[pgc hunter]

Took advantage of a very rare clear night on Sat with a few hours of observing. Was quite mild, infact comfortable in a t-shirt. Seeing was crud, but improved a bit later on, although still pretty ordinary. While the 12" dob is away busy becoming awesome, the 10" was the weapon of choice.

Time: 9:15pm-12:30am
Scope: 10" F/5 GSO dob
Seeing: 4/10
Transparency: 3/5
Temp: 20ºC
Dew: no

Started off with Mars, but it was the usual blurry fuzzball. Later on however, I was able to see the polar cap but little else. Had a look at a few galaxies and PNe's I've been meaning to check out for a while now.

NGC 3195
PNe, Chameleon, Size=42x37", Mag V= 10.0, SFC brightness= 8.8

Have been wanting to check this one out for a while. A moderately faint round grey orb at 156x. At 250x however, I could detect annularity, with the ring only slightly brighter than the interior. Adding the OIII filter enhanced the annularity, which was now quite obvious and the E and W edges of the nebula appeared brighter than the N and S ends.

NGC 2362
OC, Canis Major, Size= 8', Mag V= 4.1

I've always enjoyed this cluster since I first saw it in a 60mm refractor several years ago. At 96x about 30 stars could be seen packed around Tau Canis Majoris, including a pair almost touching Tau at the east of the star. A very nice rich starfield surrounds the cluster, and would probably look even better at slightly lower magnification. See attached sketch.

NGC 2997
GX, Antlia, Size= 8.1x6.5', Mag V= 9.41, SFC brightness= 13.5

This spiral was very underwhelming at both 96x and 156x (thanks light pollution. All I could see was a ghost of a core, only slightly condensed, and perhaps a very, very faint oval surrounding it and elongated E-W. I've seen many ESO galaxies that are much more impressive from my location! These face on spirals certainly are hopeless at the first hint of light pollution. I was gonna go after nearby IC 2531, which is a nice edge on spiral a la NGC 891, but silly me forgot!

NGC 2903
GX, Leo, Size= 13x6.6', Mag V= 8.9, SFC brightness= 13.5

A much lauded object, but being in the most light polluted section of my sky I didn't see much here. At 156x, it showed a large condensed core, perhaps slightly elongated N-S, surrounded by a strongly elongated low sfc brightness haze, with diffuse spindle like protrusions jutting out either side of the core. Bigger and brighter than 2997, while being much lower and in worse light pollution, I'd imagine this would be a fantastic sight from a dark sky!

NGC 2867
PNe, Carina, Size= 27", Mag V= 9.7

This is an exceptional planetary and is easily found just to the north of the eastern star of the false cross. At 156x, it appeared as a very high surface brightness orb, pale blue in colour. I increased mag to 357x (bit much for the seeing), and it appeared slightly oval in a N-S direction, with annularity showing. The interior was only slightly fainter than the ring, making the annulus challenging to spot.

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Here is the sketch of NGC 2362: