July Challenge Object - HN40

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all.

We'd love you to take part in the July Observing Challenge. Please post your observing reports and sketches for HN40 in this thread. Discussions about the object can also be in this thread.

Please ensure scanned sketches obey the image posting guidelines when you attach them.

For deep-space images of the object, see the "Deep Space" astrophotography forum.

HN 40

Not a difficult target to locate. But I only managed to split three of the components. I'm not sure if the fourth much fainter star drawn in at the bottom of the group is actually one of the components. The sketch is a representation of the view @ 350x

PS: What a cracker of a weekend we're having weather wise. Hope all are having the same. And I'm really hoping it'll hold out until Tuesday at least.

regards

[atalas]

Yes guys tried for that last night I think I could only see three as well and I'm not sure about the 3rd one. Used a 5.1" newt at 100 x

Louie

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

The "D" star is really tough in small/medium scopes guys. It takes a good 8" newt to see it and then you only have about a 20% to 30% success rate. It takes good conditions to get it 50% of the time in my 10" newt, which as you know Louie has very sharp optics. You can see the "D" star in the photograph I attached to the summary lying at 90% to the line of A,B and C and just to the side of C.

Cs-John B

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

BTW Louie,

We should aslo get the "E" star in Hector next Saturday night if Andrew comes along and the conditions are OK.

CS-John B

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

I observed M20 and HN40 again tonight. My scope wasn't cooled properly and seeing was fair to poor, about 4/10. Transparency was reasonable but being early in the night limiting magnitude was only about 4. Conditions were far from good overall. Scope 10"/F5 Newtonian.

I was able to resolve the "A", "B" and "C" stars very easily. I didn't use less than 120X but the 3 were easily visible at this power. The "D" star was not visible at 180X. At 220X it fleetingly popped in and out a few times. If you didn't know where it was and what it looks like you would probably miss it. The same situation applied at 300X, I caught glimpses of it but it was very tough.

CS-John B

I took another look at it last night. Conditions were alot better, still I could only resolve what I sketched above. Although I did feel I could detect something in close to the top bright one in my sketch, not sure of the designations. It appeared to be sitting on it's lower right side (looking at my sketch) right in close. Anyways this one appears to be alot busier than the other one.

regards

[stringscope (Ian)]

This was "new" object for me. I would not have looked except for this forum. Very interesting. Last night we had good transparency by only just average seeing at best.

Using my 8" F6 stringscope, A and C were easily split at 38X. At 212X I found B and D were clearly resolved. I was surprised at D given the seeing conditions and comments from others. I must have another look tonight.

[BC]

I was over at Ian's last night and saw the A,B,C and D as mentioned in his post (beat me to it Ian). Like many of the features in the sky, having someone identify the object as one worth looking for, is very helpful info.

[stringscope (Ian)]

Revisited HN40 tonight. Seeing was about 6/10 with reasonable transparency. Using an 8" F6 Dob (Stringscope) and a 32mm Plossl @ 38X, A & C were easily split. I also noticed B was consistently visible at this magnification, very close to A and on an extended straight line C-A. I then increased the magnification to 142X (24mm UO Konig & Klee Barlow). At this magnification I could just see D very close to C and at right angles to the B-A-C line. When I pushed the magnification to 212X (UO 16mm Konig & Klee Barlow) D was clearly split but the seeing caused intermittent image degradation.

Cheers,