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Continued my "dim globular cluster hunt" at the Bright Astronomy Group’s monthly viewing night at Porepunkah Airfield tonight. Added three more, taking my tally of globs observed to 99 (Tasco ‘Space Station’ 114x900mm reflector with 21mm Celestron X-Cel eyepiece).
IC4499 in Apus - Relatively easy to see – smallish, round faint glow next to brighter star. Averted vision not needed in dark skies. Mag 10.6.
Djorg 2 in Sagittarius - Very faint, very small glow, presumably core of cluster. Mag 9.9 but obscured in starfield. This is one I’d removed from my list of possibles because I assumed it would be too obscured. However, I read some reports of it being visible even to moderate sized scopes.
IC1276 (Pal 7) in Serpens - Very dim, largish amorphous glow in averted vision – in and out of vision. Very difficult and needed very dark skies. Mag 10.3.
Tonight was a very cold night, with frost on ground by 7pm. Only 5 hardy souls showed up, but they were treated to excellent dark skies, with good seeing. Lots on offer – crescent Venus, Saturn heading into the murk, Jupiter with a nice moon alignment, plus heaps of deep sky. 47 Tuc, Omega Centauri, Triffid/Lagoon nebulae, etc. Later, Ring & Dumbbell planetary nebulae had cleared the horizon and gave surprisingly good views. Frozen to the core by 8:30pm and the last of us packed up & headed home to defrost!
Cheers -
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