August Challenge Object - NGC5189

[iceman]

Hi all.

We'd love you to take part in the August Observing and Imaging Challenge (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=69,224,0,0,1,0). Please post your reports, sketches and deep-space images of NGC5189 in this thread. Discussions about the images can also be in this thread.

Please ensure the images obey the posting guidelines when you attach them.

While it would be nice if the report, sketch or image were taken in the month of August, it's not essential so feel free to post older reports and images if you're unable to take some new ones.

We look forward to seeing your contributions!

[dhumpie]

This is one of my all time fave "strange" objects for viewing with a small telescope. It is quite easy to pick up even from suburban sites (mag 5.5 limit) and if you know where to look it is quite easy to spot even in a 15x70 tripod mounted binoculars. But to see this object well you need to employ a nebular filter (I use the Lumicon UHC) and a magnification of about 75x and above to see shape and structure. The first time I saw this was through Kev's 16" truss dob at Leyburn where he dubbed it the "leafy seadragon" planetary. That term will always stay with me although some also call it the spiral planetary (and it does look like a spiral galaxy with its arms). Definately one to check out. See my sketch:

http://www.geocities.com/dhumpie/dastro/5189.jpg

Darren

[stringscope]

I have observed 5189 several times before. However, this is the first time I have spent a lot of time on it. I spent about 1 hour on it tonight. I used our 8" F6 stringscope Dob. Both seeing and transparency were down tonight, perhaps 5/10 for both. Also humidity was quite high with significant dew on the scope after 1 hour.

I was not sure what sort of view I would get, not only due to the seeing but also as 5189 was well past the zenith and descending into the light glow from a couple of major shopping centres.

I used a 32mm "finder" eyepiece to locate it, which was fairly easy as it is quite bright and located between 2 stars mag 6 & 7.5there. In the "finder" eyepiece (38X) it appeared as a small elongated, almost rectangular, patch of light. As it is a fairly bright PN and should take magnification well, I changed eyepieces to 212X. At this magnification I could see a main bar of nebulosity running E-W. At the East end of this bar it broadens out into a round patch twice as thick as the bar and offset to the South. The West end of the bar appears to terminate in a short hook to the North. I could easily see a single star offset from centre to the West. I assume this is the mag 11 star. Using averted vision there were hints of additional star/s although they were so tenuous it could have been my imagination.

NOTE I could easily have got this orientation WRONG as I have never bothered to learn the orientation of the cardinal points versus direction of movement in the eyepiece. I have assumed the Western side is the "leading side". I hope someone will let me know if I have got it wrong.

I then tried using a prism to see if I could detect the stars. Unfortunately there was too much stray light for this to work well although I could make out the image of the nebulosity in the prism. This will have to wait for a deep sky night.

I kept the same magnification and added a UHC filter. The contrast increased (and the mag 11 star virtually disappeared)and I now noticed with averted vision (particularly when gently moving the scope) the central bar appeared to be surrounded by an oval haze only slightly longer than the central bar and width about 3/4 of the length. While the contrast had increased I could not notice much additional detail in the way of structure in the central bar.

In summary a fascinating object.

Cheers,

[iceman]

Really great report Ian, I loved reading it and I can't wait to view it myself now.

Excellent sketch Darren!

[dhumpie]

Great report Ian! I think more people are starting to take up the challenge Mike :)

Darren

[atalas]

Dido Ian and Darren,nice report and nice sketch ! this is one of those objects that looks good in all scopes and handles magnification well . When viewed through large apeture you can see how It got Its nickname the Spiral nebular .

Louie :thumbsup:

[dhumpie]

Looks like a leafy seadragon too :) Kev of SAS gave 5189 that nickname and I think I like it better than the spiral planetary. However you need some serious aperture to appreciate its leafy structure (quite amazing in his 16"). In smallish scopes it looks more like just a bright spiral galaxy.

Darren

[atalas]

Here's my take on the little fellow,you'll have to look hard to see him.

Louie :o

[ving]

well captured louie... gawd its gunna be hard for me to find visually :eek:

[atalas]

You'll find It easy from a dark site Dave won't be that hard once you know the star pattern Its in.

Louie :thumbsup:

[dhumpie]

Its easier visually because you don't have to content with all those extra stars you see in Louie's deep shot (nice one Lou!).

Darren

[tornado33]

Hi all
Heres my newest effort, taken last night.
[IMG]http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=3452&stc=1
2 x 10 mins with the Baader UHCS filter, 10 inch F5.6 newt, EOS 300D.
Scott

[elusiver]

AWESOME PIC SCOTT! :D

el :)

[atalas]

:eyepop: good one Scott ! now I can see It.

Louie :thumbsup:

[dhumpie]

Very nice. I noted the extended nebulosity around the central bar in astro_south's 12.5" at the Astrofest on Sat so it is nice to get vindication for my observation.

Darren

[ving]

great scott! :)

[EddieT]

I have one from back in March last year taken with the C11 at 4800mm during a very nice week of seeing. I probably won't get around to imaging it again this time, so I hope this old pic is ok. It's a very difficult object to image ! This one was about my 6th attempt over the last 8 years and came out the best. Well done to all who've managed to image it so far!

[seeker372011]

wowie, that's a nice object ..and great image

[dhumpie]

Ah Eddie you make us all look bad :) Anyway awesome shot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Darren

[EddieT]

Thanks guys.

No no I hope not. It's just different experience and equipment levels. I have some images of this that are far worse than all of those posted here so far, I just choose to post the best ones :)

[atalas]

:jawdrop: rough round the edges Eddie ! you'll have to do better next time dude.


Louie :thumbsup:

[Orion]

That's a beautiful photo Eddie. I love the colors in this small nebular.

[EddieT]

That's always the goal! Thanks Louie :)

[EddieT]

Thanks Ed. This is a beautiful object for sure.

[xrekcor]

Excellent image Eddie :thumbsup:

I'm still half way through the "WoW" from seeing that H Aphla? wide FOV shot of the Milky way you had for sale at AstroFest, it'll look great on my wall at home when I get some extra dollars to throw at you for apersonal copy

regards

[EddieT]

Thanks Rob, It was good to catch up with you at Astrofest, though I have to admit the first time we talked I had no idea who you were! That happened to me a bit that week. I didn't realise who most of the Icers were until the group photo!

How's the little number 27? He's a cool kid.

Let me know if you want to order a Milky Way, might be able to do you an post-Astrofest deal. They're too expensive for me to print stock, so they get printed on demand, i.e. for each order.

[xrekcor]

I was in the same boat, Although I had heard of you before I didn't know you were an IIS member. Maybe we should organise more IIS t-shirts so when we turn up to this gig's members will see who are IIS'ers



He's doing fine!! he caught a lil conjunctive-itist from a sand throwing incident. Had to take him to the doc's to get some of it removed. but he's back running around like a madman now as usual



I'm definitely keen, cant see me being able to do anything until Tueday next week. If you could PM me the details that would be great :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Regards

[jjjnettie]

The enthusiasm you guys bring to these challenges inspires me.
Thanks for sharing your efforts.

[dhumpie]

This is where you share with us your observing experience as well Jeanette :)

Darren

[jjjnettie]

Would anyone really be interested in what I can see through a 60mm refractor I bought off Ebay?
I don't think so. Unless it is to compare how much better the view is through a bigger better scope. LOL
I'll lurk here and learn off you talented people in the mean time.

[dhumpie]

Actually some newbies might benefit from such info. From your parts of the woods, a 60mm "no name" telescope can still be pretty effective. I think it is safe to say that 5189 "will" be visible in the 60 :) I used to observe with a 40mm Celestron Cometron back in the early 80's and still saw heaps :)

Darren

[xrekcor]

Hey jjjnettie,

Maybe I should sent my 60mm tasco you could wire them both together like a pair of binoc' :D

oooooop's hope Jake didn't hear that :ashamed:

regards

[Striker]

This is my effort on NGC 5189 tonight....yes I know the full moon is out but I dont care...this is so much fun.

I have not been using the goto on my skyscan as of late....I have been spending my time actually finding the object by browsing starry nights and constinently looking through my ED 80...this 1 took me about 30 minutes just to find...slippery little sucker....I eventually resorted to taken images in the approximate area just to find it.....lol

I must say its been rewarding doing it this way....I would never have seen it visualy.

C11 F10 FL 2800 SCT Prime focus 5 x 1600 ISO + 5 x 800 ISO all 30 second exposures stacked with K3CCDTools...touched up and resized.

[[1ponders]]

Details Tony. Details. How many images, ISO, etc. Nice clean shot and your mount looks like its tracking well even if it is a short shot. Good colour in the background stars, especially the yellow to red ranges

[h0ughy]

Nice shot Tony. I have PM'ed you!

[gaa_ian]

Nice shot Tony ...seems the full moon is no problem for imaging ?
I just had a look at the moon instead !
I still feel like a possum stunned by headlights, even with a filter ! :scared2:

[[1ponders]]

Are you taking automatic darks for subtraction yet Tony?

[Striker]

Nope no noise reduction or dark frame subtraction.........I just worked out how to operate the camera from my PC..only problem is you cant control the camera under BULB fuction from my PC.... meaning I can only control it for eg...under set exposure times up to 30 seconds...as soon as I turn the Shutter lock on it also disables my control.....so for each of these images I am surprised they dont have much movement from the shutter vibration....does this make sense.

[[1ponders]]

That's what I was saying in another post. You will need some sort of bulb control. Either the manual control or the serial port control.

[astro_south]

OK

Spurred on by Tony's efforts without GOTO (great to see!) I decided to give my sketch of 5189 the digital camera treatment. I had been trying for the last week to get some time on the scanner at work, but just never got around to it. So instead I took a photo of (a trick from Pendak Ken) and generated the negative in Irfanview. No other processing :)

The sketch was made on the Saturday night at Astrofest through my 12.5" dob using a 13mm T6 Nagler. The field was larger than what is shown, but I cheated and just sketched the object and surrounding stars. Darren (dhumpie) can attest to the details in the sketch being visible at the eyepiece.

Sky conditions from memory - seeing was fair (maybe a 6/10) and the transperancy was great (maybe 8/10).

[h0ughy]

nice stuff there Andrew!

[jjjnettie]

Great work Andrew. I'm very impressed.
Rob, Bring your Tasco to next years Astrofest, and we'll have a bit of fun with them both during daylight hours. The mind boggles at what they might mutate into.

[gaa_ian]

We are having our club observing night on the 27th, I will have to give out sketch pads for the keen to have a go at these challenge objects.
Well done Andrew :thumbsup:

[astro_south]

Cheers guys - hopefully the first of many sketches to be done over the coming months.

[xrekcor]

Well done Andrew,

I haven't had a look at this objects yet myself, look forward to
seeing more

regards, CS

[dhumpie]

Very nice Andrew. And if you see this before the e-mail don't bother e mailing me the details because you have mentioned it here. Hopefully we see more good sketches from you in the coming months...welcome to the sketch club :)

Darren

p/s: yup it appears exactly as I remember it through Andrew's scope......

[astro_south]

Thanks Rob & Darren

What can I say - when you spend the occasional night observing with a dedicated master sketcher something has to rub off!....and it is easy to be inspired :)

The fact that I ditched physics to do art halfway through Grade 11 probably helps aswell. (and I still ended up an engineer :P :confused: )

[dhumpie]

You do know that this means we will be expecting more sketches from you now :)

Darren