cheers guys
Quote:
Originally Posted by ngcles
Hi PGC,
Great report as usual mate and good to see you are enjoying the renovated 'scope.
|
The new scope is certainly fun to use. Its funny, it seems to show objects more vividly than the old scope, despite using what are exactly the same optics. The Trifid Nebula for example surprised me, normally the dark lanes used to appear pretty washed out, but now are sharper and more obvious.
Wonder if Eric has got his out for first light yet
Can't wait to get some 10/10 seeing and see what she's
really capable of
Quote:
Well done on tracking down AGC 2052 in Serpens -- particularly on picking up PGC 54550. I observed a few of the galaxies in this cluster last month up in Mudgee (it is in Pt 12 of my last report) and these are very faint galaxies. One of the exciting things is considering (as best as our limited imaginations can) the awful distance to these things -- in this case closing on 500 million light-years. That is thrilling to me that we can see something that far away with a backyard 'scope.
Last weekend, I broke my own personal distance record for a "normal" galaxy --ESO 146-05 in Indus (part of AGCS 3827) which made the news recently:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30801
Imagine that -- 1.4 billion light-years. It's impossible in a meaningful way, to get your head around 1 light-year (almost 10 trillion km) let alone 488 million of them -- or indeed 1.4 billion ly for that matter. Staggering, truly staggering! This is one of the things that really draws me (and many others) into deep sky observing.
Another thing I noticed when looking at this cluster but didn't mention in my report was that at x247, while I saw 5 definites I could be certain of and could identify, the whole background at that magnification looked "noisy" or grainy hinting there were a heap of others just beyond or at the threshold of vision. How many? Can't say. But to me that is what deep-sky is all about.
Re NGC 7090 -- a fav of mine too. That mag 13.5 star 2/3rds of the way out in the halo gave me a heart attack the first time I saw it about 20 years ago.
Thanks for taking the time to write it up for us  .
Best,
Les D
|
It is impressive to see that far with a comparatively tiny piece of glass. Next time someone asks "How powerful is your scope"...there's the answer
I just realised the most massive known galaxy, IC 1101, is right in the neighbourhood.. there's my chance to crack the 1 billion LY mark
Furthest I've seen is the galaxy 2MASX J09083238-0937470750 million light years away in Abell 754.
Quote:
|
Re NGC 7090 -- a fav of mine too. That mag 13.5 star 2/3rds of the way out in the halo gave me a heart attack the first time I saw it about 20 years ago.
|
That exactly describes my encounter with a field star superimposed on the halo of NGC 1399
