***UPDATE*** September 2015 Targets of The Month

[Ccolvin968]

So as you may have seen, I have updated the targets on this list to be UK friendly as well as the Northern U.S. I am at 45 degrees North in the U.S. and I have updated the targets to be plenty visible at 51 degrees North and kept well above the horizon. I took a few targets that were mentioned in the original September 2015 ToTM post into consideration. Thank you for your continued interest and ideas to get this off the ground. Towards the end of September, I plan on posting an "Observations for September 2015 ToTM." There, we can more or less consolidate our findings. Thank you again for your support and kind words. I think this is going to turn out to be great fun!

Easy: 

 

Main Target of the Month:

**Albireo** Binary Star System. (Mag 3.05) Gorgeous Orange and Blue binary pair. Others may see it in different colors. What do you see?

 

Secondary targets:

**M3** Globular Cluster. (Mag 7) I've never seen this one personally, but I've heard it's a good sight in smaller scopes and binoculars.

**M13** Hercules Cluster (Mag 7) One of my favorite Globular clusters at this time of year... Enjoy! 

 

 

Medium:

 

Main Target of the Month:

**M57** Ring Nebula (Mag 9) M57 is a Planetary Nebula at magnitude 9 in the Constellation Lyra. It is the remnants of a dying star. It is right around 1360 ly from us.

 

Secondary Targets:

**M27** Dumbell Nebula (Mag 7.5) A very cool planetary nebula, how much detail can you see? Hows the LP in your area? Did you have any difficulty finding the it at all?

**Antares Binary** Can be a more difficult split due to the fact it requires near perfect seeing conditions and at least a good 6" scope to split.

 

 

Hard:

 

Main target of the Month: 

NGC6543 (Cats Eye Nebula) A mag 9.6 planetary nebula that lies about 3262 ly away in the constellation draco. I've not heard much about the cats eye being observed personally. What can you guys tell me?

 

Secondary Targets:

**Pluto** (Dwarf Planet) An obvious more difficult target that is in the Southern sky this month. It's mag 14.14 and a little over 3.6 billion miles from us. (Just shy of 6 billion km) Can you see it? What can you see? 

**M82** (Cigar Galaxy) M82 is a mag 9.5 galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. It is five times brighter than our whole milky way and 100 times brighter than our center. What do you think? 

 

 

So there it is! Again, updated and UK user friendly. I'm very excited to see what people come up with or post. I'm hoping this catches on over the next few months and we can get this really popular and have a blast with it. Hope you enjoy. Good luck, and Clear Skies to all!

[John]

Interesting stuff. Some comments, as you invite them :

- I'm reasonably far south in the UK but find Antares very difficult to observe at all let alone see it's secondary star.

- M27 is easier to see than M57 in my opinion, despite the latter being perhaps better known.

- M82 is an easy target. I first saw it around 25 years ago with a 60mm refractor and it's visible with 10x50 binoculars if you take a little care to find it.

- Pluto is going to need a 14 inch scope I reckon, from the UK.

Hope that helps

[Dave In Vermont]

That looks like a fun to-do list. I wish you success! And for me, Albireo is beautiful orange - red - orange primary with a sapphire - blue companion. Always a stellar ( ) sight I love to use when I set up in a public park. People are 'wowed' by this denizen of stardom.

May I ask what type of instrument - telescope(s) - you're using? As you may have noted, many of us use an equipment-list in our signatures. Saves the trouble of typing out the same thing 1,000 times a day.

So you are at 45° N? Hard to think you're actually north of me here at 44.47° N. Most people I talk with never knew that the UK is really much more north than the US. If it wasn't for the Gulf Stream, Europa would be a block of ice. It also surprises people to discover that a chunk of Canada is to my south. In public school, the only geography lesson my class had was in first-grade. We were asked to copy & colour a map of the African continent. But I was an avid stamp-collector, so I knew where every country was and the language and culture of each. I was a weird kid in this respect.

Do keep us updated on your progress. It may give people some good ideas of where to point their tubes.

Clear skies,

Dave - 44.4758 N & 73.1129° W

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I did the Cat's Eye in my Celestron C8 and found it quite readily (but bear in mind I am a seasoned observer). Using a UHC filter brings it out a bit better, I find. M82 is an easy target, always worth a look (not ideally placed but not difficult either). I can just frame it with M81 in one FOV with the 31mm Nagler. Pluto is beyond the reach of my scope

[Ccolvin968]

John, thank you for the advice. I put Pluto in the hard category for that exact reason. Dave, not sure what's going on with my signature block. Normally it would have my telescope, and my Messier count. I'll have to look. I have a Zhumell Z10 Dob that is brand new. I'm starting over with my Messier list for this scope. I think as a rite of passage, all of my scopes will have to get all of the Messier objects in view. Michael, I'll gladly take any advice about difficulty level. I'm just crossing the line from beginner to intermediate in my opinion. Had a small 5" scope for the last two years, and before that, star charts and books with binoculars as far back as I can remember. I don't use any GoTo. Just my hands a red flash light, a chart, and eyes to get me to where I want to go. I love the challenge. It looks like clear skies tonight and tomorrow! I might try to find Comet Jacques over the next couple nights. Clear skies to you all as well!

[John]

John, thank you for the advice. I put Pluto in the hard category for that exact reason. ...

Yep, I understand that. My point was that M82 does not need to be in the same category as Pluto because it's an easy object in my view, probably one of the easiest galaxies to observe.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

John, thank you for the advice. I put Pluto in the hard category for that exact reason. Dave, not sure what's going on with my signature block. Normally it would have my telescope, and my Messier count. I'll have to look. I have a Zhumell Z10 Dob that is brand new. I'm starting over with my Messier list for this scope. I think as a rite of passage, all of my scopes will have to get all of the Messier objects in view. Michael, I'll gladly take any advice about difficulty level. I'm just crossing the line from beginner to intermediate in my opinion. Had a small 5" scope for the last two years, and before that, star charts and books with binoculars as far back as I can remember. I don't use any GoTo. Just my hands a red flash light, a chart, and eyes to get me to where I want to go. I love the challenge. It looks like clear skies tonight and tomorrow! I might try to find Comet Jacques over the next couple nights. Clear skies to you all as well!

Very much the star-hopper without goto. I found the Cat's Eye quite long star-hop, but a lot easier in EQ with its RA and Dec moves which stay fixed, rather than alt-az moves. A very big finder also helps (14x70 in my case)

[Ccolvin968]

14x70?! I have a 10x50 I thought was big. I'll tell you what though, my next three days are forecasted as clear. Cant wait!!

[SteveNickolls]

Tonight was the first night the weather has been clear in September here so I have been out with my Vixen 81mm binoculars using 10mm eyepieces (x48) and my Pentax 10x50's. Observation was from around 10.00 PM (UTC+1) with no Moon around. The limiting sky magnitude here is usually around 4.3 and there was some high level cloud around tonight to degrade viewing.

In the Vixen's Alberio (Easy target 1) was a pretty couple with the main star a lovely gold colour with the secondary in the 10 o'clock position and greeny-blue.

I was interested to see M57 in Lyra (Medium target 1) and what it would appear like at x48. It was easy to find and appeared quite bright as a smallish ghostly grey definitely round shape but I could not make out the central hole.

The large size of M27 took me by surprise. The general shape was upright, oblong but no colour just grey.  Despite being over 3 degrees from my original guide star in Sagitta M27 was easy to find and popped into view. However in the 10x50's it could be easily overlooked.

M82 (Hard target 3) was visible tonight together with M81 in the same FOV but was not as bright or clear as I have seen it in the past. On previous occasions I have observed a brighter area within the general glow of the galaxy. I will try another night with these objects and attempt other objects also on the observing list.

Cheers,

Steve

[Ccolvin968]

I'm glad you got to get out and give these a try! I was equally surprised with the size of M27. It had a definite shape, but I almost passed it over as a high level cloud. On August 27th, it was amazingly clear and seeing and transparency was amazing. I could easily make out the shape of M57 and the center hole. It was colorless. Just a gray ring. But an amazing gray ring. Hope you enjoyed!

[John]

Under decent conditions M57 takes high magnifications pretty well. I've observed it at 318x and 400x recently with my 12" dob searching (thus far mostly in vain) for it's central star and it really fills the field of view at those powers

I was observing M27 at around 200x last night (again with the 12") and I seem to recall that it filled a bit more than half the field of view. The central star and a few more against the nebulosity were visible with that aperture / magnification.

Lots of planetary nebulae are really rather small and sometimes need 200x magnification or more just to identfiy that they are not just a regular star. The Dumbbell is a rather joyous exception

[laudropb]

Clear skies here tonight so I will give them a go.

[John]

It's clear here too but the transparency does not seem that good at the moment. Maybe that will pick up later.

I'm struggling to see mag 5 stars naked eye at the moment.