DSO hunting in April

[YKSE]

With present weather and brightening Moon, the DSO season seems to be over for some months. Weather were quite good for the last 10 days or so, and gave me the chance to make three trips to dark site and two nights in backyards. Here's a summary what I've managed to do:

16/4: SQM 20.8-21.0, 80% humidity, dew heater not needed, 4-5m/s wind, average transparency.
Searched comet SWAN around RA/DEC(00 10, 71 00) area, nothing found, open clusters NGC 136/7789/7790 were easy targets ,same as galaxies 4179/4517/4845/4856/5746/5813/5846/5850, while 4900/4902/5054/5247 needed averted vision, with 5068 as most difficult to make out. Caldwell 11, the bubble nebula, slight nebulosity without filter, UHC really got the arc shape.

Caldwell 9, the cave nebula, only cluster like without filter, both UHC and OIII brought the major shape of cave.

17/4: SQM 20.7-20.9, 60% humidity,  5m/s wind, below average transparency, patchy clouds and full clouds shortenened the session to about 2 hours.

Comet SWAN was searched in area around RA/DEC(00 15, 72 00), nothing found. Open clusters in Cassiopeia NGC 225/436/637/654/659/1027/381 were easy,  galaxy 3928 in Ursa Major, mag12. 2 (SB12.7 of size 1.4'x1.4')  should be an easy target in average seeing in 150x, but was seen only in averted vision.

20/4:  SQM 20.9-21.1, 60% humidity, 2-3m/s wind, very good transparency.

Got comet SWAN in area RA/DEC(00 32, 77 00). ALL the unseen galaxies(32 of them) in Ursa Major in Vlasov's list were visible in direct vision 67x (3310 3610 needed 115x to ensure the size) , these are

2742/2787/2950/2985/3079/3198/3310/3359/3610/3613/3619/3631/3665/3675/

3718/3726/3729/3813/3877/3893/3898/3928/3941/3945/3949/3953/3982/3998/4013/4026/4096/4102.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

6217 in Ursa Minor was just as easy.

5078 and 6897 turned out to be the most difficult objects that night, 40mm Aero needed to get the galaxy in averted vision, and around 130x needed to see the globula in averted vision.

Status? About some 60 NGC to go in Hershel 400, and galaxy count up to 298   should be able to get the first digit right in the near future.

Clear Sky.

[cotterless45]

That's a huge haul for this time of year. Just as things hot up, the nights shorten. Very enjoyable read,

Nick.

[mdstuart]

YKSE

Lovely report.

I tried Swan but could not see it despite a lot of looking and sweeping. That map from sky hound is just not detailed enough???

Looking at your list...the one I have not seen is the one you say is hard NGC 5078..

It is on my priority to do list in Sky tools 3 but its in Hydra and I do struggle the lower the declination so it might be hard..

Mark

[YKSE]

Yes, the map from comet hunt is not very detail. I had to compare all the stars nearby in that map to stars in my B-chart of Triatlas, and still had to estimate locations. It only got more precise when the Swan was closer to the pole.

As you might have noticed, the NGCs I've observed are brighter ones of bigger size than you're doing now, mine are most often larger than 3', with a few under 2'. Mostly I could see or get a hint with eyepiece produing 3mm exit pupil, and 67x mag. for the few near 2' stella sized NGCs, I need to go up in 130x to make sure.

NGC5078 is almost edge-on with brighter core, the size I could make out in averted vision was only the core, clearly smaller than 19, and yes,the low declination makes it extra difficult.