Unusual planetary nebulaes and some dim galaxies

[VilleM]

I had yet another great weekend at Tähtikallio observatory in Finland. First night was clear until sunrise washed out stars. Second night was good until clouds rolled in few hours after sunset.
I had a ton of airglow on first night, although seeing was excellent. This limited my observable objects to magnitude 14-15. I usually can see even mag 16 objects with our scope, 36" f/3.5 Astrofox folded Newtonian. Left side dome is for photographic purposes only, housing Alluna 16" RCOS. On the right is dome for Astrofox which barely fits inside the observatory. Shortly after I took that photograph I viewed Venus with 800x magnification. It was still very bright!

Also outside the photo, right from the big dome there is small dome for 16" Meade SCT.
My personal favorites from these are NGC1514 and NGC7008, both of these planetary nebulae were completely new to me. Its always fascinating to see new objects. NGC5981 was also great with two other galaxies in the view.

[YKSE]

Very nice sketches and impression observatory

May I ask why you chose 42mm eyepiece over 17mm in some sketches?

[Paul73]

A cracking set of sketches from a great weekend of observing!

The best thing about reports with sketches is that when I get to the eyepiece, I know what to expect.

Should the fourth sketch be labeled NGC3187 rather than 3189?

NGC1514 is a new one for me. It is on my list for the next outing.

Paul

[Owmuchonomy]

Very interesting topic and write up.  Thanks for posting.

[VilleM]

6 hours ago, YKSE said:

Very nice sketches and impression observatory

May I ask why you chose 42mm eyepiece over 17mm in some sketches?

Thanks, I chose 42mm for some of these because it gives brighter image and wider FoV. I personally like to have object bit smaller in the FoV, I can tickle out more details that way when I can use averted vision more freely.

[YKSE]

VilleM, I'd ask a couple of more questions if I may.

Did you use any coma corrector(CC) with your eyepieces? have you tried without a CC? Is the coma more visible in 17mm or in 42mm without CC?

[VilleM]

15 hours ago, YKSE said:

VilleM, I'd ask a couple of more questions if I may.

Did you use any coma corrector(CC) with your eyepieces? have you tried without a CC? Is the coma more visible in 17mm or in 42mm without CC?

Unfortunately its not my scope / eyepieces. Its available for all Ursa Astronomical Association members.

But no, it doesnt have CC. Im not too picky about good stars in visual observations.

[YKSE]

Ah, your observing habit are like mine, mostly on-axis, out field for reference only.

My questions are more about the effect of using 42mm in a f3.5 scope, to my understanding, it stops down the scope, make it effectively a much slower scope than f3.5, therefore the coma in 42mm should be noticeable less than in 17mm (with 17mm, the scope is still operating at f3.5). This is only my guess though, if it's totally wrong,  I'd be glad to know

[VilleM]

4 minutes ago, YKSE said:

Ah, your observing habit are like mine, mostly on-axis, out field for reference only.

My questions are more about the effect of using 42mm in a f3.5 scope, to my understanding, it stops down the scope, make it effectively a much slower scope than f3.5, therefore the coma in 42mm should be noticeable less than in 17mm (with 17mm, the scope is still operating at f3.5). This is only my guess though, if it's totally wrong,  I'd be glad to know

I havent heard before that diffrent eyepieces stop down scope. With 42mm image is brighter than with 17mm. Also 42mm shows more coma.

[YKSE]

Good to know that.

That 42mm stops down the scope is based on the exit pupil, it gives 12mm in f3.5, while not many observers have so large exit pupil, usually 7mm or 8mm is max, so the observers' eyes work as effectively as aperture stop-down.

[Knighty2112]

Wow! Viewing Venus at 800x magnification must have filled the fov right up! ?

Nice sketches. Wish I had access to such a beast to view the night sky! Well done!  

[JOC]

What lovely facilities.  Do you all work these types of sketches on black paper with grey/white pencils or do you process a normal pencil image on white paper in some way.

[VilleM]

2 hours ago, JOC said:

What lovely facilities.  Do you all work these types of sketches on black paper with grey/white pencils or do you process a normal pencil image on white paper in some way.

I invert colours of my sketches in post processing. Anything that has curves tool, for example Photoshop works great.

[YKSE]

3 hours ago, VilleM said:

I havent heard before that diffrent eyepieces stop down scope. With 42mm image is brighter than with 17mm. Also 42mm shows more coma.

Just to be sure, is it solely coma more obvious in 42mm, or the mixture of astigmatism and coma more obvious in 42mm?

[VilleM]

I dont know. Probably both.

[RobertI]

What a fantastic facility. Thanks for sharing your observations, it's really interesting to what some well known objects look like in a 36" scope. 

[VilleM]

11 hours ago, RobertI said:

What a fantastic facility. Thanks for sharing your observations, it's really interesting to what some well known objects look like in a 36" scope. 

For example, M42 shows some colour. So does NGC6543. M13 left me speechless with 500x.