PN and GX in delightful asterisms

[The Mekon (John Briggs)]

I have been observing quite a bit lately, on many nights the seeing and transparency has not been that good. Despite this I have come up with two interesting objects - interesting because they are deep sky objects both in nice little asterisms.

The first is NGC 6153, a nice little planetary nebula in Scorpio. The planetary nature can be discerned at around 140X in a good 5" refractor as I first spotted this in my 132CFF. NGC 6153 forms one side of a small diamond of stars, all around 9th or 10th magnitude.

The second was observed just last night. NGC 5813 a galaxy in Virgo. Well seen in my 18" at 130X, it is centred in the middle of a perfect square of 10th mag stars. Just outside the square is NGC 5814.
I could still see 5813 with the scope masked down to 7" so an 8" scope should pick this one up.

[DeepSkyBagger (Patrick)]

I can't get down to Scorpius, but I did observe NGC 5813 about three years ago. My journal reads 'Small, pretty bright, visible at x83. Round with a slight elongation. Brighter centre. Nicely framed.'

I didn't see NGC 5814, which from my light polluted site is no surprise at mag 13.8. If I had been at my dark sky site, I probably would have picked it up. Anyway, I thought you might like to see the sketch I made.