Last night I was looking at some bright deep sky objects and like usual I found them very interesting. Anyway I'm interested to hear what your favorite deep sky objects are other then the ones in the messier catalog.
I think this would be great to help beginners who would like to look at more then just the M catalog.
Gosh, I've hardly scratched the surface of Charles Messier's list! However, he missed or didn't have the opportunity to see some wonders:- the obvious 47Tuc, Omega Centauri, The Jewel Box etc. I always to try to have a peek, at least!
Even though the usual suspects like Galaxies, Globulars and nebulas are always on my 'view and image' list, (and soon I intend to start on Planetary Nebulas) I must admit that my favourite objects are Dark Blood-Red Stars, Black Nebula, and extremely faint extremely distant Galaxies and Galaxy Clusters.
Sorry to sound pedantic, but it is EsB 365 (Espin-Birmingham 365) also known as DY Crucis.
This shows how close it is to Mimosa (Beta Crucis)
I gotta go with Ken here, that little star can keep me occupied for ten or twenty minutes, and then later in the night I will come back to it just to make sure it hasn't gone anywhere.
Space is so deep that I tend to stick in one little area at a time and explore. Looking at Mimosa with a fellow member last time out we found two little stars very close by that are rarely visable. They kept winking in and out, a real challenge to see and I'm sorry I didn't draw them up in the log for later reference. The whole of crux could keep me satisfied for years I think, but it's nice to have the rest of space there for when the best part sinks lower than the range of my office chair.
Great fun and satisfaction chasing up the Virgo/Coma galaxies. I have a penchant for the Carina and Crux region, just sussing out the star fields.
Got to try a few doubles as well.
An often overlooked planetary nebula is IC 5148/50 in Grus. This area is mostly known for galaxies but this PN is a classical 'smoke ring', similar to the Ring Nebula but fainter; so it is a little more challenging and a good dark sky is a must. It's well worth the effort.
In fact, I'd really like to see an amateur image of it (I'm not an imager myself).
Your fav deep sky objects
