Towards Messier Finishing.. II

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Ophiuchus GCs.. Various NGCs nearby Messiers

M10 - M12
M107
M14
M9-M19-M62

6355-6293

M13-NGC 6207 galaxy

Double cluster

M92

M92-NGC6229
PN nearby 6210

Co-hosting 22" SDAA Observatory. II

Date: April 18th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 2:00pm (7 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Weather is okay.. Transparency is good, but seeing is not good..
Instruments: SDAA Lipp Observatory 22" RC, f/7 (FL: ~4000mm),
Nagler 31T2 EP, 20T5 EP
31T2 => 129x
20T5 => 200x
Buddies: Jim and public.

Volunteered to co-host SDAA public star party with the observatory scope. First time, handled such a huge scope, on EQ fork mount. In the beginning had hard time due to huge mount, new type of mount, poor alignment and awkward finder. But After few hours got confotable with telerad-31T2 EP and normal star-hopping..

7pm: Some admin stuff to open observatory. Tried to align on Sirius. Didn't collimate (??)

M46 OC: Pretty nice. pinpoint stars. bright.. PN was also bright, blue in color. The middle star is visible and bright. not sure if the star is part of cluster or PN.

Orion 73 cluster (New): OC in orion, with asterism in shape of 73, but each digit inverted L-R.

Saturn: Bright. 4 moons visible. titan + 1 on left and other two on right. Other two were really close. rings and shadow of ring visible. higher mags didn't help. seeing was bad .. visited saturn 3-4 times throughout the night, but seeing never improved.

M97 Owl: Failed. digital setting circles not setup correctly.. too frustrating..

M81-82: Initially Failed. I was replying again on encoders. After few attempts, somebody (Pete) helped to point it. Can not fit both in same view.. was worried to move it because i may loose it again :).. The mottling on M81 clearly visible.. also vertical dark lane was visible. M82 was bright, but no details.

M51 whirlpool: Jim pointed to this one.. Spiral structure clearly visible. Bright spots inside M51 visible clearly. Probably thats what i saw other night with Jon. People were saying with averted vision connection betn both galaxies visible.

4965 Gal in Coma (New): Marvelous. Way better than M104, How the hell Messier missed it.. Huge, filled up complete eyepiece view. bigger than m104, edge-on, dust lane clearly visible and its thick.. core wasn't that bright.. the object was so impressive that i wasn;t sure if its really the object or the scope.. whatever.. unforgettable view.

M84 + Markarains Chain: all galaxies were huge..and chain clearly visible.. again lil skeptical of moving the scope, but shows so many galaxies in the view.. clearly 5 visible in the same view. Tried to realign encoders. Revisited again at the end of the session. See details below..

For re-alignment, moved to Arcturus. just too bright in this scope. Because of the brightness, hard to see where is the center of the view, so not a good star for realignment. Tried M51 again after realignment. DEC encoder is setup correctly, but RA is still off. but with DEC inline still helps to get the object in view, by moving thru RA.

A recticle-crosshair eyepiece is better/perfect way to get object in center. also whats the point in aligning on a DSO, considering its size ??

Eskimo nebula in Gem (New): Jim pointed to this one. Marvelous view. perfect round shape. outer disk is brighter, inner part is darker. no hint of star. probably same size as M57 (??)

After this, the scope was solely operated by me. Decided to just starhop with telerad. Perfect star hopping and very little help from the encoders. Overall reminded me how helpful it is to observe with Jon.

M104 Sombrero: Really nice view. better than Jon's 16.5" scope. magnification also adds up. still smaller than 4965 Coma galaxy.

M13 GC: Wow.. masterpiece.. All outskirt stars resolved. also, few stars at the core resolved. 20T5 EP also helps. Jim tried meade 14mm UWA, but stars weren't pinpoint.. both seeing as well as "meade-vs-nagler" to blame.

M92 GC: sort of naked eye. This one looks like "M13 in my 10" scope" :).. looks amazingly impressive. Almost all stars outskirts resolved and few at the core. This 22" scope makes every object beautiful :)

PN in Hercules: Easy Starhop after yesterday's session with Jon. Bright blue color disk.

Gal next to M13 (New): Yesterday Jon showed me this one, and today while pointing towards M13, I saw this. Tiny little fuzzy.

M65-M66-3628:

Corvus PN: Looks like a galaxy rather than PN. no bluish color, so easy to confuse with galaxy. bright star at the enter.. just too bright, looks like tiny core of the galaxy. Never seen like this before.

Corvus Antenna Galaxies: Awesome view. both galaxies clearly visible, but antennas not visible.. seeing matters. Still "merging" of two galaxies clearly visible.

Ghost of Jupiter: bright bluish disk. both disk and inside ring visible. middle star clearly visible. 20mm same image.. tried 14mm meade UWA EP, but extension tube trouble. wanted to try filter also, but skipped it.

M83 seashell: Easy catch. Huge object.Observed it yesterday for first time and already star-hopped to it today :). Bright core..

Omega Centauri GC: Little low on horizon. Ladder requirement. almost resolves every star. fills up ~40% of 31T2.

Centaurus A Gal (New): Easy catch. Perfect starhop (??). Was lil skeptical to observe something new on this huge scope without finder, but starhop was easy to catch this one. Bright, the middle dark lane is huge.. its like 3 or 4 times the size of 4965 galxy dust lane. Its perfect "hamburger" shape. both sides (buns) are bright. but consdering the size of dust lane, whole galaxy is not that huge. Need to read more abt this one (??)

Leo 2903 Gal: Perfect Edge-on easy catch. Don't remember much.

Leo Gama Gal doublets: Gamma was hard to split in 129x. surprising. bad seeing? Galaxies visible nicely. Again too small as comapred to any other galaxies i saw tonight. also i am impressed that my 10" scope shows this one clearly.

Leo 3521 Gal (New): Lil bit difficult star hop. Info says "spiral galaxy", but hard to see clearly.. surely face on.. probably same size as antenna galaxies.

M57 Ring Nebula: Apperture helps. huge ring. blue color discernible. middle star not visible..surprised..

M53: Failed: Picked up wrong Alpha coma star, also somehow encoders pointed it somewhere else..

Coma/Virgo Galactic cluster: spent more than 30mins in Coma and upper Virgo galactic cluster.
M98-M99
Markarains Chain with M88-M91
4371
M87--4478
M89

Overall, though started lil slow and with nervousness, finished with complete enthusiasm. till 2am I was going on-and-on without any food :)..

Marvelous experience because of:
- Able to handle such a Huge scope first time
- Handling new type EQ fork mount compared to my dob mount.
- Every object looks beautiful in this aperture. Was completely overwhelmed.
- Survived smoothly at the end, though started under huge peer pressure :)

Friday KC Dark Night - III

Continued..

Coma/Virgo browsing: Wanted to browse galaxies in Virgo and Coma. Started with Denebola and moved 6 Coma. Doing it for first time..

M98-M99-M100 chain (New):

M98: W of the 6coma. bright..
M99: SE of the 6coma. bright..
M100: Move way up..

From M98, Move down to 11 Coma star.

M85 (New): bright with faint NGC companions

Markarian's chain:

M84: Aligned with M99-M98 line.
NGC4388: Sort of edge-on + elliptical.
M86: Bright. Elliptical
The eyes - 4438-4435
NGC 4461-4473-4477:
Continue the chain for M88 and M91

In Jon's 16.5" scope, From Epsilon Virginis to Rho virgo. Either saw M60 or NGC4647 not sure.. Too many of them..Lost it.. wasn't sure if i saw siamise twins or not..

Once we removed UWAN from my scope, I din't want to look at virgo again without it :)

Tired of fuzzies so GC time..

Omega Centauri: perfected my location. light pollution. not great in resolving stars.. not crispy clear view.. Observed thru all 3 scopes including 120mm refractor..

M13 GC in Hercules: Few stars at core Resolvable at 76x.

M92 GC:definitely tiny as compared m13. Don't remember when i saw this one last time. with Jon's helps, perfected star hopping (??)

PN 6210 in Hercules (New): Tiny PN.. small scale ghost of jupiter.. bright blue color.. perfect star hopping (??).. nearby star group visible in finder..

M107 in Ophiuchus (New): Faint. similar to M92. Easy to star hop from the bright star of Oph (??)

M4: too close to horizon to see any details.. M80 near M4, Tried but didn't spend much time..

M53 Coma GC: Aplha star (??) and GC in almost same view. Visible in finder. Fought for nearby 5053 GC.. Hard to see in my scope. In Jon's scope.. its like really really faint.. instead of GC, seemed like an open cluster.. difference in M53-and this NGC is sort of similar to the difference between M46-47 fomr LP sky... bright star cluster vs almost invisible sparse star cluster.. Have to be really careful when we starhop.. there are indeed lot of faint objects from the dark location. Also, before hunting or objects, I should get a judgment on size and magnitude..

M104 Sombrero: Marvellous view.. Dark lane visible clearly.. Finder shows it too. In Jon's 16.5", looks much better.. bright and dark lane clearly visible.. the sombrero head structure with bright sphere is clearly visible..

M68 GC (New): Just next to the corvus star (?). Tried to find it from home, but was too difficult.. From dark place, hard to see in finder.. Both star and the GC are in the same 32mm view (38x).

Ghost of Jupiter: Bright blue disk.. higher mags didn't help on this to see any details.. Jon's 16.5" didn't help either.. I had better view of this from my home. Infact from Jon's home, have seen the middle bright star.. Here, seeing was probably getting worst.

M83 seashell Gal (New): Fun star hopping. showed the star hopping sequence to Jon :). Galaxy is really bright and huge.. clearly visible in refractor also just at 30x..

continued..

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