Hartley, Neptune, Blue Flash and NGCs.. III

Continued..

Hunted bunch of NGC below Sculptor.

NGC 253 Sculptor Gal and 288 GC: The NGC 288 GC is not a typical GC. Its disperesed. Its very faint as well. From Jon's 16" scope also it seemed fainter, but the fuzziness can be felt in the finder as well. Indeed conflicting observation. Need to read more abt this one TBD. Once 288 is found, 253 is easy to locate. Again, can "feel" it in finder. Very large, Very elongated. At one point, felt like it has filled up the eyepiece. Messier wound't have missed it if it would have been on northern side. the galaxy defitnely shows some motelling-spots on it.

NGC 55: Jon showed me this one in NP 101. Very faint. I tried it in 16". Very easy to locate from Alpha Phx (southern constellation Phonix, just below sculptor). Huge, may be lil fainter than 253. Both 55 and 253 seem similar to me, except the mottelling part in 253.

NGC 300: Jon found this one in NP 101, but I wasn't able to locate it in 16". In NP 101 view, 300 seemed again similar to 55, may be lil smaller and fainter.

NGC 247: Don't remember much, except the location. Was an easy catch thru 16" scope as well.

M11 : Wild duck cluster seem fainter and very disperesed in 16" scope at 100x. When the sky rotates overnight, i have observed that its hard for me to locate the familiar object like M11 :).

Blue Flash nebula: Near del and saggita, was the highlight of the night in star hopping and locating this guy. the difficult part is its so small that you have to use lil higher magnification and that makes life lil difficult in low-mag star hopping. Its not like i haven't seen this guy before, but very hard to locate. Jon pointed to this one in NP 101, 16" and then i tried it with 10". In 10" with 17T4 @ 71x. You have imagine flipping the whole saggita constellation from Western to easter side. So its betn 29 Vul and Gamma Sge, with Del on left-southern side. In 71x, with 82deg nagler, you can fit 4 bright stars in a trapezoid shape, in one view. This nebula is at the center of one of the edges on left. It seems like a very-very small cluster of three stars and nebula is at the center. It looks like very-very small fuzzy ring, but still can be differentiated from the star...very hard.. You have to get familiar with the view, and then only you can really see it there. Once found, then high mags shows the details. disk doesn't show any blue color.. not sure why they call it blue flash, it confuses people ( me :-) ), when we look into the eyepiece. disk shows up like a big thick ring. central part shows lil dark hole (??).

M45 : when tired did lil bino viewing, and M45 again impressed me. 10 sisters shows up nicely. very bright blue stars. Fills up the whole view in binocs.

Double cluster : With low mags on Jon's 16" scope (~100x) shows the double cluster nicely. Can clearly see one is smaller than other. smaller is more compact than the bigger being being disperesed (isnt that obvious). Saw this one while looking at the comet.

Some double in orion head: Jon showed some double in the head of the orion, but seeing was way too bad to split the double..

M1 : Crab shows up nicely. In 16" as well cant see much details on the crab.. Its just one big, elongated fuzzy bright disk. absolutely no details inside.

In the end did some bino browsing for the comet..

Summer Kickoff - I

Date: July 4th, 2010 Sunday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. lil wind in the beginning, but later calm.. so seeing improved..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon

Venus - Observed thru APO. Image seemed blurrier.. also lot of green/violet color, considering APO :-). Thru 10" dob, good image. looked like a small scale moon. Venus phase of ~60% lit clearly visible. Thru 16" better image of the same. no surface details visible.. its all white..

Saturn: Rings clearly visible thru 16". Thru 10" dob @ 35x (Pan35mm) the rings are visible.. image is too tiny @ 35x, but can distinguish the rings clearly.. when looked thru eyepiece, can see the light distortion i.e. "seagull".. collimation may be lil off. but by changing the viewing angle, the distortion was going away. Two moons on one side. 171x

M57 Ring Nebula: Visited multiple times. In the twilight and APO, seemed really fainter in APO. no star visible at 2". seemed all gray color. Later in the night thru 10" dob nag17 @ 71x image seems sharp and quite bright.. the star at 2" is visible. bluish color visible. Compared with uhc and then oiii filter. image seems definitely brighter thru filters. Need to try high mag filtered image.

Browsed the whole sky naked eye to get a feel of it.

Omega centauri: Lower on horizon, visible. In twilight, not that sharp. Visible thru bino.

M80: In Scorpio. Jon reminded the location. Above the Antares and twice the distance from Antares-lower star. In 10" dob 17nag 71x seems fuzzier, not clear.. ~171x still non-clear watery image. Visited it later at 11pm and the image seemed clear and sharp. In Jon's scope outer stars well resolved.

Ophiuchus PN NGC 6572: Blue Racquetball: Bright, sharp. In 71x Nag17 it seems like brighter blue star. Hard to differentiate it as the PN. Note the triangle pattern of the PN with other two bright stars. Increasing the mags @ 171x makes it brighter.. but still no details visible on the PN. Addition of OIII filter clearly makes it brighter. Visited multiple times.

Oph OC NGC 6633 and IC 4756: Looked at the OC NGC and IC.. NGC seems to be yet another OC, but IC cluster seems to be impressive.. IC bigger than ngc. In 71x it fills up whole eyepiece.. ~30 stars.. all yellow.. evenly distributed.. Switched to lower mag to get the feel of it. In Pan 35, 35x it seems more beautiful.. can clearly see the cluster at the center. seemed like wide salt-pepper cluster.

Blue Flash nebula NGC 6905: In Delphinus. At 71x itself, lil hard to differentiate than background stars. visited it before 1.5 years back, but forgot the location. 85deg (~90) angle on Delph diamond + bright star and this Neb. Note the 3 stars in straight line alignment. also a bright pair nearby. At 71x, seemed faint circular shape.. seems bigger than previous PN, racquetball, but fainter.. no color visible. At 171x, the circular shape clearly visible. Can not see much pattern on the disk. no color visible. OIII filter helps... but i felt that, for searching this neb, UHC filter really helps, as the neb is definitely visible with background stars. More mag helps.

M71 GC: In Sagitta. In Pan 35, 35x looks impressive.. lil bigger than M80, but defintely smaller than M4. clear, sharp.. and outskirt stars lil resolvable. Didn't try high mags.

M27 Dumbbell: Closer to M71. Compared all above tiny PNs, way bigger and so much nebulous. Tried 71x and 171x.. don't see any colors in it. With OIII filter, brighter.. Can see lil dark spot within the nebula.

Veil nebula - 10" @ 35x No filter. Cyg 52 star, West veil part, witch nebula visible. But can't see the visiblity clearly. Tried to look for eastern veil, but didn't find it. Later visited it again. Tried it with UHC filter. Can see all 3 parts of Veil. West+East+Pickering triangle. Nebulosity visible with background stars. with OIII filter, it just looks marvelous. all background stars are gone. And nebulosty pops up in the OIII filter. Tried the same with APO. Compared UHC/OIII/No-filter in APO on Veil.

Browsed thru Sagittarius Nebulae with UHC/OIII/No-Filter in 10" dob with 17T4 Nag @ 71x.

M8 Lagoon: Without filter it shows the lagoon dark arc clearly. With OIII/UHC filters on, it shows lot of nebulosity filess the 25-30% of EP center. shows the bright part at the center of the nebula. this must be the hour-glass nebula.. need to magnify and have to try it from Jon's 16" scope. M21 cluster nearby.

M20 Triffid: Barely shows the upper Y dark lanes without filter.. shows the cluster on the right. With filter on, it shows more nebulosity near the cluster also. The dark lanes seemed darker.

M23 open cluster above lagoon-triffid line: Visible in the 8x20 finder. Seemed to be yet another OC.

Continued..