Hicksons last night

[nytecam]

Yet another clear night last night in suburbia [this is getting exhausting!] confined to Hickson gx groups in Leo, Coma, CVn, UMa and Serpen rising in east.  Will post when ready

Used 12" Meade SCT @ f/4 + SX Lodestar-Mx2 + SX s/w.

Here's a sampler in Copeland's Septet [7] in Leo - actually there's 8 gx in the group !

[HiloDon]

Hi Nytecam,

Nice job! I really like the HCG's. Is it being renamed now to Nytecam's Octet?

Don

[mdstuart]

Lovely..we viewed this one at SGLX. We could see three of your eight..

I had a look at the box last night. Three were easy in my 16 but that slender thin one was very hard to see...

Try NGC 5919/20 ABEL 2063 for me as I enjoyed that one last night as well..Bet you can get more than 20 galaxies in the FOV...

Mark

[nytecam]

Hi Nytecam,

Nice job! I really like the HCG's. Is it being renamed now to Nytecam's Octet?

Don

Thanks Don for the kudos but all 8 are shown in Megastar as Hickson 57 A-H inclusive

[nytecam]

Lovely..we viewed this one at SGLX. We could see three of your eight..  I had a look at the box last night. Three were easy in my 16 but that slender thin one was very hard to see...

Try NGC 5919/20 ABEL 2063 for me as I enjoyed that one last night as well..Bet you can get more than 20 galaxies in the FOV...

Mark

Thanks Mark - I'll give AGC 2063 in Serpens a go when higher in the sky.  Last night Hickson 79 in Serpens was my lowest and final object of the evening low in the east herewith .  My estimate of distance from RV = 190MLY for this cluster but one member HGC79/C [circled] is apparently x4.5 further away that the rest - maybe catalogue error?  

[nytecam]

Three more in Hickson 55 [Draco], 56 [uMa] and 44 [Leo] using Megastar + Sloan DSS [=Wikisky] for info - the come out pretty well for these remote gx groups.  Remainder to follow from session on Saturday evening 

[nytecam]

Final pair in Hickson 61 "The Box" [Coma] and Hickson 68 [CVn] - many more to chase and capture but good fun - the detail in these brief exposures via the Lodestar is only marginally less than shown on Sloan DSS    

[aparker]

Three more in Hickson 55 [Draco], 56 [uMa] and 44 [Leo] using Megastar + Sloan DSS [=Wikisky] for info - the come out pretty well for these remote gx groups.  Remainder to follow from session on Saturday evening 

Funny, I was looking at the same thing (approximately) on Sat night.  I was trying to capture the pair of NCG3718 and 3729, and just clipped your Hickson group on the edge of the frame.  I think I can see the gx you label A and B, but not with the detail I see in your zoomed-in frame.  I should revisit this object.  It looks like compared to my image below (4x70sec) that you are stretching more aggressively to pull up these faint fuzzies.  Plus obviously you have 2.25X aperture vs my 8" and a slightly longer FL at 1200mm.

Now that I have guiding set up to enable longer exposures, I've been thinking about coming back to some of these small objects at native f10 for more resolution.

[Macavity]

Had a go at some of these myself last night... Not overly familiar with these lists

so (direct or indirect) thanks for the heads up! Some HCGs do lend themselves

rather well to video astronomy? A negative image covers a multitude of sins! 

HIckson 56 is (of course) lower centre.

Thanks (generally) for revealing "information sources". lol

Randomly came across http://www.reinervogel.net/index_e.html?/Hickson/hickson_e.html

A nice PDF guide to the Hicksons ... The names of Shields &

Gottleib useful too! (Great names for music producers?!)

Having a look at "recommended ARP" lists this evening...

Only question: Can I take another (11 'til 4) nightshift??? 

[HiloDon]

Hi Chris,

That is a great reference for planning your search of Hicksons. It's interesting to see how EAA let's us see so much more than visual. In Reiner's reference he describes the difficulty in seeing some of the galaxies having to use averted vision at times using his 22" f4 scope. In one he describes seeing one with what he calls averted imagination.

I think you will find the Hickson's addictive. It really is fun to just find them and Reiner's reference helps immensely in that effort.

Don

[Macavity]

Of perhaps limited / specialist interest, but...

came across a Carte du Ciel catalog for these:

http://www.schoenball.de/index_astro.html (see menu)

Save someone else a bit of fiddling around or typing maybe? 

[nytecam]

just post my Hickson video of above images linked at http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/242970-my-hickson-gc-vid/ - enjoy ;-)