AND NGC 404 Galaxy and Little Dumbbell!

[N3ptune]

Hello everyone, this is the log of my latest observation (A good one again)

2017-09-25 +-10celcius, medium humidity, seeing and transparency were good, a great night with around 4.5 hours of observation. 21:00 to 1:30 (UT 2:00 to 6:30) 203x1000 Newtonian used in my great field spot (:

The milkyway was fantastic with Cyngus over the top, clearly visible with some cloudy definition, the night was a success only because of that.

MOON: First the moon, was really low at 21:00, (moonset @ 21:30) with a rich yellow/orange color, a 18.4% crescent beautiful (I like the when the moon is a thin crescent). This is a very fast sketch.. bellow, just to remember the picture forever.. it's totally unfinished but it is a great red memory for me.

ELEPHANT'S TRUNK: I had to look at this one again, has discussed before, to locate the nebulosity. Frankly it's not clear at ALL if I saw anything. But the cluster itself is massive and packed with so many stars, unbelievable. Although, the black space dark patch was located this time. So I guess it's half way from total success, lovely cluster.
EP: 25mm/40x + Narrowpassband filter and 31mm EP /31x

--> So many stars there!! wow

ANDROMEDA'S GREAT GALAXY: Very large, filling maybe half the TFOV @ 31mm (2.24 degrees). Very bright too.

ANDROMEDA - NGC404 GALAXY (SKETCH BELLOW): A great suggestion from  @MarsG76. It's the first time I look at this galaxy, it's close to Mirach star, magnitude of the galaxy 10.10. It took maybe 15 seconds to appear in the FOV and it was found using a 25mm 40x eyepiece. I could see it steady but averted vision helped a lot. The angle of the galaxy is uncertain on the sketch, my best power to enjoy it was 25mm + 2x barlow, 80x.

PEGASUS MARKAB STAR: A very blue star

CASSIOPEIA CAROLINE'S ROSE (NGC 7789):  Very easy to locate @40x in this massively rich in star sector. Center is packed (all the FOV actually) I can see, the central part looks like a rose too, petals. (it has carved paths of space inside the core, drawing the petals made out of stars?) One of the most beautiful cluster..

PERSEUS - THE LITTLE DUMBBELL (M76) (SKETCH BELLOW): Hey! the first time I see this planetary!!! this is a lot of happiness to discover an impressive new nebula like the Little Dumbbell. I found it at 55x with a narrow passband filter. Fairly easy to locate and visible too. This planetary nebula was not on my list, If saw it in the atlas and thought it could be fun to locate. One great success of the night!

CASSIOPEIA NGC 7790: A star cluster close to "CAPH" and a really beautiful NGC, faint but it has many many stars. I like these NGC cluster with many faint stars, the patch could be seen with the finder of the telescope too which has 50mm aperture. Observation was done with 25mm EP 40x.

CYGNUS - VEIL: An observation of the Veil of course, again, while it's there at the best position possible. Beautiful with a visible center section.

CYGNUS - PK64+5.1 PLANETARY NEB: This hydrogen star close to Albiero, I can't locate it at all.. I read it needs much higher magnification then I used (40x) (Maybe next time)

AURIGA - Is back, it's one of my favourite constellation because of it's shape (: I love Capella also and I looked at it.

CASSIOPEIA: Double Double cluster at 40x to close this session(:

I hope you liked the report, (I really enjoyed doing it)

[Littleguy80]

Another fabulous report  The nebulosity in Elephant Trunk is super faint. Maybe it's a case of averted imagination for me  I feel certain that I was seeing a greying against the blackness of space on the edges of the nebula. That same greyness continues across the cluster but it's not something that would stand out as nebulosity without the contrast of "empty" space next to it. 

[Richard Hather]

Beautiful report Neptune as always love your sketches especially the little dumbbell definitely one I will have to look out for.

Im envious of your observation of the veil especially I've tried to find it twice now with no success ?

[MarsG76]

Excellent report... I enjoyed reading it.... good to see that there was no mention of wildlife interference.

 

[N3ptune]

5 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

Another fabulous report  The nebulosity in Elephant Trunk is super faint. Maybe it's a case of averted imagination for me  I feel certain that I was seeing a greying against the blackness of space on the edges of the nebula. That same greyness continues across the cluster but it's not something that would stand out as nebulosity without the contrast of "empty" space next to it. 

Thanks it was a pleasure producing it.. it's like reliving the previous night in details .

There must be nebulosity somewhere to see, I must be looking at the wrong place simply. The pictures of the nebula are weird too, It's unclear if the round center of the cluster is a visible nebula or if it's just the edges that are visible. I tried locating the edges like you suggested but maybe there was nebulosity inside too, not sure at all.

The elephant's trunk is a very strange nebula..

4 hours ago, Richard Hather said:

Beautiful report Neptune as always love your sketches especially the little dumbbell definitely one I will have to look out for.

Im envious of your observation of the veil especially I've tried to find it twice now with no success ?

Thanks Richard Hater. The Veil, I think it's really sensitive to light pollution, it's very hard to see from my home because of hat. But you should locate it eventually with your 12", it's a matter of time. Little dumbbell was a fine little nebula too, a great target to look at and well placed right now too, have a look at it!

[N3ptune]

11 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

Excellent report... I enjoyed reading it.... good to see that there was no mention of wildlife interference.

 

heheh I heard no noise at all last night, no animals but it was cold too, 10 Celcius. Glad you liked the report, thanks for the suggestion for NGC 404 this was a very good pick. I tried the other one you gave me too but could not see it at all. The Pegasus NGC 7479 Magnitude 11 galaxy.

Magnitude 11 was too faint I believe but Markab was a beautiful blue star.

Pegasus was just over the light dome of Montreal city too.. (and low) a very strong dome of pollution, that was the problem actually.

[MarsG76]

How dark was the sky?? I would think that mag 11 would be visible quite easily at a very dark location when your eyes are night adapted.

 

I started to PA my scope in the obsy... I did a few drift alignment tweaks, but I think I'll give Align Master a go... it seems to be taking ages to PA, and I'm not sure how close it is to the celestial pole... I would like the permanent scope setup perfectly to PA... the only thing that worries me, is that when I start the PA using Alignment Master, the fact that I'm losing about 40 degrees in all directions due to buildings and the obsy housing, that there wont be two stars visible that Alignment Master has on the list to chose from.. I imagine that one star will be low in the east or western horizon to align the DEC axis... oh well, I guess I'll find that out when I try it.

 

[N3ptune]

14 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

How dark was the sky?? I would think that mag 11 would be visible quite easily at a very dark location when your eyes are night adapted.

 

I started to PA my scope in the obsy... I did a few drift alignment tweaks, but I think I'll give Align Master a go... it seems to be taking ages to PA, and I'm not sure how close it is to the celestial pole... I would like the permanent scope setup perfectly to PA... the only thing that worries me, is that when I start the PA using Alignment Master, the fact that I'm losing about 40 degrees in all directions due to buildings and the obsy housing, that there wont be two stars visible that Alignment Master has on the list to chose from.. I imagine that one star will be low in the east or western horizon to align the DEC axis... oh well, I guess I'll find that out when I try it.

 

Ok ok some challenges there. Hopefully you will resolve all of this in a small period of time, to reach a perfect PA.  (((:   It looks complicated, I read a bit about the drift alignment? and I got frustrated in no time...

 

 

 

[MarsG76]

11 hours ago, N3ptune said:

Ok ok some challenges there. Hopefully you will resolve all of this in a small period of time, to reach a perfect PA.  (((:   It looks complicated, I read a bit about the drift alignment? and I got frustrated in no time...

Drift alignment is time consuming but quite straight forward... basically in the southern hemisphere all I do is first do a rough alignment using the polar scope and the polar alignment feature in the mount, than choose a low star in the east, center it in a illuminated reticule and basically chase it, let it drift for 15 minutes and adjust the alt bolt putting it just bast the center point, recenter and repeat a few times, until it no longer drifts.

Than in the northern meridian do similar on a star, except this time using the azimuth knobs...

I'm still waiting for the registration key of alignmaster and hopefully when I do alignment using it a few times, that I'll be at the point where I do not need to DEC guiding anymore.