Remember the monthy observing challenge ?

[gaa_ian]

I must say, I miss the great objects on offer in the monthly observing challenge & find myself now going back to them to look for interesting deep sky targets.
Universe today has a good day by day observing guide.
However, all the descriptions are for the northern hemisphere when describing how to find them.
I have put together my own list of interesting object for our club night tomorrow:
Spiral PN: NGC5189
Helix PN: NGC7293
Eight Burst PN: NGC3132
Grus Quartet of galaxies
Sculptor group of galaxies
Bug Nebula NGC6302
Dumbell Nebula NGC 6853
Nova Star Chi Cygus
NGC6960 Veil Neb
NGC7000 Nth American Neb

This is on top of all the usual suspects Lagoon, Omega Cent, Eta Car ....etc.

I think it is important each month to seek out new DSO's, to boldly go .... Oops, the inner treky is coming out in me :D

I would love to hear some suggestions to add to my list for this month (we have 18 wonderful inches of aperture to play with ;) ) so visually intersting targets that require some light sucking power are fine !
Keep in mind we are at Latitude 12.5S.

[ballaratdragons]

NGC 6853 - Dumbell should be OK for your location Ian

[gaa_ian]

Thanks Ken, I will add the dumbell to the list.
Have had a look at that one with the 18", very big & bright !

[ballaratdragons]

Ian,

how about the 2 neat little galaxy clusters:

Aquarius - NGC's 6959,6962,6964,6965,6967

Delphinus - NGC's 6927,6927A,6928,6930

The 18" should be up to it :thumbsup:

[mickoking]

Here's one I viewed the other night. NGC 6822 Better known as Barnards Galaxy in sagittarius. It is a member of the local group of galaxies and is a dwarf-irregular. It is quite large 8'x3' so it benifits from a wide angle e/p. The brightest stars are mv=15 and I just managed to resolve some of them with my Dob (I think).