. This object is better with higher magnification. Need to browse thru scientific articles, if they ever talk abt shape.

Saturn Nebula : Easy catch. In 10" dob, the blue disk @ 71x shows up well. You cna clearly differentiate it thank the field stars. Sor of shows the elongated shape.. In 16" @ 100x, defintely shows more in the elongated shape, hard to qualify them as "wings", but you can feel their existence. Blue and bright..

M73 : Moving in correct direction Saturn nebula catches M73 Asterism easily. 4 stars in sort of
triangle shape pops up immediately.

M72 : Moving further down, shows M72 nearby.. brighter, but very compact and smaller.

M2 : Not sure when i visited this fella last time. Very easy catch from: Capricoruns Top line left corner pair => North => bright star of Beta Aqurii => North => M2.

M15 : Again, not sure when i saw this before (NEVER.. hmmm). I remember in 2008, i have tried it once to find it in 6" scope, but didn't get it. M2 => North => Bright star of Epsilon Peg i.e Enif => little North-West => M15. Sort of near Delphenus diamond.

Both M15 and M2 seemed to be of same brightness. When observed thru binoculars, M2 doesn't have any nearby stars, but M15 is within bright star pairs. So M15 seems fainter than M2.. or M2 is easier to see than M15.

Veil : In 10" scope, without the filter, Vel is very depressing. All fuzziness is gone. You can see somewhat fuziness near star 52, but that doesn't show its broomstick shape. Other two components just don't even show up.

North American and Pelican Nebula: I have tried this nebula multiple times before and always failed. This object seems more visible photographically than visually. Jon and I tried it with NP101 and the binoculars. NP101 with the filter with 31 Nagler (~22x), shows very wide field view. Jon ponted to some sort of triangle shape, this must be the narrow part in turn joining south american peninsula. OR Not sure if it was pelican.. All other parts are just invisible..

Tried to browse thru binocs, Tried to locate the dark lanes that made the border of north american nebula, but very hard to feel the shape.

Oph 6633 and one more: Jon pointed to two clusters in Oph. Nothing impressive abt it. very dispersed open star cluster with probably 15-20 stars in it.

Browsed thru Cetus.

M77 : Not so bright galaxy. sometimes its even hard to understand how M found these objects. Seemed elliptical. there are bunch of satellite galaxies and Jon's 16" scope showed them nicely. 1055 is just aligned next to it with bright pair of stars. 1087 on southern side is fainter, but still visible. It seemed to have another companion 1090. So with larger aperture 1087-1090 pair shows up. On the opposite side of M77-1055 can find fainter 1032 again aligned with sort-of-bright stars nearby. Tried to locate 1073, but didn't see it.

Continued..

Friday Night with Oreo Cookies - I

Date: Sept 18th 2009, Friday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1:30am (5.5 hrs)
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Chillier !!
Instruments: Jon's 12.5" dob, Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Didn't open my 10" dob.
Buddies: Jon

Jon and I decided to observe on Friday night rather than usual Sat night. Jon had some work to finish at home on sat because of Francis's Bday. Being Friday, leaving from work and reaching to Blvd was lil hectic.. both of us were hungry too. Had some funtime having Oreo Cookies and Milk. I don't even remember when was the last time I had cookies and milk.. probably when i was a kid :) ..and since friday, Jon is pulling my legs for recommending oreo cookies with milk :)..

Decided to operate only one scope 12.5" and work together..

From M8 to M7 South-west browsing for dark lanes and deep sky objects NGC 6544-6553 (New): This was an interesting experiment, browsing thru this region with 12.5" scope and 28mm Williams UWAN (50x). Just wanted to see the milky way details.. Clearly milky way stars were crowded together..lot of dark lanes around.. and lot of tiny clusters.. Out of all these, Two GCs 6544-6553, next to M8, were indeed popping in the eye. They are at the SE corner of the M8. Indeed small, but noticeable.. the whole southern area seems lil crowded and indeed bright.

Baade's window NGC 6522-6528 (New): Recently read abt this in CN Small wonders article. Mentioned to Jon abt two GCs close to galactic center. First globular 6522 is an easy catch, makes an equi triangle with two bright stars Gamma Saggi & W Saggi. The second globular 6528 is at the center of this triangle. 2nd GC 6528 is definitely faint and smaller than first GC 6522. Thru 4" refractor on 35mm Panoptic, 14x, can easily see first GC, but requires lil bit of averted vision for second one..still not that difficult, if you know where to look at.

Mentioned to Jon that i need to try 3 nebulas in Cygnus. N American + Pelican, Crescent planetory and Veil third component called Pickering's Triangle.

North American Nebula and Pelican Nebula (New): Being a huge and faint object, this one always eluded me. With 28mm UWAN, 50x, I can barely see anything fuzzy in the view. The problem is the wide field of 3deg, required by this object. The only thing which i saw is a crowded region and probably some dark lanes. With OIII filter on, probably i can make out the lane connecting the Northern America part to the southern side.. still want able to see much of the northen american shape. some west coast parts may be lil brighter.. Off the east coast, Pelican nebula was definitely visible.. again..no dark lanes or pelical visible.. probably requires lil magnification.. but definitely the fuzzy part off the coast of florida was visible.

Tried both again in the refractor.. but that was without filter.. so nothing much to see in there. Without filter these objects are indeed difficult.

M30: Wanted to just see it again for details with jon's scope. At 87x, with 16T2, GC with curved A is visible..but higher magnification indeed shows it well. 9mm and 4.5mm nagler shows all details. 9mm nagler at 140x resolves the cluster at outskirts.. the alignment with the A shape is indeed looks nice. Are the A shape stars part of this cluster or just in the view? Update: Yes.. these stars are part of the cluster. these are huge red-giants in the cluster on a horizontal branch. With high exposure photograph, you can see all faint stars in M30 which indeed covers the whole A shape.

M72-M73: In order to look for Saturn nebula thru jon's scope, checked both M72 and M73. M72 was definitely resolvable at outskirts with 16T2 (87x). M73 triangular asterism of 4 stars is visible. I wasn't aware there are 4, till i read abt it. One of the vertex is sort of double with a faint star.

Saturn Nebula: Higher aperture and better eyepieces indeed shows these objects better than my scope. Lil small but bright..sort of giving the hint saturn rings around it. defintely supports higher mags, but cant see much details. tried till 7mm Nag (200x).. also tried the OIII filter.. jon mentioned that object already being bright, filter doesn't help much.

Because of Cookies and milk dinner, Jon was feeling sleepy and went to lie down in motor home. He slept for 1.5 hrs.. In the mean time, with jon's scope and all his excellent eyepieces and filters, I enjoyed the night at fullest.

M55 (New): This GC is marvelous and huge as compared to most of messier GCs. Easy binocular object, just always missed it. Easily resolvable at lower magnifications. don't remember any details.

M75 (New): Compared to its neighbors M55, M75 is a hard object. Wasn't visible at all in the binocular.. Spent hell lot of time in locating this object. Barely visible in finder. This one is probably 1/5 in size of his bigger cousin and not that bright either... nothing special abt it.. just yet another M object.

Veil Nebula: Pickering's triangle: Veil was as usual marvelous in Jon's scope. Broom and veil both visible nicely in 28mm uwan with filter on. Next to the broom, there is third part visible. This is indeed faint as compared to first two parts.. but definitely visible. Triangular fuzziness is visible. I wasn't aware abt the 3rd component before reading abt it. so wanted to take a look.

M57 ring: Ring was tiny in 28mm uwan @ 50x. but as you bump up the magnification, M57 indeed shows its true size. with filter on the nebulosity indeed becomes brighter. The donut shape is stronger. With filter on the 2" star vanished..but without filter this one shows up nicely.

Continued..

Getting Into The Rhythm - I

Date: Sept 13th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 1:00am (5.5 hrs)
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Moderate Seeing, Good Transparency. Windy whole night.. chillier !!
Instruments: Jon's 12.5" dob, My 10" dob, Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Bino browsing.
Buddies: Jon

Had 2 sessions after coming back from India..but in this session I felt like my usual rhythm is back. After normal browsing, spent lot of detailed viewings in Capricorn, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Perseus, Aquila, Hercules etc.. total 5.5 hrs observing was excellent..

Just after sunset, browsed few bright usual candidates thry my scope and Jon's refractor.

M7-M6: Nice viewing. Pin point stars.. butterfly red star seemed orange. there is a GC next to M7, but missed it. need to find out TBD.

6441 Tiny Glb next to G scorpi: while looking for M7, ended up at this GC next to G Scorpi. GC is small, but bright.. Initially felt like shape of 8..but its not.. surprisingly, its also visible thru 10x50 binocs thru averted vision. How much is magnitude of this TBD?

N Jewl box: Quick browsing.. seemed lil tiny in the nagler..

M4 Antares & 6144: M4 next to antares is definitely resolvable in 17mm nagler 76x. 6144 seemed lil smaller.. but its definitely not tiny.. its just really faint so lil tricky to observe.. seemed like egg shaped..

Alberio: In the pair, the green star seemed bluish..probably not dark enough yet after sunset

With Jon's refractor, did lil browsing. Used his Williams 28mm UWAN. Excellent viewing. Lagoon, Triffid, Swan, Eagle, Wild duck M11, M4 Antares.

Pipe nebula in Oph: Its dark nebula. Lil bit visible thru naked eye, if you know what you are looking for. Binoc browsing with Jon.. Refractor browsing with 28mm UWAN wasn;t much helpful

M23 OC: In Saggi, saw thru binoculars. Easy to spot.. preety wide and big.

M25 OC: In saggi, opposite of M23..located at the center of the inverted comma-spiral. Thru binocs.. Not as dense as M23 OC.

M22 GC, M28 GC: Opposite ends of lambda saggi star. M28 smaller, but still visible thru binoculars clearly.. usual bluish in color.

M62 GC (New): Yet another GC in sco. Smaller than M4. Easy to locate.

Veil Nebula: Observed this one multiple times during the night. All viewings were excellent.
- ~8pm: Being at zenith, hard to point the scope. Jon pointed this one thru his 16.5". Both components visible.
- ~8:15pm: In the refractor, filter on, with 28mm UWAN. You can fit complete Veil loop in the view. Excellent. I don't even remember if I have seen the complete Veil before. Tried 35mm Panoptic on this one. UWAN view was definitely better than panoptic. Mag + extra Fov definitely helps to capture better view.
- ~10pm: In Jon's 16.5 scope with his 16T2 nagler, we compared 2 OIII filters on veil, Celestron 2" & Orion 1.25". I wasn't aware abt which filter is ON. Jon was testing both filters blindly without knowing them. First (Ori 1.25") seemed to give brighter view of the nebulosity than second one (Cel 2"). Ori 1.25" was cheaper than Cel 2" filter.
- ~11:45pm: In my 10" dob, 17T4 nagler, with Cel 2" filter, Saw the veil. Without filter the nebulosity is not that clear. In first componet "broomstick", the bigger part on one side of star 52 is clearly visible, but the opposite side wasn't clearly visible. With filter ON, the nebulosity extends and shows its real length.
- In the skyMap, they show third component for veil nebula towards star52, but I/we didn't see it. Need to talk with Jon abt this. TBD.

Capricorn browsing:
M30: Distinctive curved H shape stars with the GC on the right vertical line. Easy to catch and easy to remember. 9x15 Finder shows it faintly. Visited this one after almost an year.

M72 GC: Yet another GC

M73 Asterism: Being close to M72 GC, Easy to spot. Asterism triangle.

Saturn nebula 7009: Easy to spot after observing M72, M73. In 10", 17T4 70x, Bluish. Tiny. Ring shape lil visible. Tried to locate it in Jon's 16.5", 22T4 54x, just wasn't able to find it. instead of following usual m72-m73 line, I went from opposite side with a bright star, but just lost it.

Continued..

Last light with Jon's 10" dob - Part I

Date: Oct 25th 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 12:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was okay..not great. improved after 11pm, probably because of marine layer on SD. Its getting really cold too..
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Greg (Advanced amateur astronomer)

Total: 26 objects, 1 Asteroid
New Objects: 10

Returning Jon's 10" dob this week, so went for last observing session from this dob. This dob indeed gave me new perspective in handling big aperture telescope and understanding night sky.

Venus: Too low on horizon, so everything was bit wavy...

M8 Lagoon & M17 Swan: Quick glance to these old objects :).. makes you feel good. Night wasn't that dark enough to see the dark rift in lagoon clearly. swan was impressive. Two stars parallel to neck are clearly visible.

M13: Hercules globular was impressive. it always makes me feel if I would have had more aperture. Showed it to the scout group.

M30: I have seen better views of M30.. with 9mm also it still wasn't crispy and clear.

Saturn Nebula NGC7009: Again not the crisp view.. but the bluish disk stands out well. wasn't that much trouble in tracking either.

M72: Tiny globular... can be vividly seen thru binocs. Quick glance thru the dob.

M73: The asterism triangle is beautiful. One of the object that still can't see thru binocs.

Helix Nebula NGC7293: faint big fuzzy... 135x also doesn't show any details inside..

Asteroid Vesta (New): I think I got it.. it seems like one of the Jupiter's moon in high magnification with lil bit out of focus.. brown yellowish in color. Tried on 22" observatory, but nobody helped or enthu there... more aperture helps here too.. I should ask Jon to catch it some time.

NGC 253: edge on spiral Galaxy in sculptor. Greg told me look at it.. and this is precisely the same galaxy which Jon had shown me before. I got it confused with sculptor dwarf.. indeed beautiful. it fills up almost 80% of my 32mm eyepiece (38x). More magnification indeed shows more in the galaxy. i felt there is some dark lane vertical within the galaxy. Galaxy runs in angular fashion to pair of star alignment.

NGC 258 (New): Really faint globular next to 253 and sort of next to south galactic pole.

Sculptor Dwarf: failed.. need to check mags. compare it with ngc253

M57 Ring Nebula: Not the greatest view again... but nice bluish disk and its 2" star in field of view.

Veil nebula: Thru 22" its fabulous, you can see the whole filament near cygni 52 star so well that it indeed shows that the dust is everywhere, but just a star next to it causes it to glow in nice shape.. the crisp clear image also gave me 3d perspective... i think magic of nagler and filters... thru my dob in 32mm without filter, it was like a faint white streak among background stars... still i saw all 3 components of the veil.

North American Nebula NGC7000, Pelican Nebula IC5067: Failed.. read more..

SDAA BBQ Night - Part I

Date: 29th Sept 08, Saturday.
Observation Time:
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Weather was excellent. Lil bit windy initially. but crisp clear
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Pete.

Total Objects: 17 (Incomplete)
New Objects: 13

Another great session at TDS. It was SDAA's annual BBQ party too. Had a hosting training session for the 22inch telescope.

Caught lot of new objects...

Initially, I wanted to cover all the M's near horizon.

M3 (New): Nicely aligned bten arcturus and canes venatici. Arc of arcturus and star above perfectly points to M3. Visible in binocs and finder 9x50. Really bright and widespread. core is tightly packed, but There seems to be branch of stars coming out if it. all stars resolvable in that branch in 9mm.

M5 (New): located Exactly opposite of M3. Easy to catch with serpens Caput last two stars. Binocular object. Tiny, tightly packed and fainter than M3.

M94 (New): Tiny galaxy in canes venatici. easy to catch. Seems to be tiny fuzzy, elliptical. It’s faint. Wonder how messier find this object.

M63 Sunflower Galaxy (New): Again easy catch. Edge on. lil bit brighter and bigger than M94. can not see any sunflower shape.

M101: really Fainter. Seems face on. still bigger than M63 or M94. On opposite side of M101. there is a galaxy triplet (IC #).

M51 Whirlpool galaxy: both galaxies clearly visible.. broken eight shape. no details visible in 32mm x 2x (16mm). I guess aperture is the key here.

M11 Wild duck cluster: Rich OC with thousands stars. It’s a failed globular cluster probably.One bright star at the center while a pair outside the cluster. Three dark regions making a triangle with each other. Can not see any stars in there. Can resolve almost all stars... cluster doesn't fit in 9mm eyepiece 135x.

Opphiuchus Clusters (New):
Browsed thru Opp. clusters. IC 4665 is indeed bright and beautiful in binocs. At 38x, fills whole eyepiece. 4-5 yellow stars. Not sure what is Cr 350. NGC 6426 was an easy catch. really tiny. Barely able to make it with 38x.

M10 & M12 (New): At the center of constellation. M10, a star, a pair and then M12 forming a line. can not fit in same binocular view. M12 seems bigger than M10. On M10, I can see sort of triangular shape because of few bright stars at the vertices.

Box nebula - NGC 6309: Tried to locate it, but failed. Need to read more.

M14 (New): Yet another globular.

Green Nebula - NGC 6572: wasn't able to locate it.

M30: Impressive. H shape with globular hanging on top right corner. In my 32mm, 32mmx2x, 9mm it didn’t look that clear as compared to Jon's 17mm nagler last time. I guess better eyepiece helps. Saw it on Pete's 16' dob at 280x. Fabulous view. I wonder if those H shaped stars are part of this GC.

SDAA BBQ Night - Part II

Saturn Nebula - NGC 7009: Easy catch. Detailed star map would have helped. tiny, bright fuzzy object.. At 38x or 135x, can not see anzees. Pete's 16' dob showed complete details. anzee was visible with connecting lines. with OII filter nebulous ring was bright, but lost the anzee.

Failed to locate both M72 and M73. It was easy catch last time :).

Helix Nebula - NGC 7293 (New): Easy catch thru binoculars. Really big, fuzzy and faint. At 38x. Disk clearly visible, but lil bit dark in the center. Rings fills up whole eyepiece at 135x. Nothing visible at center. With Pete's 16" dob, nebulous part stands out cleanly. With OII background stars are killed and gives image of a donut. With UHC, nice bright image with background stars.

M15 (New): Yet another GC. Bright. Have a dark region on the upper right corner.

Deer Lick Group - NGC 7331 (New): In Pete's 16' dob, Nice view of bright sharp 7331. Edge on. Dark lane sort of visible. 3 tiny galaxies on top of it in right angled triangle. the one at the right angle seems brighter than other two. Seemed to be oval shaped.

Forgot all other observations. :-(

DSO Marathon - Part II

M11 Wild duck cluster: visible naked eye. At 135x, bright tiny yellowish stars. High concentrations of stars for being a open cluster (??). Also didn't see any wild duck shape in there.

M26 & NGC 6712: (New): After M11, 6712 is just next to it. At 135x, tiny bluish GC. M26 was visible thru binocs, but hard to capture in telescope. Accidentally, I left 9mm eyepiece in the view and so not able to find anything. Didn't realize it till I moved to next object. Should have tried with lower mags.

NGC 6441: (New): Tiny globular just next to star G scorpi. (Map 58). Bluish & fainter.

M54: (New) Being a messier object, this GC is really tiny, still bigger than other NGC GCs. Notihng much to say. Just to tick-mark another messier object.

M69: (New): Quick glance to M69. Bigger than M54. Still was fainter as M54. Nothing impressive. Also Saggi was way too close to horizon, so probably I dind't find M54, M69 & 6441 that great.

So being tired, started talking with jon and he kindled my interest with tiny nice objects.

Blue Snowball Nebula: (New): Tiny planetary nebula located in Andromeda. Easy to locate as its next to a bright star. Its like mini M57 ring, but much strikingly bright compared to the size with M57 and that too without filter. The size is probably 1/5th of M57. The bluish color was impressive and better than M57. Tried with my 10” dob. So 38x view shows it, but its so tiny that high chances of interpreting it for blue star..

NGC 253 Galaxy: (New): Just know the location visually, wasn't able to confirm anything from the map. (??). binocular view brightness seemed like M33, but smaller in size. My dob, 38x view and then 76x view really shows the edge-on shape. Its not sculptor dwarf galaxy.

Green Nebula NGC 6572: (New): Tiny planetary nebula in ophiuchus (Map 65), Seemed like bluish in color than green in 12.5 dob. Hard to locate. Smaller than blue snowball nebula. Didn't try it in my dob.

Saturn Nebula: (New) Yellowish planetary nebula in capricorn. Easy to catch. Bigger than snowball nebula. Yellowish color is prominent. Ring and middle darkness visible at 76x. High mags killed it.

Ophiuchus OC browsing (New): Quick bino browsing. (Map 65) Star Beta Ophi → Gamma Ophi → 2 o'clk of Beta is IC 4665 OC → 9 o'clk of Gamma is Cr 350 OC → 2 o'clk of Beta around 6 deg are stars 71 & 72. → 10 o'clk of which is Green nebula 6572 → 11 o'clk of star 71 is OC 6673 and IC 4756 OC.

M72 (New): Tiny globular in capricon. Visble thru binoc. Similar to M54.

M73 (New): Messier mistaken object. Tiny tringular star alignment just next to M72.

M30 (New): Impressive GC. The shape is bizzare. Two parallel lines like H shape merging. Right side vertical line upper end has all stars of GC, like a lollypop :). not sure if the stars in H are part of GC (??) Considering star's H alignment, it seems like they are. Need to spend more time on this one next time (???)

M13: Easy catch with both bino and dob At 38x shows the rich filed of stars and outskirts stars resolvable.. Higher mags increases the beauty.

M92 (New): Fellow GC in Hercules. Easy catch with bino. This one is also impressive as M13 but lil bit smaller. M13 probably being closer seems bigger (or it really is). At 38x, hard to resolve any stars. At 76x, outskirt can be resolved easily.

UGC 10822: Tried to find this galaxy next to M92, but failed: Need to read more (??)

M31-M32-M110: At 38x, the dark lane is visible with averted vision. The core is so bright that it becomes hard to see the dark lane. But 38x indeed shows the bigger size of M31. Probably the dark lane width is bigger than M32 size. With averted vision, I imagined the length of dark lane to really long and nice curvature, than probably it is :-). Need to verify (??). M32 is really tiny fuzzy spot and smaller than M110, but still brighter than M110. Thru refractor, lower mags ~30x & wide-angle, shows the grandness of M31. M32 was almost invisible. But M110 was clearly visible. Again, I think I saw the dark lane of M31.

NGC 404 Galaxy next to Mirach (New): The Beta Andromeda, Mirach, has a small companion galaxy NGC 404. Hard to see at 38x, At 76x, really faint. Fuzziness is also not clear. Seemed like lot of bright dots in concentrated area.

M33 Triangulum: Observed M33 in great detail. With high mags (76x, 150x), with averted vision, the upper arm extending to left is visible. Lower arm extending to right was also visible. Both of them really faint. Lower-right arm vanishes in the middle and ends with bright fuzzy region NGC (??) along with a bright star.

Perseus double cluster: Naked eye. At 38x, both OCs fit in the same view. Upper one seems bigger and wider, while lower is comparatively concentrated. Still, lower one seems to have more brighter stars than upper one.

Had some interesting non-duality discussions, flute session and hot tea break from Jon's wife Francis.

TBDs:
- Buy laser collimator asap
- UHC or OIII filter is must. Investigate on various brands
- Best of NGCs object study