Beautiful night last night and I was determined to get at least one short session in before the waxing moon takes over the sky. Took the scope out in the backyard just before midnight and was greeted with dark skies, but just a touch of milkiness that would prohibit the hunt for very faint fuzzies. Still, I’d bet the average city dweller would kill for skies like that!
Centaurus & adjacent constellations were pretty well placed between two patches of tall trees, and seemed like as good a place as any to have a look.
Time: 11:45pm-12:30am, Wed 13-Thur 14 February 2008 (UT+11)
Location: My backyard, Bright, NE Vic
Telescope: Tasco 4.5” f8 reflector on Alt-Az mount
EP: 21mm Celestron X-Cel unless otherwise stated (x43)
Transparency: Reasonable (8/10), slight milkiness in atmosphere
Seeing: Poor – fair (3-4/10)
NGC5139, Omega Centaurus in Centaurus – Mag 3.7 and one of the most glorious sights in the night sky IMO! At low power it was beautiful – bright & crinkly! With 8mm X-Cel ep (x112), it gave surprisingly good views and resolution despite the conditions. However, higher powers do dim it off significantly in this scope.
NGC4945 in Centaurus – Mag 9.2 galaxy. A large, cigar-shaped dim haze, with no structure visible. Averted vision helped in seeing the extent of the galaxy. Quite impressive really, like a "poor man's" NGC253!
NGC5286 in Centaurus – Mag 7.3 globular cluster. A little gem this one, very small and quite bright, right next to ε Centauri, a bright, distinctly orange star. There’s a tiny PN somewhere close by, but didn’t have detailed charts and didn’t bother trying to tease it out.
NGC3918 in Centaurus – Mag 8.4 planetary nebula, the “Blue Planetary”. Easily spotted at low power as a tiny bright non-stellar object with a distinct pale bluish tinge. With 8mm X-Cel ep (x112), the disc was quite prominent, but the colour seen at low power disappeared and no detail was visible. Poor seeing meant the disc of the PN was oscillating somewhat too. First time I’ve seen this one!
NGC5128 in Centaurus – Mag 7.3 galaxy, “Centaurus A”. Quite bright, largish round patch, with the central dust lane easily visible in averted vision and in-and-out in direct vision.
NGC5102 in Centaurus – Mag 10.5 galaxy. This one is close to bright star Iota Centauri, and it helped (but wasn’t essential) to put the star just outside the FOV. Very tiny, elongated, with an almost stellar central brightening. Quite dim, and very difficult to make out any extension.
NGC5253 in Centaurus – Mag 11 galaxy. Not far from M83, this galaxy appeared tiny, dim and unremarkable. Very similar in my scope to NGC5102, above.
M83 in Hydra – Mag 7.91 galaxy, the “Southern Pinwheel Galaxy”. Always like this one – has a small, almost stellar core, and a largish, faint, roughly circular extension. Little detail visible, and I have had much better views of it in this scope.
M68 in Hydra – Mag 7.8 globular cluster. Larger than 5286 above, this gc is round, fairly bright, with increasing brightness towards centre. Not terribly remarkable, but all globulars are things of wonder!
M104 in Virgo – Mag 9 galaxy, the “Sombrero Galaxy”. This appeared as a small bright edge-on, with the dust lane visible particularly in averted vision. It is one of the few dim fuzzies that will sustain higher magnification in these small scopes. With the 8mm X-Cel ep (x112) the dust lane became clearer, and the structure of the galaxy more obvious.
NGC5068 in Virgo – Mag 10.5 galaxy. This one was quite easy to see as a larger, very dim amorphous haze, with no brighter core or any other structure visible. Definitely not one for higher powers in this scope!
Well, that was it, short & sweet – and with four objects (Blue Planetary + 5102, 5253, 5068) I’d never seen before, I’d call it successful too!
Cheers -