[Paddy (Patrick)]

Sunday night was considerably kinder than Saturday, only limitation was the need to go to work the next day. Thought it was time to hunt down Palomar 11 and I hopped via a few other interesting sights along the way. Here are the notes.

Telescope 410mm (16”) f4.9 tri-dob reflector
Eyepieces 28mm UWAN, 17,13,9 mm Naglers, Paracorr
Navigation: Night Sky Observer’s Guide (NSOG), Uranometria

2100

Seeing very good, transparency fair-poor (dust lanes of Milky Way visible but not clear or dark)

NGC 6705/Messier 11 OC in Scutum “Wild Duck” cluster

135X A gorgeous OC that looks very like a globular. Many stars of similar magnitude and colour apart from one which is much brighter. Looks about 15’ across. Quite striking are the patterns of stars and dark spaces within a marked block shape which comprises the bulk of the cluster. It looks a bit like an impression of a wood cut of Chinese calligraphy. I can’t really see the “Wild Duck” shape. An intriguing knot of stars is close to the lucida.

NGC 6712 GC in Scutum

175X A soft and somewhat irregular GC, there is a broad faint 7’ outer halo and a brighter 5’ inner one, the western edge of which appears somewhat pointed. There is a small dark space in the eastern edge of the inner section and following the GC itself a star poor area of sky which might be an intervening dark nebula responsible for the unusual features of the GC. A small dark line runs across the halos SE part from the eastern to the southern edge. There are quite a few faint resolvable stars.

NGC 6822 Barnard’s Galaxy in Sagittarius

175X Although challenging with the poor transparency, the galaxy is discernible. A line 3 foreground stars runs E-W at the southern end of the galaxy which is a 7’x3’ N-S glow from the centre of the line. Better at 175X than at 135X. No detail discernible.

NGC 6818 PN in Sagittarius “Little Gem”

250X A distinct bright bluish disc, softer at the western edge, no central star. Maybe an impression of a tiny dark patch in the centre, but far from convincing. No structure observed. Looks about 30” across. Bright and blue with UHC and OIII filters, but no further details apparent.

Palomar 11 GC in Aquila

175X Quite faint for a mag 9.8 GC. Close to bright foreground star at NW edge, to the east is a convex east arc of stars. To the west is a line of stars which is the base of a triangular asterism. Boxed in by these asterisms is a faint 7’ circular glow, which is the GC. There is a faint soft core with no resolved stars. Would be easily overlooked.

Spent some time with 47 Tuc and NGC 253 for some visual splendour before retiring.