The Mekon
26-07-2017, 05:37 PM
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.
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.