A few objects in Aquarius and Grus

[Lismore Bloke]

12" Dobsonian. No moon, seeing 4 out of 5, transparency 3.5 out of 5.
A lot of the smoke haze from burnoffs has cleared, fortunately. I know burnoffs are necessary, but they are not good for observing.

NGC7009 PN Saturn nebula. 26mm (58X) showed a small, bright glow. More magnification, 6mm (250) showed the oval shape better, the colour a ghostly greenish-blue. I didn't see the projections (eyesight and probably eyepiece limitations!!). A decent filter may help. Very attractive object.

NGC 7089 GC Again, 26mm showed a nice bright globular with a grainy outer edge. More power (9mm x167) showed the edges resolved into stars and a field star (CDC showed TYC5208-00284-1, so that's probably it). Excellent sight.

NGC 6981 GC Another globular, but fainter. Just a round glow at low power was showing graininess at the edges with the 6mm.

NGC 7213 GX Grus. The closeness of Alnair didn't prevent me spotting this bright galaxy. Saw an oval glow with a concentrated centre.

NGC 7599-7590-7582-7552 The 26mm showed this very nice quartet in the same field, at different angles to each other. NGC 7531 was nearby and sweeping around revealed plenty of galaxies to identify. I will be spending a lot more time exploring the galaxies in this constellation.

Cheers, Paul.

[pgc hunter]

Nice report. Shame about those damn burnoffs, down here ALL of autumn was RUINED thanks to the damn DSE and their stupid burnoffs. Personally, I'd ban all burnoffs, don't give 2 craps if they're necessary or not.

The Grus Quartet is nice, was going to take a look at it last night but being directly overhead it's a pain to manouver the dob :P

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks PGC. I was out the other night and the seeing was so crap I gave up on anything faint and looked at Jupiter, Neptune and Sagittarius. Our own Department of Parks and Wildfires have been busy. Private landowners are also doing their bit to pollute the sky. Last night was much better - the seeing was pretty good. I don't get the chance to use the 6mm very often. If the cloud buzzes off I will give Grus and it's faint fuzzies another visit. Many of them should be visible, even from my suburban locality. Cheers, Paul.

[CoombellKid]

Paul,

While your in Grus have a look at IC 5148, the Spare Tyre.

Cheers,CS

[Lismore Bloke]

Hi Rob, Thanks for that one. I had a look around the area
it is supposed to be, but mag 13 is a bit faint for my
suburban area. It might have to wait until I can get
into a darker area.

[pgc hunter]

It appears to be fairly large aswell so might have low SB ontop of the already low magnitude. Try using an OIII filter.

[CoombellKid]

You can try a OIII. In comparison if you can see NGC 7599 from your
backyard you should have no problem with IC 5148 :thumbsup:

UM2000 lists both objects...

NGC 7599 : MagV 11.5 : SB 13.2
IC 5148 : MagV 11 : MagP 12.9 (Photographic-Blue)

Look in the right foot of Grus

Cheers,CS

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks very much Rob and PGC. I really appreciate your comments on my rather amateurish posts in this part of the forum.

Low surface brightness might make this one hard for me, but I'm not giving up. I printed off a much closer map, that might help. As far as size goes, as a comparison:

IC5148 2 arc minutes
NGC 6720 Ring Nebula 3 x 2.4 arc minutes
NGC3918 Blue PN 0.2 arc minutes

Doing that bit of research certainly helps visualise what the thing should look like in the eyepiece. I WISH I HAD AN OIII, a UHC, and a handful of Naglers to replace my old Orthos. Just can't afford those items, so will persist in testing the limits of my local seeing. Cheers, Paul.

[ngcles]

Hi Paul,



Not at all mate -- it was a nice short report that I enjoyed too.:thumbsup:

NGC 7089 (M2) is a really wonderful globular that (provided the seeing cooperates and you have a goodish sky) resolves quite well.

Its brightest stars are mag 13.1 and the H-B magnitude is 16.1. So a 30cm 'scope in the best of conditions will resolve a heck of a lot of stars at moderate to high magnification. I'd suggest x200 - x250 in 30cm. It is well concentrated to the centre (like 47 Tucanae) so "cracking the core" is hard. I seem to remember somewhere that Herschel described it as looking like a "heap of fine sand or salt" -- or some-such.

NGC 6981 I'd reckon is the poorest of the Messier globulars. The description you gave summed it up well. It's kind of a pity that Messier & Co didn't travel south to see some real GCs.


Best,

Les D

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks for the comments Les, much appreciated.

I have tended to shy away from high magnifications on DSO's, but that session showed how much detail can be seen, provided I am careful with
the focusing, and also provided the seeing supports the magnification.

When you compare the best globulars in the northern hemisphere, one wonders what Messier would have thought of Omega Cen or 47 Tuc!!!

Cheers, Paul.