Jump to content

Dipping into the "bowl", amongst other delights

John

By John
in Observing - Reports

Recommended Posts

John

John

Posted
Posted

Pretty good night here tonight for image steadiness but so so for faint DSO's. I had the 12" dob out again.

Having had a really excellent early evening session on the Moon concentrating on the Mare Nectaris and Mare Tranquillitatis areas, then the usual sightseeing around Orion, splitting Sirius, had a lovely view of the Eskimo Nebula with some nice definition of the layered structure of this object at 338x with the central star glowing in the middle of it all.

Split a few more doubles to demonstrate to myself that the seeing was steady. Both 32 and 52 Orionis were split pretty nicely with better component definition than I sometimes manage with this scope. Castor looked like a pair of car headlights on a pitch black night and Beta Monocerotis was a wonderful trio.

Despite the mediocre DSO conditions I got it into my head to have a little fun by trying to see each of the 9 NGC galaxies that the Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas shows within the "bowl" of Ursa Major, that is the rhomboid shape defined by the stars Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe.

Well it took me around 90 minutes to get all 9 of them. In the order I found them:

NGC 3613, 3619, 3610, 3642, 3690, 3780, 3898, 3982 and 3998.

Of these, 3982 was the easiest to spot with 3998 not far from it in the same 1.3 degrees true field. 3642 was pretty faint tonight and 3780 very faint needing averted vision to detect with confidence.

In terms of visual magnitude this lot seem to range between 10.7 and 12 with the latter being around the limit of the conditions tonight.

A satisfying little challenge though, probably some new objects for me and a good way to wait for Jupiter to rise above the conifers, which it probably has done by now so I'd better go and look at it !

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Piero

Piero

Posted
Posted

Nice one! Eskimo at 338x.. must have been impressive! 

Congratulations for catching all the 9 galaxies as indicated by ST inside the plough and good luck with Jupiter. Last week it was really beautiful!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
John

John

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks Piero !

If I'd been prepared to step just a little outside the "bowl" I'd have been able to more than double the amount of galaxies I guess but I stuck to my little plan, on this occasion.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
alan potts

alan potts

Posted
Posted

Nice report John, I must try the 9 in the bowl. Only had about 40 minutes clear tonight here which was not really enough time to do or see a get deal, did look at Castor though I always think it looks like the old catseyes that we used to have on the roads years ago, no such thing here people just drive down the middle of the road, though I use the word drive in it's loosest possible sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lorne

Lorne

Posted
Posted

Sounds a fantastic night. My sessions always seem to be "play it by ear" or I should say "eye" but since I've moved on the flextube Goto I should really have a plan of sorts before I start - those 9 galaxies sound like the ideal way to start off my next session. Though the brightening Moon may make it quite a challenge!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
swamp thing

swamp thing

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, alan potts said:

Nice report John, I must try the 9 in the bowl.

Your going to see a lot more than nine mate. Dark skies and an 18" scope are going to bring out many more..........get ready for a real treat. :)

Nice report John. 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
John

John

Posted
  • Author
Posted
8 hours ago, Hitman77 said:

You have inspired me to go for the Eskimo nebula next time the opportunity presents itself. I have a 12" truss dob and look forward to trying my new TV Delos 4.4mm which would give me similar magnification at 333x

 

Andy

The Eskimo and a number of other planetary nebulae are well worth using high powers on if the seeing conditions are decent. I was using the Ethos SX 4.7mm for the observation reported here.

You Delos 4.5mm should do a great job.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.