Norma was a somewhat difficult Constellation with the main stars being rather faint and so were some of the DSOs.
Clouds have probably brought my evening to an end, so this is only an interim report.
I used 2 telescopes tonight. An 8" SCT was used on the DSOs, where as a 80mm triplet was used on the main stars. Larger 2" EPs were used on the Celestron (35mm, 17mm & 13mm), and 24 & 15mm EPs were used on the 80mm.
Objects of interest.
NGC 6067. Open cluster.
There is a thickening of the Milky Way in this region, which makes this area visible to the eye. The cluster is rich in texture and has individual stars, which vary greatly in magnitude. It was nicely framed with the Vixen 17mm LVW EP.
Menzel 2. Said to be the brightest planetary in Norma.
This was a tiny, faint, round, grey patch that was seen with the 17mm & 13mm Vixen EPs. This is a rich region and it was overlooked when using a 35mm Panoptic. However, once seen, I could then view it with the lower magnification.
NGC 5946. A faint globular.
NGC 5946 was much fainter than the nearby globular, NGC 5927 in Lupus. It appeared in the 17mm to only have a slightly condensed center.
Not yet seen:
The Great Attractor. "Approximately 200 million light-years from Earth with a redshift of 0.016 is Abell 3627; also called the Norma Cluster, it is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known to exist, at ten times the average cluster mass. Abell 3627 is thus theorized to be the Great Attractor, a massive object that is pulling the Local Group, the Virgo Supercluster, and the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster towards its location at 600–1000 kilometres per second."
I assume that I will not be able to see this, but will nevertheless point a scope in that direction and see how I go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Cluster
Shapley 1. The Fine Ring Nebula. Another Planetary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_1
The Main Stars:
The following four stars make up the square in Norma.
Gamma Normae (Nor). The brighest part of Norma. Gamma is used to designate two nearby stars.
Strangely, Gamma 1 is the fainter star and looked light orange; Gamma 2 is the brighter star and looked medium yellow.
Delta Nor.
White in colour.
Eplison Nor. Said to be a fine double star.
The main star looked white, whereas the companion, which appeared to be about 2 magnitudes fainter, looked to be a deep blue. Using the 80mm, it was widely separated at 20x, but looked better at 32x.
Eta Nor.
Light orange in colour.
Mu Nor. It is 339,000 times the luminosity of the sun and 40 times its mass.
Appeared white.