Florence and the fuzzy from another Galaxy

[Littleguy80]

Comet Johnson and the Nova in Scutum have given me a taste for event astronmy so I couldn't let asteroid 3122, Florence, pass me by. The evening started with me calling my eldest daughter out to take a look a through the scope. I didn't tell her what she was going to see and was rewarded with "Oh my god.. is that Saturn?". A minute later her young brother, who was supposed to be asleep, appeared to take a look too. I love the way they look at the telescope like it's some sort of witchcraft showing them the planet. The darkening evenings should give me plenty more opportunities to cast some spells on them. 

With the little people in bed, my attention turned to finding Florence. I was able to target Rotanev in Delphinus using the Telrad. From there is was a short star hop to 10 del and then delta del. Using Sky Safari, I spent what felt like a long time trying to work out which stars I could see and hence which point of light was Florence. Eventually I identified what I thought was Florence coming between SAO 106444 and BD +14 4412. It wasn't quite forming a line with the two stars. After a few mins, Florence had moved to line up with the stars and then carried on moving. I followed her for around 45 mins. I used the time to draw a very basic sketch, which was allowed me to track how Florence moved. Sketch and observations carried out at 50x. I've gone "super pro" and inverted the colours in the sketch  

Florence is the first asteroid I've observed. She moved really quickly leaving me in doubt that I'd found my target. 

With the time around midnight, I decided to move onto some other objects. 

Almach - Pretty double that I'd seen compared to Albireo. The double was obvious even at 50x and looked great at 150x. A bright white primary with a blue secondary around the 3 o'clock position. Albireo is the pretty of the two in my opinion.

NGC 756 - Nice open and fairly loose open cluster. And 56 sat to the left with a bright triple system towards the centre. I noticed another pair of stars towards the bottom of the cluster. 

M33/NGC604 - Seeing a nebula in another Galaxy was an idea that really captured my imagination. M33 itself was extremely faint, there was still a bit of moonlight around at this point. Using the triangle of stars, SAO 54802, HD 9687 and SA0 54806, as a reference point, I cycled through various magnifications trying both my UHC and OIII filter. With averted vision, I could see a bright area in the right place for NGC604. This was most obvious at 50x with the UHC. Unfortunately, there's an 11th magnitude star right next to NGC 604 so I never felt totally confident that I had the nebula and not the star. A revisit under darker skies will hopefully give some more conclusive results. A very fun hunt though!

NGC404 Mirach's Ghost - The galaxy appeared almost like a shadow under the bright star of Mirach. I focused on HD6892 to see the galaxy with averted vision. To get a clearer view, I moved Mirach just outside the field of view. This made NGC404 slightly easier to spot.

M31, M32 and M110 - No problems spotting these galaxies! M110 only visible a faint fuzzy with averted vision. M31 and M32 are like shining beacons after NGC404.

Hyades - This cluster is just too big to really be appreciated with my scope. There were some impressive sections to it but I got no sense of the overall cluster. Maybe best viewed with binoculars? Aldebaran appeared more yellow/orange rather than the red eye of Taurus that I'd read about.

M37 - Such an easy cluster to find. I just went free hand and didn't bother with any kind of star hopping. It's such a dense cluster that it looks nebulous which makes it an obvious Messier! My eyes always seem to have a moment where they suddenly find focus and the haze suddenly become an array of tiny pinpoint stars. Wonderful.

Tired eyes at 2am so I called it a night. In the morning, it would be time to confess to my wife about the time I'd spent with Florence...

[wookie1965]

Smashing report I have yet to see M33, M32 and M110. I have looked at M31 loads of times but cannot distinguish the other two.

[Littleguy80]

Just now, wookie1965 said:

Smashing report I have yet to see M33, M32 and M110. I have looked at M31 loads of times but cannot distinguish the other two.

Thank you! M32 is probably the easiest to see after M31. It sits as part of a triangle with two other stars above M31 (I'm using a newt so it might be below for you depending on what type of scope you're using). You can tell it's a galaxy as it has a fuzzy appearance compared to the two stars. Once you spot you'll wonder why you never noticed it before  

[wookie1965]

I have two scopes a 8" reflector and the Tal 100rs I will try again next time I get out.

[Littleguy80]

4 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

I have two scopes a 8" reflector and the Tal 100rs I will try again next time I get out.

Cool. So above M31 with the reflector and below with the Tal (I think)! Good luck!

[cloudsweeper]

6 hours ago, wookie1965 said:

Smashing report I have yet to see M33, M32 and M110. I have looked at M31 loads of times but cannot distinguish the other two.

I only cracked M32 two nights ago!  Then I figured out why.  I had been looking inside (or very close to) the fuzz of Andromeda, but that is only its core, so when looked below and slightly west of the fuzz, I saw M32 very readily (in spite of the bright Moon).  It is unmistakable, being like an out-of-focus star, which then gets larger with more mag.

M110 still eludes me though!

Doug.

[Davesellars]

Great report Neil!  Some nice objects there and nice observation notes - well written!

NGC604 would appear as a dim patch rather than stellar appearance.  With the 12" it appeared quite bright indeed (I would say as bright as the core of M33 itself) and of reasonable size.  Try it again on a completely dark night and hopefully good transparency.

[Littleguy80]

35 minutes ago, Davesellars said:

Great report Neil!  Some nice objects there and nice observation notes - well written!

NGC604 would appear as a dim patch rather than stellar appearance.  With the 12" it appeared quite bright indeed (I would say as bright as the core of M33 itself) and of reasonable size.  Try it again on a completely dark night and hopefully good transparency.

Thanks Dave! I think you're right regarding NGC604, darker skies needed. I've seen M33 more clearly in the past so picking out NGC604 should be achievable. Good to know it's brightness is similar to the core, makes for a useful reference point  

[Stu]

Certainly understanding the field of view you are getting so you know whether objects are visible or outside the field.

The first image shows an 8" f6 Newt using a 25mm Plossl, a 24mm 68 degree and finally a 2" 30mm 82 degree eyepiece. You can see how getter big M110 is much easier with the larger field.

When I first had my 8" Mak, I knew very little about this. It had a 4m focal length, and even with the 28mm 82 degree eyepiece I was getting x142 mag with a 0.57 degree field and I wondered why I saw very little in M31 . You'll see why I'm the second image.

[Littleguy80]

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Certainly understanding the field of view you are getting so you know whether objects are visible or outside the field.

Agreed. I spent quite a lot of time playing around with Stellarium earlier in the year which was great for figuring out which eyepiece was the best to frame an object. Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that the eyepiece was the best to actually see the object with once you factor in the effects of exit pupil, surface brightness, light pollution and all the other things that play their part. 

[cloudsweeper]

30 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Agreed. I spent quite a lot of time playing around with Stellarium earlier in the year which was great for figuring out which eyepiece was the best to frame an object. Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that the eyepiece was the best to actually see the object with once you factor in the effects of exit pupil, surface brightness, light pollution and all the other things that play their part. 

All very true, but the key starting point I reckon is relating what you see with what is there.  That's why I always have the Telrad sight on the Stellarium screen, and a spreadsheet table handy to show not only mags, but also TFOVs for each EP.  And there is also a column giving exit pupils.  (One table for each 'scope, of course.)

Doug.

[Littleguy80]

1 minute ago, cloudsweeper said:

All very true, but the key starting point I reckon is relating what you see with what is there.  That's why I always have the Telrad sight on the Stellarium screen, and a spreadsheet table handy to show not only mags, but also TFOVs for each EP.  And there is also a column giving exit pupils.  (One table for each 'scope, of course.)

Doug.

That's a good set up, Doug. I've gotten into the habit of using SkySafari. I have the Telrad sights and viewing circle for my ES68 24mm switched on. I use that eyepiece as my finder so SkySafari then shows me what I've got in the eyepiece. After that, I can normally figure out what I'm seeing with other eyepieces on the basis that it must be somewhere within the circle of my finder eyepiece. It's not a perfect system but generally gets the job done  

[cloudsweeper]

30 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

That's a good set up, Doug. I've gotten into the habit of using SkySafari. I have the Telrad sights and viewing circle for my ES68 24mm switched on. I use that eyepiece as my finder so SkySafari then shows me what I've got in the eyepiece. After that, I can normally figure out what I'm seeing with other eyepieces on the basis that it must be somewhere within the circle of my finder eyepiece. It's not a perfect system but generally gets the job done  

Yes Neil, that's another good approach!  I have entered EP (and 'scope) parameters into Stellarium (ocular view), so I can see exactly what's in any EP with any 'scope.  Very handy, but just using the Telrad rings is arguably a bit easier, esp. if you know all the TFOVs.  I presume SkySafari will also let you enter details for all your EPs?

Doug.

[Stu]

1 minute ago, cloudsweeper said:

I presume SkySafari will also let you enter details for all your EPs?

Yes, you can enter scopes, eyepieces and Barlow/reducers, very flexible.

[Littleguy80]

8 minutes ago, cloudsweeper said:

I have entered EP (and 'scope) parameters into Stellarium (ocular view), so I can see exactly what's in any EP with any 'scope.  Very handy, but just using the Telrad rings is arguably a bit easier, esp. if you know all the TFOVs.  I presume SkySafari will also let you enter details for all your EPs?

I think Stellarium's ocular view is better than SkySafari's equivalent. There's no quick way to jump through all your eyepieces and see the FOV change in SkySafari. At least, no way that I've found. Despite that, it's never really caused me an issue in practise as I'm only using SkySafari to get me to the right spot. It's all a bit more experimental once I've got the object in the low power eyepiece

[Stu]

22 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

I think Stellarium's ocular view is better than SkySafari's equivalent. There's no quick way to jump through all your eyepieces and see the FOV change in SkySafari. At least, no way that I've found. Despite that, it's never really caused me an issue in practise as I'm only using SkySafari to get me to the right spot. It's all a bit more experimental once I've got the object in the low power eyepiece

You can easily switch between the first three in your list, plus other preset field by tapping the top right of the screen where the currently displayed field of view is shown. This displays a table that you can use to turn on and off the different circles and jump to different fields by tapping on the degrees box. Play around with it, it's quite useful. Tapping the top left brings another box down too with other parameters such as star and DSO mag.

[cloudsweeper]

34 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

I think Stellarium's ocular view is better than SkySafari's equivalent. There's no quick way to jump through all your eyepieces and see the FOV change in SkySafari. At least, no way that I've found. Despite that, it's never really caused me an issue in practise as I'm only using SkySafari to get me to the right spot. It's all a bit more experimental once I've got the object in the low power eyepiece

Yes, once in ocular view, you can simply switch to what any programmed EP will show.  But as I said, I don't use it all that much, as in normal view it is easier to move about the sky and use zoom.  And as you say, when you centre the target with a low mag view, it's easy to keep tabs on things as mag increases.  Especially if it's all being tracked!

Doug.

[Littleguy80]

10 minutes ago, Stu said:

You can easily switch between the first three in your list, plus other preset field by tapping the top right of the screen where the currently displayed field of view is shown. This displays a table that you can use to turn on and off the different circles and jump to different fields by tapping on the degrees box. Play around with it, it's quite useful. Tapping the top left brings another box down too with other parameters such as star and DSO mag.

Thanks Stu. I hadn't made the correlation between the top 3 eyepieces in the Display settings and those buttons in that box. Very useful! I use that box all the time for the flip function. I switch between the two depending on whether I'm using the Telrad or the ES68 24mm. The view obviously flips when I go to the eyepiece. I've not experimented with the box in the top left. Will have a play with that too