[Paddy (Patrick)]

Originally Posted by pgc hunter

Very nice Paddy. Looks like there is a run of great seeing at the moment. I was out this morning, with some of the best views of Saturn I've ever had. This comes on top of my previous session on 29 Jan which was purely insane.

Excellent obs of NGC 3242, really one of the best planetaries in the sky. M57 maybe the best known of the lot...but does it have the vivid colour and structure of NGC 3242... not quite! If NGC 3242 were to be located where M57 is, I'd suspect it would be as famous as M31

Thanks Sab. I have to agree about NGC 3242 being perhaps the best PN.

Originally Posted by mental4astro

Good reading, your report Paddy.

Have you managed to sky out the GC NGC1850 in the LMC, & surrounding clusters & nebulosity? I'm hoping to make it a target this weekend. Bloody forecast isn't promising though, .

Thanks Alex. NGC 1850 and its pals 1854 & 1858 are one of my top spots in the LMC. I did a sketch of them last night for the Scott Mellish competition. They are easy to pick out in the finderscope as a patch in the western end of the bar. The line up of the three is unmistakable in the eyepiece. The other bright patch in the bar about half way along is NGC 1910. Only thing is 1850 turns out not to fit the criteria for a GC. I've finally been able to put together a list of the 13 LMC clusters that are classed GCs at present. A lot were ditched as they had high metallicity or insufficient mass or population to meet the current criteria. I've updated the charts on Clouds of Magellan to reflect this and will shortly post a list and summary of the story.

Originally Posted by glenc

Thanks Paddy. I especially liked your description of the PN 3242 at 440x.
Great to see your LMC and SMC website too.

Thanks Glen. Much appreciated!