The Herschel Catalog ....

[MahlerMoonMan]

Hi folks

I've just come across the Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects on Amazon ....  Over 2500 deep sky objects, suitable for telescopes and binoculars, apparently  ....  I'm just wondering though if there's any real point in me being overly interested in buying such an atlas as this, as I only have a wee ED80 scope, and a pair of 8.5x 42 bins and a 20x 80 bins too ....  I know I'm not very well equipped to seriously go about expecting to bag tiny fuzzies and clusters (and my skies aren't the darkest either being just about 15 miles south of Aberdeen), but would many of the Herschel objects perhaps be within the grasp of an ED80?  Enough of them to actually make this atlas of practical use, rather than just merely a beautiful atlas to own!  I do like the Cambridge star atlases ....  I've got their general star atlas and the double star atlas and I love them!   But I don't know anything about the Herschel objects though, so I'm just not sure that this atlas is really all that appropriate for me ....  Unless I also go and treat myself to a decent Dob!!  

Any thoughts gratefully received

Donaldo

[Dude_with_the_tube]

i am in Cove Donaldo,even closer to Aberdeen and i can still see all Messier objects from my back garden (subject to Messier location of the time obviously),with the darker nights approaching,i will be heading down past Stonehaven to my dark spot what is between Stonehaven and Inverbervie.However,if you are in Aberdeen,you can pop in to have a chat,look at the scopes,have a pint ED80 is a wee nice scope,a bit too small for DSo visual,but will still show you quite a few things,including clusters.

[ronin]

You will get a lot of them I suspect.

An 80mm ED is a pretty good all round scope and will show you a lot more then many think.

Put it like this Charles Messier would have killed for one, so I suspect would William Herschel. :eek:

Quite how long to get through the Herschel Catalogue is a different question, you will need all the dark nights you can get up there.

At 5 a night that is only 500 clear nights, less then 2 years. :grin: :grin:

[AndyWB]

Well, I ordered that atlas yesterday, so I should be able to tell you about it next week. I'm kind of thinking ahead to a post Messier "I'll live somewhere darker" kind of era. I've also got "The complete guide to the Herschel Objects", and have been able to see a few of them with my 130p. 

[MahlerMoonMan]

Hi guys

The wee bit of a star atlas fanatic that I am, I really want to order it ....  It does look worth getting for all the info alone, never mind the beautiful - and almost certainly - and very useful charts themselves!    But, in my old-age (trying to get wiser) I am still asking myself do I really need it when (a) I've got two Cambridge atlases already, and Sky & Telescope's pocket atlas (and binocular version too!), and I've got Sky Atlas 2000.0!  I'm not short of atlases!    And (, I've only got a small ED80 scope, not really a deep sky suited instrument ...    I accept the point made above though that it's an instrument that 200 years ago would have probably served the Messiers and Herschels of that era very well    And I think Stephen James O'Meara sees quite a lot through of fuzzies through similar sized scopes too ....    So perhaps it's not such an inappropriate book for me to get afterall!

Let's just have a wee look back on Amazon again .....

Donaldo

[callump]

I've not had a look at this Atlas, but if you are wanting a starting point the Herschel 400 book by O'Meara would be a good place to start.

There are a good number of NGC objects on most star atlases (that go faint enough) - so i'm not so sure what the Cambridge atlas offers extra...

Having said that, I am a sucker for star atlases too...

/callump

[cotterless45]

It's quite lovely, in case you run out of ideas , the Uranometria 2000.0 is hard to beat ,

Nick.

[Moonshane]

I have just ordered a copy myself. Looks good and I do like to concentrate on a list / area during observing sessions so will be very useful.

[acey]

There are several Herschels (well, 3 that concern us: William, Caroline and John) and there are various Herschel catalogues. My understanding is that the Cambridge atlas contains selected objects found by all three. An 80mm scope at a dark site may show a couple of hundred. The Herschels' discoveries, supplemented by other objects discovered visually in the 19th century, became John Herschel's General Catalogue (GC), and then Dreyer's New General Catalogue (NGC). The designations devised by the Herschels were then dropped in favour of NGC numbers, which have remained standard. So the objects in the Cambridge atlas are a subset of the NGC.

William Herschel discovered approximately 2500 objects using an 18.75 inch telescope which he made himself. All are visible with 12 inches at a dark site, many with less. Herschel deliberately omitted Messier objects from his catalogue but included what are in fact parts of Messiers (eg star clouds in M31, M33), which he considered distinct objects. William classified his objects according to brightness and form: if you subtract Class 2 (faint) and Class 3 (very faint) then you're left with a little over 600 DSOs, all visible in an 8-inch, many in less. All of those objects, I expect, will be plotted in the Cambridge atlas, as well as perhaps some Class 2 or even Class 3.

John Herschel (William's son) set out to re-observe all William's discoveries using a telescope of equal aperture, didn't quite see them all, but discovered several hundred new ones, most of which are a lot less conspicuous than William's objects. He also took his telescope to southern Africa, and from there discovered hundreds of conspicuous southern objects - all of the far-southern objects in the Cambridge atlas will presumably be from these. (Objects discovered by William in England go down to about 30 degrees south, i.e. close to his horizon limit). John, incidentally, has the distinction of discovering both the most northerly and most southerly objects in the NGC (galaxies dubbed Polarissima Borealis and Polarissima Australis). Some of the most conspicuous far-southerly objects were discovered by observers before John Herschel, e.g. Omega Centauri was found by Halley in 1677. I know that John will have included those in his General Catalogue and I'm guessing that they will be plotted.

Caroline (William's sister) mostly acted as assistant, recording observations and eventually preparing a complete catalogue of William's objects with RA and DEC co-ordinates (for which she got the Royal Astronomical Society gold medal), but she also did some comet sweeping with an instrument made by William, discovering several comets and a few DSOs (all fully acknowledged by William, who included them in his own published catalogue). These objects - about half a dozen if I recall correctly - will doubtless be plotted in the Cambridge Atlas.

In recent years an American astronomy club chose a selection from William Herschel's catalogue as the "Herschel 400", all visible with an 8 inch at a dark site. All of these will doubtless be plotted in the atlas. A second 400 list was also produced, I don't know if those will be plotted (at least one object in it is actually non-existent).

Is it worth getting? Personally I think you can never have too many atlases, and being a Herschel fan, I was about to order this one up as soon as I first heard about it - but was disappointed to see that its 2500 objects aren't William's complete catalogue, but a selection from William and John. I also knew that if I did buy it, it would go on my shelf and never be used in the field, as I already have perfectly good atlases for that - if you want to concentrate on Herschel (as I mostly do) then all you need is a list giving the NGC data (see http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/index_e.htm), and any decent atlas.

If you're only going to get one atlas, and you're using an 80mm scope, then I would suggest the S&T Pocket Atlas. This in fact plots all the Herschel 400 objects, all the Messiers, and a lot of other DSOs. It's the right sort of depth (magnitude limit) for an 80mm scope at a dark site. The Cambridge Atlas will plot a lot of objects that you'll have no real chance of seeing-  and unless you have a target list to work from, you'll end up chasing objects you can't see, which isn't fun. Also, if it truly is just a Herschel atlas, then most Messier objects won't be plotted - though perhaps the compilers will use the excuse that John Herschel included them in his General Catalogue.

No harm going for the Cambridge atlas, as long as it won't be the only atlas you use.

[MahlerMoonMan]

Thanks guys!

Just ordered!  I'll see what I can see with my humble wee ED80 ....  But this Herschel catalogue is really for the day (night!) that I have a 10" Dob ....  I think that'll be my next major astronomy purchase, sometime ....

Clear skies!

Donaldo

ps, 'Dude_with_the_tube', I'll take you up on that offer sometime!

[cotterless45]

I was looking through a copy of this at our club night. I've ordered it off Amazon. http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Herschel_400_Observing_Guide.html?id=Nyh9fAC_tpIC&redir_esc=y

Very detailed with full descriptions and finder charts. Don't forget that there are easier brighter Herschels , such as open clusters to kick off with,

Nick.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Sounds interesting. I have now bagged some 800 DSOs with no more than 8" aperture at my disposal, including 516 from the Herschel 2500. I might get that catalogue for when (not if) I get a bigger scope.

[acey]

I clicked the "look inside" on Amazon and read the book's introduction.

There are 32 charts, limiting stellar magnitude 7.5 (about the same as S&T Pocket Atlas).

They show DSOs "suitable for viewing with backyard telescopes in the 2-inch to 14-inch aperture range".

"Notional" DSO mag limit is 12.5 but some fainter objects of "special interest" are plotted.

Herschel 400 objects are designated with an asterisk.

A list of 215 "showpieces" is suggested.

Objects are plotted with their H or h number, not NGC number. (NGC cross-referencing is provided in an appendix).

That final point is one I hadn't appreciated, and is a deal-maker for me - I'm going to get myself a copy. I would use it as a quick reference to tell me which Herschel objects are present in the area of sky I'm interested in, then I'd use a more detailed map (with fainter magnitude limit) to find the target. Or maybe I'll just keep the book on my shelf. Either way, got to have it.

[Rapidray]

Glad you ordered it! A book is knowledge and knowledge is the most powerful weapon in the world. Who knows, tomorrow may bring a better telescope into your life. Enjoy and clear sky's.

[kerrylewis]

I've got the book and confirm that it is good. I'm fascinated by the Herschels family anyway and it's great to see what they saw. The book has a very useful list at the back which you can copy (if you don't want to mark the book) and tick off the objects. I have also cross-referenced it to O'Meara's other books when there is more detail on any object. The body of the book is arranged by month to give you an idea if when is best to observe each object. Recommended

[DRT]

My copy of this arrived today. The star charts are lovely and look very clear and easy to follow.

I also purchased The Complete Guide to the Herschel Objects by Mark Bratton. It is a nice book which provides a description of each object, listed by constellation, with photographs of a selection of what appear to be the more popular targets. I think it makes a good companion to the atlas. One gives you the means of finding the objects and the other provides a description of what you should expect to see.

[acey]

Having bought the book I can add to my previous posts in this thread. I still think it's a very nice atlas, but needs to be used in conjunction with others. The biggest weakness, to my mind, is that the NGC cross referencing only goes one way. I don't have my copy in front of me, but as I recall, the index lists objects by NGC number, and gives the corresponding H or h number (as used in the atlas), but there is no list of objects by H and h number.

This means that if you want, for example, to find NGC 3810 then you look it up in the index and find that its H number is I 21, and it's on chart whatever. On the other hand, if you're using the charts to sweep and find objects, and you manage to see the object plotted as I 20, then you won't be able to tell from the atlas what that object's NGC number is, unless you just read through the whole index looking for it (in fact it's NGC 3666). So really the atlas has to be used in conjunction with an ordered list of H and h numbers cross-referenced to NGC (for example Wolfgang Steinicke's database) - or another atlas.

The one very nice thing is that the atlas plots spurious Herschel objects (e.g. ones that are just alignments of stars). These normally don't get plotted in atlases, so for die-hard Herschel junkies (like me) it's very nice to have an atlas that plots them. Since buying the atlas a month or two ago I've taken it out on every observing session and have used it once, I think - which was to track down one of those non-existent objects. I suspect I'll use it very rarely - just like lots of other atlases I'm happy to own.

For Herschel beginners the S&T Pocket Atlas should be sufficient, while all-out Herschel baggers will need a way of finding all of them, not just a selection. So far I've viewed 1282 William Herschel objects (about half his total) and 126 of John's (a mere tenth of his). I use Great Atlas Of The Sky in conjunction with a print-out of Steinicke's database.

[cotterless45]

Any of Caroline's fans out there should enjoy,

"Caroline's Rose" NGC 7789 in Cassiopeia , a lovely tight star field full cluster and

" Caroline's cluster" NGC 7063 in Cygnus. This is outstandingly bright at x50,

Nick.

[Mark at Beaufort]

I have not bought the Cambridge Herschel Atlas but use the Sky and Telescope Pocket atlas and the Uranometria atlas both north and south. I mainly use a 10" Dob to view the Herschel 400 but often switch to a 4" APO or 6" Newt for quicker grab and go.

My east/west horizon has no light pollution but I am still having difficulty viewing these DSOs - NGC613, 2185, 3621, 6118, 6451 and 6569.

I am sure you will enjoy hunting down some of the brighter DSOs with your 80mm Frac especially some of the brighter star clusters.

[Daniel-K]

i ordered one a few days ago mines spiral bound is yours?

[DRT]

i ordered one a few days ago mines spiral bound is yours?

Yip.

[Special K]

This atlas looks fantastic! Thanks for posting. I love the Tirion approach and have the Cambridge Star Atlas. However I was considering getting a more detailed book because mine only down to 6.5 magnitude. Does this atlas go down to 7.5 and is this the same as the Cambridge Double Star Atlas (which I was also considering until I saw this thread)? Also, does it contain all the Messiers? Sorry for all the questions but images are hard to come by on the net, rightly due to copyrights.

[DRT]

Does this atlas go down to 7.5

I don't know what the dimest object in the index is but I just had a quick browse and there doesn't appear to be a lower limit - lots of objects with double-digit magnitude numbers

[acey]

This atlas looks fantastic! Thanks for posting. I love the Tirion approach and have the Cambridge Star Atlas. However I was considering getting a more detailed book because mine only down to 6.5 magnitude. Does this atlas go down to 7.5 and is this the same as the Cambridge Double Star Atlas (which I was also considering until I saw this thread)? Also, does it contain all the Messiers? Sorry for all the questions but images are hard to come by on the net, rightly due to copyrights.

The Herschel atlas has limits 7.5 mag for stars and 12.5 mag for DSOs (though some fainter DSOs are also plotted). Messiers are plotted with their M number, all other DSOs are plotted with H or h number (not NGC number). I don't have the double star atlas but its stellar limit is also 7.5 apparently:

http://www.cambridge.org/asia/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521493437&ss=exc

[Special K]

Thanks folks for the info.  As both atlases go down to 7.5 magnitude for stars I think I'll opt for this one!