M75 in bins- HARD!!

[Walshie79]

So with the teapot sinking into the trees but Alpha Capricorni still a bit east of due south, I decided tonight to try and hunt down this 9th mag. globular, as it was the clearest night for some time and it would be due south. First of all, this object is made so much harder by being in the middle of nowhere, celestially speaking. Technically it's in Sagittarius, but it culminates fully 2 hours after the Lagoon/Triffid area, and even the eastern end of the teapot is disappearing by the time it arrives on the meridian. Plus it's several degrees from even a 3rd magnitude star, meaning it takes a long statehood.

I found it though, thanks to the indispensable charts at http://astunit.com/tonkinsastro/messier/messcharts.htm which are the most useful I've found. Starting at Alpha cap, go down through Beta to the triangle rho/pi/omicron Cap. From there sigma Cap is found due west, and 4 Cap due south of sigma (Note that though the target is in Sagittarius, nearly all the guide stars are in Capricornus!) A couple of degrees west a bowl shaped asterism of 4 6/7th mag stars stands out quite well, with two more 7th mag stars just above the left hand corner of the bowl. It's the southern of those two that the cluster lies just off- looking directly at that star brought M75 in with averted vision. It was much fainter than those nearby stars, and a real challenge to spot. It revealed itself a bit better by moving the bins around, to the bowl and back to the key star, and I could just see it intermittently with direct vision, but it was not easy. It's quite a small globular, and averted vision was definitely needed to see it as non-stellar. All in all a very challenging object for the 25*70s, the combination of faitness, southerly declination and distance from even moderately bright stars making it so.

One more for the list though....

[pepitoz]

Nice catch!

I have been hunting the Messier globulars in Sagittarius these last few observing sessions and the only one left is M75. I will use my 10 inch dobsonian, but I will also try to see it with my 8x50 finderscope. Hope I find it!