Suzy's Observing Targets: July/August 2012.

[LAW (Murphy)]

Wow, thanks Suzy and everyone! I've only had my 8" newtonian set up for a week but I've been out in the backyard almost every night. Your list is fantastic, even from my garden in North Lakes I can see more detail than I'd expected.

My observing highlight has to be Saturn late last week, my red-dot is a little off so I was scrolling through the declination with a 20mm thinking "hmm, if it's any of these 'stars' it's a bit underwhelming", then BAM! I was blown away by the clarity. I received a 6mm eyepiece yesterday but the sky wasn't as clear tonight as the first night.

I'll certainly be printing out your suggestions for tomorrow night!
Good nights everyone.

[Shamrocker (Aidan)]

Suzy,

The list is fantastic. Exactly what I need. I will post some feedback next week.

Its funny.... I thought your response was 'comprehensive' until I followed the link to your previous beginners post. Wow. You certainly dont do things by halves. So I really appreciate the time and effort you put in to responding.

Cheers

Aidan

[Suzy]

Originally Posted by LAW

Wow, thanks Suzy and everyone! I've only had my 8" newtonian set up for a week but I've been out in the backyard almost every night. Your list is fantastic, even from my garden in North Lakes I can see more detail than I'd expected.

My observing highlight has to be Saturn late last week, my red-dot is a little off so I was scrolling through the declination with a 20mm thinking "hmm, if it's any of these 'stars' it's a bit underwhelming", then BAM! I was blown away by the clarity. I received a 6mm eyepiece yesterday but the sky wasn't as clear tonight as the first night.

I'll certainly be printing out your suggestions for tomorrow night!
Good nights everyone.

Hi Murphy, I'm glad you like the list.
Seeing Saturn for the first time is awesome isn't it. I think most of us will never forget our first Saturn experience.
Earlier on in the week I had my telescope outside cooling and I got a visit from someone I had not seen in a really long time and as she was leaving I offered to show her Saturn. Her reaction was priceless! She looked at me and asked me if I had popped a picture of it into the telescope. I've heard people say that other people have said the same thing to them, but that's the first time it's happened to me. But then there was this one time when I offered to show someone Saturn and they said no thanks go figure! I think it's inherent in us- those that love astronomy- to see the beauty in things.

Originally Posted by Shamrocker

Suzy,

The list is fantastic. Exactly what I need. I will post some feedback next week.

Its funny.... I thought your response was 'comprehensive' until I followed the link to your previous beginners post. Wow. You certainly dont do things by halves. So I really appreciate the time and effort you put in to responding.

Cheers

Aidan

Hi Aidan, yep, sometimes I embarrass myself!
It's incredibly rewarding for me if I can be of help, added to that, when I receive such great support & input from you guys, well.. that just makes it all the more worthwhile in going to the efforts I do. Thank you.

[Suzy]

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?

[astroron (Ron)]

Hi Suzy,Re IC 5148/5150,In your light polluted sky I would say it would be nearly impossible to see this object, as the PN has a very low surface brightness.
As I noted in my post on your Observing Target's post I find that neither O111 or UHC Filters made little or no difference.
You will be able to pick it up in a 10"scope from a dark sky site.
Nice report on NGC 6723 GC & NGC 6727

It is a great target both visually and photographically
Cheers

[pgc hunter]

Hi Suzy, I was just looking through my archives as I recall observing IC 5148 at some point and was quite surprised to find I actually made a sketch of it.

Here's the sketch. 12" dob, 217x with OIII filter.

[Suzy]

Thanks Sab, that's an awesome sketch.
I really enjoyed reading the notes you made on it too- what a great report!

[astroron (Ron)]

Suzy's Observing Targets: July/August 2012.

Some of these objects are still ripe for the picking in the sky at the moment, so why not give them a try now that the dark sky's are here again
Cheers

Originally Posted by Suzy

Easy

NGC 6302 Scorpius- (The Bug Nebula)- planetary nebula, mag. 9. This object takes high magnification well.

NGC 6572 Ophiuchus- (The Blue Racquet Ball) planetary nebula, mag. 9.
A very young PN being only a few thousand years old. This is an intense & bright blue nebula, use high magnification to reveal some shape & colour.

M22 Sagittarius- globular cluster, mag. 5.1

NGC 5986 Lupus- globular cluster, mag. 7.50

NGC 5460 Lupus- open cluster, mag. 5.60. An interesting cluster in a loopy line.

NGC 5102 Centaurus- galaxy (elliptical SO), mag. 10.28. Has a bright core, easily found sitting one degree from iota Centauri. Widefield eyepieces will show both the star and the galaxy within the same field of view. Look for the rectangular shape which will become more apparent in reasonable seeing conditions.

NGC 5286 Centaurus- globular cluster, mag. 7.60. Nice little bright glob.

NGC 6441 Scorpius- globular cluster, mag. 7.20. A small, yet bright condensed glob.

M57 Lyra- (The Ring Nebula) planetary nebula, mag. 8.80

The famous Double Double- Lyra. A quadruple star system. Mag. 4.7 & 4.6. Good eyesight or binoculars separate it into two stars, but a telescope of 60-75mm aperture & high power will reveal each star as a double.

M27 Vulpecula- (Dumbell Nebula) planetary nebula, mag. 7.50

Collinder 399 Vulpecula- (Coat Hanger Cluster) open cluster, mag. 3.60. A spectacular and large cluster which resembles a coat hanger. This is a fantastic binocular target as well.



Medium

Barnard 50 Scorpius- Dark Nebula. It appears as square shaped dark brownish patch.

NGC 3132 Vela- (The Eight Burst Nebula) planetary nebula, mag. 9.87.
Can you make out the rusty orange tinge to this nebula? Use high power, under low power this object can look stellar in appearance.

M54 Sagittarius- globular cluster, mag. 8.50.


NGC 6723 Corona Australis- globular cluster, mag. 7. Sitting within half a degree away is away is...
NGC 6727 Corona Australis- diffuse nebula.
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/obs/n6727.html


NGC 4945 Centaurus- spiral galaxy, mag. 8.6. See if you can make out the mottling. This galaxy has had two supernovas in the last five years (one of them was a 13th mag. in Dec last year).

NGC 5128 Centaurus- (Centaurus A). A dark dust lane cuts through the middle giving it the nickname of “Hamburger Galaxy”. One of the “Arp Peculiar Galaxies”, it’s thought to be a merger between a spiral and elliptical galaxy. Mag. 7.

NGC 7582, 7599, 7590, IC5294 Grus (Grus Quartet Galaxies). Between mag. 11 & 12.

IC5052 Pavo- spindle galaxy. Mag. 11.30

NGC 6300 Ara- Good size face on spiral. Mag. 10.90

The Veil nebula in Cygnus. This is a supernova remnant from a star that exploded between 5-8,000 years ago. It spans about 3 degrees. A filter will be beneficial here.

NGC 6826 Cygnus- (The Blinking Nebula) planetary nebula, mag. 11. It’s aptly named!

NGC 7009 Aquarius- (The Saturn Nebula) planetary nebula. Mag. 8. Look for the nodules using high magnification.

NGC 6981 Aquarius- globular cluster. Sits two degrees from the Saturn Nebula. Mag. 9.30.

NGC 6994 Aquarius- open cluster only one degree from the Saturn Nebula. Mag. 8.90.



DIFFICULT

NGC 6337 Scorpius- planetary nebula, mag. 12.3. See if you can make out the pale bluish glow.


From Sab (pgc hunter) ...

NGC 6027 Serpens- Seyfert's Sextet.
Tiny, very faint clump of 5 galaxies (the 6th "galaxy" is just a tidal plume). The brightest member has a visual mag. of approx 14 and the whole group is clustered within a mere 2' space.
Here's a pic.



From Ron (astroron) ...

Galaxy cluster Abell 3627.
A challenging group galaxies, it sits on the boarder of Triangulum Australe and Norma.
Abell 3627 consist of 59 galaxies with the brightest being mag. 12.46 and the faintest observed in my scope mag 14.84.
ESO galaxy 137-8 is the brightest.
All the galaxies in this cluster are ESO Catalogue objects.
One or two may be observed with a ten inch scope, but some of the fainter ones will require telescopes of twelve inches and above.


IC 5148/5150 Grus- (Spare Tyre Nebula) planetary nebula. A beautiful but faint PN. I found that filters didn't improve it very much. Mag. 13.

NGC 6380 Scorpius- Obscured Globular Cluster, it can be seen in scopes of 10" or more but needs good seeing. It can be easily missed if you don't concentrate. Mag. 11.5



From my friend, Steve Mencincsky ...

For the challenging section, the rich cluster of galaxies around IC 4329 is good at all levels. It's very photogenic, you see it turn up in many places. It's easy to find, it's near M83. My notes show about two dozen galaxies visible - barely - in my 18", so that would be a challenge for your 16" crowd. And there are four galaxies that have NGC numbers so they should be visible - as a challenge - in a 10".
IC 4329 mag spiral. 11.1 Centaurus
IC 4329A elliptical mag. 13.9 Centaurus
NGC 5302 spiral mag 12.2
NGC 5298 spiral mag 13.1

All within a field of view of one degree.
10” scopes might like to have a try for some of these galaxies in this group.



Another addition to this list (thanks Sab) ...

One interesting object in the vicinity missing from your list is NGC 5291, which forms an interacting pair with AM 1344-301, often referred to as the "Seashell Galaxy" located only 0.6' SW. This pair is about 20' WSW of IC4329 and is a member of the cluster. NGC 5291 has a V Mag of 14.2 and the "Seashell" is smaller and slightly fainter. NED gives it a blue (photographic) magnitude of 15.2. A rough rule of thumb when converting B magnitudes to V is to add approx 1. So the "Seashell Galaxy" would be approx 14.2 visual.

[pgc hunter]

Originally Posted by Suzy

Thanks Sab, that's an awesome sketch.
I really enjoyed reading the notes you made on it too- what a great report!

Hey Suzy, I caught the "Spare Tyre" with the 8" dob last night.

Unseen without filter at 150x, but an OIII revealed a faint, uneven surface brightness donut. It really is faint and your best chance of catching this object under suburban skies is with a filter. Without a filter you'll have to get to a dark location.