February 2010 Observation Report.
Equipment Used: Saxon 10” dob, 10x60 Binocular.
Eye Pieces: Pentax XW10mm, Vixen LVW 22mm.
TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS
VELA
NGC 3228 - Star Cluster (1600 l/y) 55 x magnification.
A scattered cluster with an elongated shape (left to right). Very loose and faint. Not many stars with lots of black sky in between. My observations reflect what the “Star & Planets” says, “15 faint stars”. However, it’s interesting that my Hartung’s Catalogue said different: “ 20’ wide in a field spangled with in-numerable stars.”
NGC 2395 – Star Cluster (3,100 l/y) 55 x magnification.
Many stars. Bright, large and loose cluster.
NGC 2547 – Star Cluster (1,400 l/y) 55 x magnification.
Many stars. Bright, large and loose. North of this cluster are three sets of close pairs in one line. My book tells me there are 80 stars in this cluster. This is a great target for binoculars.
Gamma Velorum – Wolf-Rayet Star. (840 l/y) 120x Magnification.
This is a double star, with the brightest companion being the Wolf Rayat star. Very bright and quite large, it showed beautiful diffraction spikes in my scope. A beautiful double. This star is the brightest known example of a Wolf Rayet. They are a rare class of stars with very hot surfaces which seem to be ejecting gas.
NGC 3201 – Globular Cluster.
This is an interesting glob. If it can be called that. I spent two nights trying to find this target. I kept coming across the same object which at the time, I didn’t believe it to be a glob, until I read up on it. At 55 x mag. It resembles a small, round, nebulous, feint patch with scattered stars and the outer circle ringed in stars. At 120 x mag. This was made larger and a bit brighter, but the stars remained quite small and faint. So scattered and loose. The first glob I have seen like this.
NGC 3132 – Eight Burst Planetary Nebula (2,600 l/y, mag.8).
I had so much trouble finding this over a period of three nights. It requires high magnification. At 120x mag and an OIII filter, it looks stellar. And as with pn’s they really do have to be blinked in at out. When you turn away and come back to it, it gets brighter. Not very bright, but appeared fairly large at 200x, a definite outer orange ring could easily be made out amidst a dark centre.
MUSCA
“Is one of the 12 constellations introduced at the end of the 16th centry by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman.” – Stars & Planets book.
NGC 4833 – Globular Cluster (18,000 l/y, mag 7).
One degree above delta mus. lays this easy to find and fair size globular. At 120x I couldn’t resolve anything. All that could be seen was a hazy fuzzy ball.
Delta Musca
A beautiful and bright orange giant laying 91 l/y away at mag. 3.6. It sits just below the globular cluster.
H6 Star Cluster.
This clusters sits between B & A Musca. An elongated cluster (left to right), containing a sparse spray of stars and tiny in size. To the left of this cluster lays a close pair and an orange star. Not sure if that pair is the double in B Musca, will have to revisit.
The seeing this night was excellent – one of those few rare nights. On this night, I chose to use my binoculars to give them a healthy work out on such great conditions, instead of my telescope.
VELA
IC 2391 – Star Cluster
A very large, spray of stars centred around Omicron Vel. Just fits in the f.o.v. of bino. Four large & bright stars, surrounded by fainter stars. Two patches of fuzz amongst the cluster can be seen. I would say this is part of the cluster that the bino can’t resolve.
This is an excellent binocular target.
NGC 3228 – Star Cluster
A small cluster. Five bright stars can be seen, with the brightest at the top of the cluster. Surrounded by faint stars. A fuzzy patch can be seen surrounding the brighter ones.
NGC 2395- Star Cluster
A small cluster of feint stars with three bright and one very bright star with in it. The brightest star is probably a foreground star according to my book.
PSI Velorium
Just above Psi Velorum is a wide pair of intense yellow stars.
HIP46723 is much larger than HIP46612. These are both giants and make an awesome binocular target. The difference in sizes and colour intensities makes for a really gorgeous pair. The smaller one seems more intense in colour.
CARINA
IC 2944. The Running Chicken Nebula (Lambda Centauri).
Large, round nebula with a bright star in the middle and a yellow star below it. To the left sits the Pearl Cluster which I wasn’t aware of to look for it, so will need to re-visit.
NGC 3372. Eta Carina Nebula.
An easy sweep from IC2944, 6 degrees above and slightly to the right is the Eta Carina Nebula. A definite bright V shape, and shows a deep yellow and very bright Eta Carina blazing.
IC 2602. The Southern Pleiades.
A very bright and large cluster – just breathtaking.
CRUX/CENTAURUS
NGC 4103 – Star Cluster.
Large bright cluster. The brighter stars resembles “5” on a deck of cards, with fainter ones stars through out.
NGC 4052 – Star Cluster.
This cluster lays just two degrees below NGC 4103 .
A small and fuzzy patch, though bright I couldn’t resolve it. Straight under the cluster lays three bright stars pointing to the cluster. They lay in one vertical line, taking up a large amount of f.o.v.
NGC 5139 – Omega Centauri Globular Cluster
Large, bright, fuzzy ball. No resolvability, but awesome all the same.
NGC 5128 – Centaurus A Galaxy.
Sitting at 56 deg high at 1.00am in the morning, I finally got this target, having spent all of last summer looking for it. And in my bino at that. It lays much further away from 5139 as I had thought. I’d even failed at attempting star hops to find this. But in the bino, the star hop was very easy. It sits four degrees to the left and up a bit from 5139.
Faint, stellar like, with faint elongation seen blinking in and out.
I have included here my sketch of the easy star hop that I used.
