March 4, 2013: Off the beaten track planetaries and clusters

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Yesterday was reasonably clear, with just a little high haze, which slowly thickened. I got out the scope early and started observing at 8:30. The first object on my list was IC 2165 in CMa. It proved quite a simple star hop, but nothing in the FOV would initially strike you as a planetary at first glance. Fortunately, I had a cunning plan, in the form of the filter-switch diagonal which allowed me to flip between no filter and UHC, or no filter and O-III quickly. A blinking effect of an innocuous star which seemed to brighten with respect to the other stars when UHC or O-III filters were inserted was clear. The poor seeing did not allow me to resolve the object properly. That brings my total to 50 out of the 100 brightest planetaries (plus a couple not on that list).

I then moved north for some unfinished business in Monoceros. I started out at NGC 2244 (Collinder 99) in the Rosette (which did not show, especially because the floodlights on the football fields nearby were lit). The cluster itself was nice, but I was hunting some furtive Collinder clusters in the region. West and south of NGC 2244, Cr 91 was first up. This is a scattering of reasonably bright stars, but a very poor cluster I would say. It does not really stand out that well (but not to badly compared to some other Collinders). Nearby was Cr 92, which is a lot more anaemic. Here you really need to know what stars make up the cluster (not many), as it does not really stand out at all. Cr 111 was to the east of the Rosette, and also diffuse. There were a couple of stars in a sort of three-armed spiral pattern which stand out ever so modestly around a fairly bright star in the centre of the cluster. Equally difficult was NGC 2236 (Collinder 94) which a bit further west (almost directly north of the Rosette). Not much to look at, but another bagged. The last one was NGC 2251 (Collinder 101) a bit further north. This was the easiest of the bunch, I find: an elongated patch of stars standing out (modestly) from the surroundings.

I then had a quick look at NGC 2264 (Collinder 112), nice to see the Xmas tree, but the cone nebula was playing hide and seek. Onwards to an object that intrigued me on the Sky Atlas 2000.0: J900 or Jonckheere 900. This catalogue of planetaries is not well known, and I previously could not find it at all. Now, with far more planetaries under my belt, and the Denkmeier filter-switch diagonal available, I was better prepared. At the right location a mag12-ish star blinked at me as I switched filters, seeming equal in brightness to a few neighbouring stars with UHC, but looking much fainter than those same stars without. Given the seeing, it remained purely stellar (high mags can show some extent). First Jonckheere object found! I then spotted another on the map in Orion: J320. This was an easy star hop from Bellatrix, and also showed up as a stellar object which gained brightness relative to stars with the O-III or UHC filter in place. I finally tried PKS198-6.1 (Abel 12) which was plotted on my map as coinciding with mu Orionis. At first I spotted some haze around the star, but it seemed rather bright for an object not on the brightest planetaries list. A bit of search showed it should be faint and to the west of mu Orionis. I tried again but conditions did not allow capture this time. Better luck from a darker location under more transparent skies.

I then had a quick look at Jupiter, but the seeing was not good. The floodlights on the football pitch had been switched off by now, but a haze was growing. I tried a few galaxies (NGC 2962, NGC 2906 and NGC 2911) of around mag 12.5, but conditions did not allow me to spot them, so I turned the scope to NGC 2903, which is very impressive indeed. A good finally to a productive night, with seven new DSOs to add to the list, a couple of old friends, and a couple of failures.

[cotterless45]

Once again a lovely report. Puts our hour of murky glow last night in the shade. We ended up with Monoceros , NGC2169, M35 and Jupiter ,

Nick.

[Double Kick Drum]

Glad to hear you had skies that weren't full of murk. I quickly gave up: the sky was over a magnitude down on perfect.

Thanks for sharing.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Thanks guys. My sky was not perfect, but (near) stellar objects remain visible even through some murk. J320 at mag 13 was near the limit, I would say, and I have seen mag 13.8 -14.0 objects before, so I was close to a mag down on what could be done.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Just noticed that NGC 2251 was already in my logbook. Still seven new DSOs is nice

[alan potts]

Michael,

Nice report and an interesting read, Where do you get all these catalogue numbers from, I have never heard if most of them.

Alan.

[mdstuart]

Really interesting report as always Michael.

love 2903!

I would love to know what your top 25 planetary nebulas list would be.

Mark

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Michael,

Nice report and an interesting read, Where do you get all these catalogue numbers from, I have never heard if most of them.

Alan.

Thanks Alan. How did I find these catalogue numbers? Quite simply: all these targets were in the Sky Atlas 2000.0. Once I spotted these odd indications like J900 and Cr91 it was just a matter of consulting hte introduction for the meaning of these designations and a google search to find more info.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Really interesting report as always Michael.

love 2903!

I would love to know what your top 25 planetary nebulas list would be.

Mark

Thanks Mark. I will have to think about a top 25. All the usual suspects from Messier and Caldwell are in there, I suppose, but a few others have been worthwhile (if only for the difficulty of spotting them).

[KevUU]

And another night at it, you must be well chuffed Michael Good going!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

And another night at it, you must be well chuffed Michael Good going!

I am well chuffed. Three night and the month is yet young. I only managed a single night per month since September, so this makes a nice change.

[Cartman]

I got out my scope too for the first time in ages. First clear night in a few months.

I started with with M31 (very faint near the NW horizon) and Jupiter. Jupiter showed its Galilean moons very bright, one of them on the verge of diving behind it's giant gravitational host. I didn't look up which moon it was though.

I then used my pocket sky atlas to find some new objects -at least new to me-, and managed to tick three new Messiers on my list: M44, M67 and M1.

I was getting a bit discouraged lately. Few clear winter nights made my scope an almost useless purchase. The few times that I had the chance to look up, I couldn't find the DSO's I was looking for. But last night gave me some new hope as a beginning amateur astronomer :-)

Clear skies!