Deep Sky Observation Notes - 18th July 2017

[MarsG76]

Observation 18 July 2017

Date: 18th July 2017 @ 18:50 – 22:20AEST

Location: Backyard

Equipment: 14” Skywatcher GOTO Dobsonian, Televue 31mm Nagler T5 , Televue 17mm Ethos, Televue 11mm Nagler T6, Televue 2X Powermate, Astronomik UHC filter.

 

Omega Centauri: Omega Centauri, NGC5139, never seems to disappoint, the view at 100X was like a glistening ball of stars resembling a disco ball made of millions of points of light.

 

Centaurus A Galaxy: The view was very similar to how I saw it the last time I was looking at Centaurus A. It was a like a upside down hazey trinagle split in the middle and separated. The haze and the dark lane are easily visible. Dust lane seemed to have a faint glow within it, almost like something glowing faintly within it.

 

M83: Southern Spiral Galaxy is very faint, but the "S" shape just barely visible between two stars with averted vision at 100X but somewhat easier at 200X. That said it is still a difficult object to see. I’ll revisit it when the sky is either darker or when I’m at a dark sky site, perhaps there will be more of the galaxy visible in the eyepiece, I would have thought that for a magnitude 8.5 this galaxy would not only be easier to see but more of its shape would be visible.

 

M104: Tonight averted vision was needed to see the UFO like or sombrero shape of the galaxy. The galaxy detail described is visible at both 100X and 200X magnifications but 200X makes it somewhat easier to see. The dust lane is quite easily visible and so is the star near the sombrero but it is not as obvious as last time.

 

M17: The swan shape is very easy to see at any magnification, at 100X there is some nebulosity visible around it, not as much as before but still a far bit visible. Swan looks shaded and irregular. When magnified 200X it starts to make the swan look obviously irregular fluffy at 300X the fluffy and cloudy shading is easy to see.

 

M8: The Lagoon was easily visible as whisps along with the general recognisable shape of the Lagoon nebula. The fine details and the fainter nebula extents that I saw in May were not there tonight due to the bright sky, it looked more like haze or a fog in the general shape of the Lagoon nebula. Best view was at 100X magnification.

 

M16: The "E" shape of the Eagle Nebula was not as easy to see as last time due to the skyglow, and I had to use averted vision to see it. The star cluster within it was also not as bright as on the 1st  May but there was definitely a darker shading where the main pillar is just below the fainter of the two brightest stars in the eagle when looking in orientation where the “eagle” is flying to the right. The best view of the eagle tonight was magnified 100X & 200X.

 

M20: The flower, or Trifid, part was visible with the dark lanes splitting it into three also very easily visible. Within the Trifid, the two brightest stars were also visible as two distinct points of light. The blue region to the right of the Trifid was also glowing with nebulosity. Easiest to see the detail using the UHC filter and magnified 100X.

 

NGC4755: I wanted to catch the Jewel Box cluster at 300X before it went behind the house, but unfortunately half of the light was already cut out by the house so I didn’t really see anything that was impressive. The shape of the Jewel box was unmistakable but there were not that many stars, only really the main ones, even the red/orange “jewel” was a very pale gray with a hint of orange to it. Yeah, definitely left it only about 15 minutes too late.

 

M22: The Globular cluster had speckled stars throughout the “sphere”. There was a haze glowing in the center from, what I think, are stars that are not resolved into individual points. The cluster resembled a much smaller version of Omega Centauri. Best view of this globular cluster was magnified 200X.

 

Saturn Nebula: The Saturn Nebula looked like a greenish oval. At first impression it didn’t look like anything more than a very faint out of focus Saturn during really bad seeing. I magnified it 100X, 200X & 300X and used a UHC filter to observe, the best easiest to see view was at 200X but at 300X I think there was some shading coming through within the nebula when using averted vision.

 

Pavo Globular: The Pavo Cluster was similar in the eyepiece to M22, just a little smaller. I magnified it 200X where it was quite big and easy to see with direct observation. The individual stars sprinkled throughout the globular with some bright stars throwing themselves to attention at the outer edges of the globular, with the core of the Globular having aglow to it, created by perhaps stars that were not resolvable as individual points of light.

 

NGC6537: I had a quick look for the “Red Spider Nebula” but being magnitude 13.1 it was not visible. It shouldn’t be beyond the grasp of the telescope but perhaps the seeing condition, namely tonight’s sky glow, might have washed it out. If I get a chance to be observing during a moonless night while the Red Spider is above head, I’ll look for it again in the future.

 

NGC6302: The Butterfly Nebula was seen as a bright center with fuzzy wings extending out to the sides. The shape of the “wings” does resemble the shape of a butterfly, hence the name but the actual object is quite small in the FOV. When using averted vision, there seemed to be some darker shadings coming through in the wings. The best view of the nebula was using a UHC filter magnified 200X & 300X.

 

Overall it was a very good night of observing even though the sky tonight had some glow to it, plainly visible when eyes were dark adapted and so limited deep sky faint detail. The glow was bright enough to the point where the Milky way was nowhere near as clearly or deeply visible as when I was observing on the 1st May. There was some Lightning activity in the east over the ocean.

There was a slight wind to begin with but as the temperature dropped so did the wind speed and frequency of the gusts increase, toward the end it was too windy and cold for me to keep observing with any comfort so I called it a night.

 

 

Thanks for reading,

Clear skies

 

 

[Littleguy80]

Really good report. Lots of interesting targets and a few that I'd not heard of before. I'm too far north to see Omega Centauri but I certainly enjoyed reading your description of it

[barkis]

Nice concise report MG76.  Our Oz. members will appreciate the information you've supplied 
on these Southern Hemisphere  Objects, and us Northern dwellers too will find the descriptions very interesting.
Thanks for the time you've donated to us in making your report .

[johnfosteruk]

Cracking set of notes, a very productive session. I'd nearly forgotten that I really want to travel south of the equator for a decent view of O Centauri until you reminded me, so thanks for that

 

[MarsG76]

10 hours ago, barkis said:

Nice concise report MG76.  Our Oz. members will appreciate the information you've supplied 
on these Southern Hemisphere  Objects, and us Northern dwellers too will find the descriptions very interesting.
Thanks for the time you've donated to us in making your report .

Sharing astro experiences with other astronuts is part of the hobby, me thinks... 

I'm quite sure that most of the objects that I observed that night are also visible from the northern hemisphere...

[MarsG76]

1 hour ago, johnfosteruk said:

Cracking set of notes, a very productive session. I'd nearly forgotten that I really want to travel south of the equator for a decent view of O Centauri until you reminded me, so thanks for that

 

Do it... Omega Centauri is something else compared to the other globular clusters, there are some impressive ones, but than there's the Omega... it is big.. in a 8" or bigger scope, it is also quite bright...

[MarsG76]

13 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

Really good report. Lots of interesting targets and a few that I'd not heard of before. I'm too far north to see Omega Centauri but I certainly enjoyed reading your description of it

I'm glad you enjoyed it, some of these objects are first sightings for me also... as I wrote above, if you're ever on holidays further south, try to make the effort to see some southern objects in a telescope... Omega Cent, Carina nebula, jewel box, tarantula nebula, to name a few.