A lovely night and a link with the past

[John]

It's been a lovely clear, dark and cold night here tonight. No moon to wash away the deep sky objects and some of the best regions of the sky parading across the sky from east to west.

I've been using my 12" dobsonian and, in the main, I've relaxed and visited the old favorites in Orion, Gemini and later Leo.

For a couple of hours I did have a little "galaxy fest" at the front end of Leo, picking up 10 NGC galaxies that I'd not seen before, including the interesting but rather challenging interacting pair of NGC 3226 and 3227 tucked into the nape of the lions neck behind the lovely double star Algieba.

Of all the targets I saw tonight, the one that give me the nicest feeling was the rather faint and innocuous open cluster NGC 2420 in Gemini, not far from the well known Eskimo Nebula. I'd had a nice long look at the Eskimo when I noticed this open cluster on my star atlas nearby and more or less right on the Ecliptic.

I slipped a 24mm eyepiece into the scope (66x) and moved across to where the cluster was shown. It was not visible in my 9x50 optical finder but the spot was not difficult to find and I soon found a lovely, if a little faint, grouping of 50+ stars occupying the center of my field of view in the scope. The overall magnitude of the cluster is given as 8.3 with the brightest stars being around magnitude 11. The effect is a subtle "spray" of glittering points and really rather nice.

I popped back inside for a cuppa and did a little research into NGC 2420 as it was not an object that I had observed before. Like so many DSO's, it was one of William Herschels discoveries, in this case made with his 18" scope on the 19th of November 1783. What was even more interesting was that my internet search led me to a website created by Math Heijen dedicated to observing stars and open clusters. It's not been updated for a while but here is a link:

http://www.starobserver.eu/

The page on NGC 2420, as well as having a nice observing report and drawing of the cluster made using the same scope that I was using for this session, also included a copy of Herschels original observing notes for the discovery. Here is a link to Math's page on this object:

http://www.starobserver.eu/openclusters/ngc2420.html

It was thrilling seeing the observation in Herschels handwriting and I do love Herschels description of seeing this object for the first time:

"Cluster of stars very beautiful and close; of a considerable extent, perhaps 6 or 8' ; 2 degrees Sw following .. (63) Geminorum; ...(48) mvp; I counted 50 or more .. suspect perhaps double that number"

Nearly 233 years apart and using an instrument of not vastly dissimilar performance, I'd had a very similar impression of this beautiful group of faint stars. Stuff like this is what the hobby is all about for me. The rain and clouds of the past couple of months seem a more distant memory now

 

[cotterless45]

Excellent post and super links.

 It was a cracking night here. NGC 2420 is a lovely target. I went the other way and had a quite spell binding 90mm f11 night. The first target, comfortable at x200 was NGC 2392, the Eskimo. I was with you part of the way, visiting old favourites to see what was possible,

Nick.

[Paul73]

Nice posting John

Glad that the clouds stayed away. Leo is a cracking costalation for multiple galaxies in the same FOV. did you catch the very faint NGC3222 at mag 12.8 in the same FoV? This is the faintest Galaxy that I've caugh in my scope from the garden.

Paul

[mdstuart]

Great post. You should write a book!

It was a lovely evening. I started with comet Catalina which I am sure had a tail...then went galaxy hunting in Leo Minor. I revised the ngc3158 group and the lovely pair ngc 3195/6.

As you say the wet winter felt like a distant memory.

Mark

[estwing]

Nice report John..those spring galaxies are almost here!

[Paul73]

3 minutes ago, estwing said:

Nice report John..those spring galaxies are almost here!

You need to be getting up earlier! They are here now!??

Paul

[Paul73]

14 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

Great post. You should write a book!

It was a lovely evening. I started with comet Catalina which I am sure had a tail...then went galaxy hunting in Leo Minor. I revised the ngc3158 group and the lovely pair ngc 3195/6.

As you say the wet winter felt like a distant memory.

Mark

Mark

NGC3195/6?? Have you got the right numbers?

Well done on the ngc3158 group. That is getting properly faint!

Paul

 

 

 

 

[John]

2 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Nice posting John

Glad that the clouds stayed away. Leo is a cracking costalation for multiple galaxies in the same FOV. did you catch the very faint NGC3222 at mag 12.8 in the same FoV? This is the faintest Galaxy that I've caugh in my scope from the garden.

Paul

Thanks Paul,

I had a a very slightly milky sky last night so mag 12 - 12.5 was my limit on this occasion. I've seen stuff at least another magnitude fainter on more transparent nights but I wanted to make the best of the 1st clear and moonless night that I've had for ages so went for some galaxies anyway 

[laudropb]

Very nice report John. A most entertaining read and lovely links. By co-incidence I too had look at NGC2420 last night. First time I have tried and well worth the view, even though seeing was not great here.

[YKSE]

John, Excellent session you had there,

yes 3226 and 3227 were among more challenging galaxies in backyard, the neighboring 3222 is of smaller size with better surface brightness tha n3226/3227, needed higher mag to bring forward as I read in my note for about two years ago.

[mdstuart]

5 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Mark

NGC3195/6?? Have you got the right numbers?

Well done on the ngc3158 group. That is getting properly faint!

Paul

 

 

 

 

Paul

Sorry ngc 3395/6....

They make a wide v shape...

Mark

 

[Pig]

Great report John  a couple of great links too.

It is looking nice and clear hear at the moment, fingers crossed, so I may be able to get a couple of hours outside

[Size9Hex]

Great stuff (as always!). Sterling work on those new galaxies. I picked up a grand total of zero galaxies in that area last night. Need to explore elsewhere and patiently wait for it to swing round past the light pollution I think :-)

[Special K]

Great report!  Funny I was looking at my atlas and noticed that small nearby cluster to the Eskimo this week after having observed the nebula. I was so close, just a turn of the RA knob away from it!  Sounds excellent, I'll be sure to give this a try.