Hunting the Fox

[Davesellars]

Desperate to get out after almost a couple of weeks off I took the chance of the seemingly clear sky at 11pm to go to my site armed with my eyepieces, iPad and a thermos of hot chocolate...  On arrival it was pretty obvious though that it wasn't going to be good.  High clouds strewn across the place it was certainly going to be a challenge for DSOs.   The Moon had also just risen its ugly self above the horizon as if it wasn't going to be difficult enough.  I finished setting up the C8 on the EQ5 and warmed up on M57 where the sky was at for the moment mercifully clear...

M57 - No colour in the ring seen tonight.  Normally I can make some out at low magnification.  However the ring was beautiful showing it's oval appearance nicely at 116x  The transparency seemed OK at least where the sky was clear.

M13 - Some clouds now wafting through occasionally but at times the great cluster showed its stuff resolving reasonably well but no way on par with when I last viewed it with no Moon and exceptional transparency.  Goes to show that it really pays to come back often to objects.

OK...  It was time to hit some of the clusters around Vulpecula to knock these of the H400 list.

CR 399 - Coathanger Open Cluster - Rather oddly this is the first time I've observed this and came upon it quite by chance on the way to NGC 6802 on the Herschel 400 list.  Showed its best in the 60mm finder due to its size.

NGC 6802 - Open Cluster - Fail.  I couldn't make out any semblance of a cluster in its proposed position.  Not dark enough or the transparency killing it I guess!

NGC 6823 - Open Cluster - OK, that's more like it.  Bright, compact cluster showing nicely with the 11mm ES82 for 116x.  A good smattering of brighter stars making a kind of lop-sided X with quite a few low mag stars within the entire cluster.

NGC 6830 - Open Cluster - Light small cluster fairly indistinct in shape

M27 - Always surprises me the size of this nebula!  At 116x showing the nebula very brightly like a  cotton wool like fuzz floating in front of the star field.  This time though I could not easily distinguish "apple core" the shape 

NGC 6885 - Open Cluster - Large open cluster around bright star 20 Vul.  Interesting variation of star brightness in the cluster and a considerable amount of stars viewed.  Believe there's more to this as well so will be re-visiting on a Moon-less night

NGC 6882 - Open Cluster - I believe that the designation of this is the small cluster that's hardly distinguishable as it starts to run in to 6885.  However there is a cluster of a 6 stars of approx equal magnitude with one brighter star close to 19 Vul.

NGC 6834 - Open Cluster - A line of stars that hooks back.  Some fainter stars starting to be resolved within this brighter "asterism".

A bit of a break and rather aptly my friendly fox decides to come by to say hi... I've nothing for him and doubt he's that partial to hot chocalate so he wanders off probably muttering to himself that the strange person that has the cheek to come in the middle of the night to his patch doesn't bring "free" sandwiches anymore for him to steal while my back's turned.

M39 - Large cluster mainly made up of bright mag stars.  Nice but shows much better with a wide-field refractor than the C8.

NGC 6905 - Blue Flash Nebula (Mag 10.8) - This was quite a surprise!  Considerably bright planetary nebula showing an irregular shape at 191x.   No colour nor difference in appearance within the nebula

I shot on over to the Moon and scanned around for a while.  The seeing seemed very good.  At 191x it held a very steady image and showed with astonishing clarity Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis.  The entire terminator was a joy to view taking in the contrast given by the shadow. The mountains(?) within the crater Aristillus were superbly shown and sharp.

2am and clouds were coming in quick and thickly now so I packed up.  It was nice to get out for a session at least but a shame the clouds kind of put a damper on it all through the session.  Hopefully will get a few more opportunities this week though!

[Knighty2112]

Nice report, even with the clouds scudding across.  

[Size9Hex]

Nice one Dave. Great session and great read as always.

I've struggled with NGC 6802 in the 10" but I think mainly because it didn't look like I was expecting it to look. It was one of those objects where I learned something new (i.e that clusters don't always look like clusters!). My notes below in case it helps. I suspect you're right that anything other than good transparency could squash this one.

Not well visible at low mag, with 180x proving good. Resolved a few stars from it with averted vision, but overall impression of an unresolved glow with a somewhat elongated rectangular shape and pinched in the middle.

[alan potts]

Nice report Dave, I too feel it is so important to put down when you fail to see something, a fair collection of targets nonetheless.

[Special K]

Free sandwiches?!  I'd show up for that......plus a look through the C8  

Great report on those objects.  I thought of the Foxfur Nebula because of the title, but is too early in Autumn for that lovely one!  

Clear skies. 

[laudropb]

Nice report of a productive session Dave. Clouded out here as usual.

[DeepSkyBagger]

Good night!

NGC 6802: This is quite a rich, compressed cluster, but most of the stars are below 15th magnitude. I made an observation a couple of years ago with my 12" Newtonian. I counted half a dozen stars of about 14th magnitude. The brightest star is magnitude 12.6, so I'm not really surprised that you didn't see it with the C8.

NGC 6882 and 6885 are these days considered to be the same object. Herschel listed two objects here, but modern research has more or less proved that he listed the same thing twice. The bright asterism next to it including 18 and 19 Vul is simply that. The observation gives you two Herschels for the price of one - 20 H.VIII and 22 H.VIII! My description of NGC 6885 as follows: A large, loose cluster centred on 5.9 mag 20 Vulpeculae, which may not be a member of the cluster as it is so much brighter than all the other stars. About 50 stars were counted, formed into a triangle about 15 – 20’ long on each side. In the centre of the triangle is a near-void, in which 20 Vul lies. The stars are generally 9th – 13th mag.

BTW, if you're using a tablet at night, I hope you're covering it with rubylith. If not, you're destroying your night vision every time you look at it. Just switching apps to 'night mode' doesn't work.