|
Observation Report
8/8/12
Time: 8.30pm
Equipment: 10" Newtonian on a dobsonian base.
Seeing/Transparency: Flippin' awesome.
Eyepieces: Vixen LVW 22mm (55X), Pentax XW10mm (120X) No filters used in this session.
From the "Medium" list...
NGC 6723 GC & NGC 6727 Diffuse Nebula & Globular Cluster- Corona Australis.
I viewed both of these around 8.30pm while nice and high at 70 degrees alt.
NGC 6723 at 55X was easy to find, I was surprised at how large & bright it appeared at low power. Changing over to 120X resolved some of it's brighter stars in the middle. Using averted vision, two stars in particular jumped out with beautiful sparkle, and one star on the southern end was particularly large and bright.
Placing the GC on the left edge of the eyepiece, revealed the diffuse nebula NGC 6727 on the far right edge of the eyepiece (this is a widefield 70deg ep). Seeing both these objects in the same field of view was the most gorgeous site as they were fairly large & very impressive! A bright oblong shaped nebulosity envelopes two bright stars. Confusion here, as I check my sky programme which reveals these two so called bright stars are mag.7.21 & 9.50. Yet they shone so brightly.. was this the surrounding nebulosity I wonder that caused them to glow so brightly.
IC5148-50- PN in Grus.
I was kidding myself! Using 120X and at mag.11 I couldn't see anything that resembled a spare tyre. I did see a very tiny faint dot- could this have been it I wondered, but perhaps unlikely.
I particularly wanted to observe this as this is the sole catalogue object discovered by Walter Gale- a famous Australian Amateur astronomer/observer noted for discovering many doubles stars. This is the crater on Mars which Curiosity just landed in that was named after him. So being able to observe this during all the excitement of the week would have been special *sigh*.
I think I'll go back with higher power and a filter and see what that gives me...
Has anyone seen this with a 10" through light pollution?
|