Tales from Santa Luce, Tuscany, Episode IV: Globulars, loads of globulars

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

After a purely solar session on July 29, the first night-time session after my planetary-nebula session was on July 30. The skies were very clear, but seeing was not good, as shown by image of Venus boiling away in the thermals. Saturn was a bit better, but not good enough to start imaging.

I first wanted to correct an error in my DSO spreadsheet. Last year, I had noted NGC 6445 in my written log, and noted that this was called the "Box Nebula." Somehow, this got "corrected" to NGC 6309, which confusingly is also known as the Box Nebula in other sources. As I was planning the session, I went back to my written notes, and concluded the Box Nebula I spotted must have been the former. I found I also had NGC 6445 in the spreadsheet, but without the name. To correct the issue, I added the name to the file, and decided to find Box Nebula NGC 6309 in Ophiuchus as well. It was quite unmistakeable, and easy to spot, especially with UHC filter.

I tried NGC 6439 and NGC 6537 as well, but these were beyond my skills or scope (or both ). As I was in the Ophiuchus area, globular cluster hunting became the next option.

NGC 6517 was easy, a simple star hop to the north of nu Oph. NGC 6539 was a lot harder, and could only be spotted in averted vision. IC 1276 gave slight hints of its presence, but I was not sure, so I decided to try another time. NGC 6535 was much easier, after which I had a go at emission nebula Sh2-64, but this also only gave such vague hints that I judged it a failure.

As a form of relaxation, I scooted around the usual Messier stuff (M25, M24, M23, M16, M17, M18, M8, and M22), enjoying some superb views of these classic objects. After this I found NGC 6325, which was one of the easier captures of the evening.

I then swapped the 22T4 for the 31T5, and turned to the Veil, for the first time using the C8. The 14x70 finder already showed the Western Veil, but the Eastern Veil was elusive. The C8, especially with UHC filter had no difficulties with either. Even Pickering's Wisp was clearly visible. Although the C8 does not provide the wide view of the 80mm APM, I did very much enjoy all the fine detail visible in the bigger instrument.

Finally, I had a look at M51, which showed both nuclei very clearly, along with quite an extensive area of fuzz around them, but the spiral structure was not evident (due to lights of Pisa, most likely).

This ended another enjoyable session.

Next episode:

Great Globular and Wide-Field Shoot-outs

[cotterless45]

Another lovely report, I go back to the Messiers to relax, in most cases without averted vision, Nick.

[avtaram]

A very good and informative report.

Avtar