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Friday night's good for galaxies

Davesellars

By Davesellars
in Observing - Reports

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Davesellars

Davesellars

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Nice and clear - crystal clear actually not one cloud in the sky and the stars seemed to have that touch extra brightness to them. I'd setup for just gone 10pm with the C8 and astro-dark was just about to kick in so I warmed up on M13 and a couple of Messiers before moving on to the H400 objects... I was itching to get at some galaxies!

M13 - Really spectacular. Starting from 53x where the glob was just a mass of pin-point stars to 190x were the propeler shape was prominent a mass of brighter stars to the forefront but also the core starting to resolve with a bit of help of averted vision. With ES68 24mm eyepiece the galaxy NGC 6207 was in the same view and pretty clear even at this low magnification.

NGC 6207 Spiral Galaxy mag 11.3 - OK. I can see this right off so I know the transparecny is pretty good. Using 116x shows the angle of the spiral galaxy with ease. Some extension to the bright core to both sides.

M92 - Bright core and easily resolved right down the core. Outside of the central core there appears to be a "swirl" of bright stars with a mass of fuzz behind.

M101 - The core fairly bright this time and showing slightly more or a mottled appearance at the centre with 53x. Bumping up the magnification to 116x there are hints of the arms particularly at the north of the galaxy.

NGC 3147 Spiral Galaxy mag 10.4 (New) - Very bright small core with lighter . Kind of round in appearance. At 190x more than the core could be seen but light in appearance

M81 Spiral Galaxy - I don't remember M81 ever appearing this bright before. The core is huge and extremely bright There is a touch of a spiral arm structure perhaps? The "nebulosity" almost encompasses the two mag 11+ stars. 

M82 Spiral Galaxy - Large and irregular long shape a definite bulge in the centre and fatter at one end of the galaxy. Very clear mottled appearance and difference in features throughout the galaxy surface. Awesome view with the 24mm EP getting both M81 and M82 in the same field.

NGC 40 Planetary nebula mag 10.6 (New) - Quite stellar like bit with irregular nebulosity surrounding it. It is fairly small and requires a decent magnification to get to see the nebulosity at its best.

NGC 7822 Nebula (New) - Using the UHC filter with the 24mm eyepiece I was surprised to immediately see in the field very distinct lighting of areas and what appeared to be dark areas within the entire field and some outline occasionally.

LBN 581 Nebula (New) - Again with the UHC filter there is a distinct lighting of the area where the nebula is. Moving away from the area results in the darkening of the sky. However, not distinct features nor outline as could be seen with 7822 at times.

NGC 404 - Mirach's Ghost Elliptical Galaxy mag 10.2 (New) - Surprisingly easy to see considering it's promximity to the bright Mirach. Quite It is definitely oblong in shape there is a very slight increase in brightness at the centre but otherwise the galaxy remains featureless.

M31/M32/M110 - M31 quite something tonight! Going to 116x there are distinct dust lanes particularly to the south almost seemingly encompassing M32 which is extremely bright, M110 is much easier to see than all other previous nights. Even visible without boosting the power overly and the obvious shape and angle of the spiral galaxy this time was seen with ease.

NGC 185 Elliptical Galaxy mag 9.2 (New) - Fairly faint but obviousl elliptical.

NGC 7814 Spiral Galaxy mag 10.4 (New) - Extremely faint averted visiob helping just to get a reasonable glimpse of this. Difficult to make out any shape apart from its central core which is small.

NGC 7479 (Barred Spiral Galaxy mag 11 (New) - Wow this hurts your eyes. Using 190x to get anything other than a slight stellar point. There is a thin faint short streak either side of the stellar core.

NGC 7331 Spiral Galaxy mag 9.3 (New) - A bit more like it or my eyes are adjusting! Very bright core and obvious angle of the spiral seen with some extension to the core.

Stephan's Quintet (New) - A challenge to be sure with 8"  Using 190x I can just make repeatedly one very small patch of grey lighting up the sky - a small oblong shape. Occasionally there seems to be something else there next to it but I can't be sure.

NGC 7217 Spiral Galaxy mag 10.1 (New) - Bright core with very slight mottled appearance across the surface.

I took a break at 2am and while this happened a bank of fog seemed to come out of no-where. The Moon has recently risen as well and was now encompassed in a massive halo. It kind of passed while I packed up but there was now also quite a significant amount of high cloud in the sky there was drifting across. I'd got my fix though of galaxies so I was happy and get back at a reasonable time at least for once...

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Paul73

Paul73

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Great session Dave. You are really working that C8 hard! There are some faint faint targets on that list. NGC185 is surprisingly faint (I've never managed its neighbour NGC147).

Stephan's Quintet is on my list for tomorrow night. Previous attemps have drawn a blank. I'll try upping the magnification to close to your 190x.

Paul

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Davesellars

Davesellars

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On 8/28/2016 at 08:51, FenlandPaul said:

Great report, Dave - always good to remember that galaxy fests aren't just for Spring!!  Some great targets there and some super detail you've been able to tease out.

Thanks, Paul.  We're lucky in a way so far up in latitude we've always got plenty of galaxies available for observing throughout the year.  There's so many around Pegasus, Pisces and Andromeda however a good lot of them need a bit more aperture than I have I guess a good lot of them are on the Herschel H2 and H3 lists.  I'm trying for some of the other galaxy groups around here to see what I can tease out.

 

On 8/27/2016 at 07:16, Stu said:

Cracking one yet again Dave, you are certainly getting some excellent sessions in. I love your reports, very descriptive and enjoyable to read :)

Thanks, Stu!  I've been pretty lucky in the last couple of months to get some good ones in for sure with some nice transparent nights.

 

On 8/28/2016 at 10:37, alan potts said:

Really nice read there Dave, M92 is stunning with a bit of coal on the fire using the 18 inch, I've had it up to over X300, superb sight.

Thanks, Alan!  Indeed M92 shows very well and a relatively easy one to resolve down to the core.  I'd dearly love that kind of aperture though!  I'll be saving up for a decent size dob most likely 12" but perhaps 14"...  something that'll give me capability with the faint Herschel galaxies and better resolving power for these globs.

 

23 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Great session Dave. You are really working that C8 hard! There are some faint faint targets on that list. NGC185 is surprisingly faint (I've never managed its neighbour NGC147).

Stephan's Quintet is on my list for tomorrow night. Previous attemps have drawn a blank. I'll try upping the magnification to close to your 190x.

Thanks, Paul!  The C8 seems to gained a new lease of life since I collimated it recently!  It was a bit out but after collimation I've noticed more capability from it regarding resolving DSOs and light capture and enabling more to use more power.   I forgot I actually tried NGC 147 as it so close to NGC 185 but I couldn't see anything either.   Perhaps need a few more inches aperture :p (well that's my excuse anyway... ;))    Good luck with Stephan's Quintet!

 

17 hours ago, John said:

Stephens Quintet is a tough target - I seem to recall that we struggled to see much of it through a 20" at the Lucksall site last year.

I've done some reading about this group regarding seeing it and seems like with excellent transparency (and much darker site than I have all should be visible (but perhaps not all resolvable as separate entities with 10".   That's bad luck not to get it with 20" - Lucksall doesn't look overly dark though? (going by the site LightPollutionMap.Info)

 

12 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Good stuff! Friday night was superb here in Oxon, wasn't it? 

Yeah!  Hope you took advantage of it!  The transparency was superb!  Unfortunately we don't get too many nights that without the Moon in play...

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chiltonstar

chiltonstar

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2 minutes ago, Davesellars said:

 

 

Yeah!  Hope you took advantage of it!  The transparency was superb!  Unfortunately we don't get too many nights that without the Moon in play...

Certainly did! I had my 180 Mak out looking at doubles (& Uranus/Neptune) and my wide field kit out taking images of the view!

Chris

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Paul73

Paul73

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Obviously inches help (a lot). But, dark transparent sky is the key. Just look at what Mr O'Meara can spot with 4" from Hawaii!!

Lucksal isn't a particularly dark site. Miles better than a suburban garden. But, the company is good, and there are always targets being obseved that are new.

Paul

 

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Davesellars

Davesellars

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Yeah it's pretty amazing the detail he teases out with just 4" and 5" with the Secret Deep (if I remember rightly).  just goes to show how much LP diminishes the capability of larger aperture.

If it looks like being a decent night I may well come to the SGL star party at Lucksall at the end of October.  Would be nice to meet a few folk from here!

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Davesellars

Davesellars

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51 minutes ago, Stu said:

How dark are your skies then Dave, they must be pretty good to see some of that faint stuff?

Minimum mag 5 with no Moon.  Some areas are better than others. From the south above 50 degrees going west to north the sky is really dark as there's no real residential LP.  The worst I have is directly to the east hitting the light dome of Oxford over some flats which cause reasonable local LP but this is not too bad after midnight.  I'd say in some areas is around 5.5 magnitude

Id say though that apart from NELM the real key to the getting the faint stuff is transparency.  This night was particularly good and we've had a few very good ones during July and August.

Most of what I'm observing though isn't that faint.  Some on the H400 are definitely proving very hard and have to wait for great conditions but in general most are OK with mag 5 NELM.

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