Pegasus and it's friendly faint fuzzies

[Sam]

Observing area: The top of the square of Pegasus and a bit to the right.

Seeing: No too bad but the half moon was messing things up, no LP.

Equipment: Meade 16" Lightbridge

The setting up:

I dragged the monster outside to the usual spot out the back and did a particularly bad job of collimating it. To sort that out I re-collimated with the laser - much better! After the scope cooled down, about 90 minutes, the sky was nice and dark and ready for fuzzy hunting.

Observing:

After gaining inspiration from some of the posts in the last couple of weeks regarding the fuzzies I decided to have a go at bagging Stephen's Quintet. The task was somewhat more difficult than I thought it would be, thanks to the big fat moon!!! On the way to looking for the Quintet I stubbled over NGC 7331 which is really bright and quite big (might be worth imaging it!). Not many details were visible other than it looked like it was not quite edge and with a bright centre. The best view was through the 15mm eyepiece, the 9mm didn't really show up any more detail.

The Quintet was not really visible other the hint of some faint blobs through the 15mm eyepiece, nothing was visible through the 32mm - I'll have to wait for some proper dark skies to have another go.

The next two on the list were NGC 7339 and NGC 7332. NGC 7339 stood out quite well in the 32mm as a bright little elongated blob, through the 9mm it looked like an edge on galaxy with large central bright region tappering off towards the edges. NGC 7332 was quite a bit harder to see but with averted vision in the 32mm I could just find it. It's an edge on like NGC 7339 but it's brightness (or lack of it) is more uniform across it's length. Through the 15mm eyepiece both galaxies looked quite nice in the FOV.

The last galaxy for the night was NGC 7457. It was a bit tricky to find as it didn't stand out a lot. Through the 32mm eyepiece it was just detectable as fuzzy faint star. Through the 9mm there was a definite bright, slightly elongated, core with a fainter halo around it.

The highlights of the night were stumbling across NGC 7331 as it is so prominant in the FOV and the viewing NGC 7332 and NGC 7339 in the same FOV.

Sam

[johnh]

Sounds like a moon harrassed night that you coped well with, SQ would be brilliant for a 16" monster but you need dark skies for 12th mag + fainter stuff.

With the moon would a deep sky filter help at all or a moon and sky glow filter?

7331 is very bright and dust stands out even in a 8" scope in a 16" it should dazzle when the moon has gone.

[Astroscot2]

Well Done Sam, I had alook at 7331 last week with no moon in the sky with my 12" I could see no sign of the Quintet but was not 100% sure where to lok, will try again next moon free night

[Sam]

I'm going to revisit 7331 with the camera.

[Doc]

I also saw NGC 7331 in my 16" last week, the moon was pretty new so the skies were alot darker. Definetly an edge on galaxy, to me it looked like a smaller M31.

Tried hunting for the quintet as it's very close to 7331 but could not detect it.

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Great report.