4 Messiers and a planetary

[iamjulian]

Friday was cloudy all day, but they were predicting clear skies from 10pm onwards. I got set up to cool in the middle of the back garden around 9pm and finally went outside when next door turned off their bedroom light at 10:15pm. My only plan was to stay up until about 1am so that I could take a picture of Mira while it is still bright. Once dark adapted, the Milky Way was lovely overhead and M31 was naked eye.

I jumped around through the various Messiers that I have seen many times, before deciding I should see whether anything interesting was going to come into view through the 15 ish degree gap between the houses on my southern horizon. I had about an hour to wait before M72 and M73 would show up. Perfect. Haven't seen either before so spent a little while looking at the blue snowball before heading back to hunt for my new Messiers. I knew what each object was, but not exactly what it would look like. M72 was pretty easy to spot. Not the smallest glob, but not the biggest either. With a one degree field of view it is nice and easy to work out distances and there was a nice handy star between M72 and M73 to help guide me. Even so, it took me a while to realise that this particular open cluser isn't exactly the biggest(!) A tight roughly triangular shape of stars was the only thing that looked possible but I had to wait until I got back indoors to confirm I had been looking at the correct object. It was only a very short hop to another planetary nebula that I have heard quite a few people mention - the Saturn nebula. I found it, but viewing over a roof and through the glow of a lamp post made it difficult to appreciate. One to re-visit in a better location.

I was happy with two new Messiers, but even happier when I discovered M77 is just next to Mira in Cetus, and that M74 is directly above it in Pisces. Four added and very close to half way now. My missing Messiers include everything in Virgo so a couple of nights at that region and I will be well on the way to a hundred

[Double Kick Drum]

Nice report.

Those dark Shropshire skies paying dividends with M74. I've not managed that one despite a few attempts.

M72 and M73 are one's for the collection rather than particularly mind blowing. maybe slightly better in a really dark sky.

Thanks for sharing.

[iamjulian]

Thanks DKD, I've had a couple of goes at M74 without finding it.

Perhaps I had been looking in the wrong place - it was really quite obvious.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Congrats on those Messiers. M72 and M73 were my last two (from Olly Penrice's place, using his 20" dob). Not the most spectacular ones but nice all the same. M77 is quite easy, but M74 varies, and is affected a lot by transparency of the sky (just like M101). I got the Saturn Nebula in the same session. The Blue Snowball is also very nice. There is a very handy list of the brightest planetaries here: http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/plannebs.html