Clear sky after the rain

[Piero]

After the shower, this evening the sky was quite clear despite the shining Moon. I decided to use my 9mm and 5mm Vixens all evening and focus on some target in Per, Cas, and Cam.

Despite the low visual mag for NGC1501, I could spot this planetary nebula with my OIII filter at 40x. Interestingly, looking back in my notes, I tried to spot this target last year at 15x, 28x + OIII filter, but I failed. It was on the 6th Sep '15 at the same time but in another location with more light pollution. The Moon was not out yet. I guess the combination of low magnification and brighter sky were the reasons why I could not see it..  

Anyway below is my short report. Thanks for reading, 

PIero

 

Date 10/10/2016
Time 21:10-22:20
Lunar Phase Waxing Gibbous 66%
Temperature 6C (NNE 5 km/h)
Seeing 3 - Moderate seeing
Transparency 5 - Clear
Darkness 19.4

M76 Per Pln Neb 40x, 72x +/- UHC
Little Dumbbell. Visible with AV without filter and with DV with filter. It looked like an irregular cloud.

NGC663 Cas Opn CL 40x, 72x
Nice medium size open cluster. I always wonder whether Messier confused M103 with this cluster. It shows about 20 stars.

NGC654 Cas Opn CL 40x, 72x
Smaller than NGC663. 5-8 faint stars.

NGC659 Cas Opn CL 40x, 72x
Smaller than NGC663. 5-6 faint stars.

M103 Cas Opn CL 40x, 72x
8-9 faint stars were detectable.

NGC1502 Cam Opn CL 40x
Lovely open cluster at the bottom of the Cam star chain. Star hopping from CS/CE Cam stars, through the false double star HIP 17342. The latter is a 5.7mag orange with a close 8.40mag blue/grey star. NGC1502 showed about 10-15 stars. The box inside might have more at larger apertures.

NGC1501 Cam Pln Neb 40x +/- OIII
I tried this in the past unsuccessfully. It is described as a 13 visual magnitude target (SB:12.42), beyond the limit of this telescope. At 40x without filter it was completely invisible. With OIII filter a faint filled little circle typical for planetary nebulae at low power was detectable with DV. I repeated the path 4 times from NGC1502: HIP19139, UV Cam, HIP19222, so the jump to HIP19314 and the planetary nebula is slightly at the east. Not sure why it is reported as dark as a 13 mag target. It was definitely there.

 

[jetstream]

Great report Piero!

[FenlandPaul]

Nice report, Piero - and great catch on NGC 1501 - that's a real achievement.  Over here the early evening was rather misty after the heavy rain - you could almost feel the dew coalescing on your skin when you went outside!  But I just popped out this morning at about 5.30 and the sky was amazingly dark, transparent and still - Sirius sat absolutely steady down in the south.  Wish I had time to get the scope out, but had to make do with a 5 minute stand in the garden!

[Piero]

Thanks Paul. It seems there are local climate differences between our observing places. Interesting! When I was out already a good part of my garden was dry and surely there was no mist around. Of course i wouldn't say that the sky was perfectly steady: the Moon showed a very slight wobble already at 72x. Said this there was no dew on my equipment or clothes after coming in. 

[YKSE]

Allway nice when you get clear sky Some OC shall be my targets in the coming days besides the Moon.

[mdstuart]

I always like to look at NGC 663.

Don't forget to look at Eddies rollercoaster in Cassiopeia. Its on P23 of this link but it looks much better and clearer than this indicates.

http://www.spogastro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Asterisms-single-sheets.pdf

Mark

 

[Size9Hex]

Nice one Piero, and that really is a cracking effort on NGC 1501. I've had mixed success on that one with a 10 inch! I like your new avatar image by the way. I caught NGC 604 as a bright fuzzy star in the 4" recently (from a very dark site admittedly) and this experience plus your image got me wondering if you'd hooked it?

[Piero]

@mdstuart Thanks Mark! Really interesting link! I just saved it in my astro docs.  

 

@Size9Hex Thanks Paul! The shower in the late afternoon might likely have helped clear the sky! No, I haven't spotted NGC 604. My suspect is that my only chance with it is under +20.5 mag skies. If it will be clear in a weekend when the Moon is not out, I will cycle to the countryside and try more seriously.