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26 Feb - Marathon session from Sharpless->Comets->Supernova and a Galaxy fest


alanjgreen

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Date: Tuesday 26th February 2019. 1945-0250am
Scope: 20” f3.6 Lukehurst Dob with Paracorr (fl = 2089mm & f4.1).
Night Vision: PVS-14 with Photonis 4g INTENS.
Eyepieces: Plossl 55mm (f2 x38), Panoptic 35mm (f3 x60), Panoptic 27mm (f4 x77), DeLite 18.2mm (f5.8 x115).
Filters: Chroma 5nm Ha filter. Baader 610nm red.
Moon: 0%

 

At last a clear sky!

The weather forecast has been promising clear skies for several nights only to end up with high level clouds and general greyness to the sky. Yesterday it was clear blue skies all day long and this remained unchanged when the sun went down.
I had been out for a few hours the night before (with good transparency) and was planning to go out later last night but the clear sky was too much to suffer and at 1930 I got my kit ready and headed down to the shed…

 

Just in time to catch the last of Orion before its too late!

Orion is now well placed from the shed at 1900 so there was no delay in getting started on some winter nebulae. Once 2-star alignment was completed, I loaded the 55mm Plossl, Chroma 5nm Ha filter and connected the PVS-14 via the TNVC/TeleVue a-focal adapter.

 

California – The scope was positioned right next to NGC1499 so that’s where I started. The California nebula was very bright and clear. I nudged around and took in some of the now well-trodden and newly named “by me” features – the crown (at one end), the funnel (the other end), the flap (rear wing flag near the crown), the long curving tail, the whale’s eye. After studying the dark lakes within I moved onto the Flaming Star.

Flaming Star, IC410, IC417, sh2-230All these objects are now taken “as one”, they are all joined together by lanes of nebula generally known as sh2-230 and there are a couple of stand out shapes/regions that really should be classified separately (in my opinion). Anyway, the Flaming star was not looking quite as good as the previous night (when it really was lush and 3D like in the main flame section). Tonight, I had to work harder to see the “mountains and lakes”, the bright shimmering “horseshoe” section. The twin right angle corners were faint indeed but the long tail did offer some bright nebulosity. The faint surrounding nebula trails leads me to the “Spider”.
IC417 – was showing the full frown shape (I have seen it more contrasty) but this was an improvement on recent visits. I dropped down to the “fly” below (NGC1931).
IC410 Is the pick of the bunch in this region. Again, it was not as giving as the previous night but still offered the full “Feline” feeling! It now reminds me of the face of a cat, with the tadpoles making the “nose” and a nearby bright section making the “cheek”.

 

After looking at Sky Safari and wanting to avoid the same route as the previous night, next up were some nearby Sharpless nebulae…
Sh2-263 – a large bright cloud with a central star.
Sh2-265 – A faint traceable “C” shape. This area seems to have background nebulosity and its easy to become distracted whole wanting to see just sh2-265.
Sh2-262 – A large traceable shape with easy edges.
Sh2-260 Now added to my “best of Sharpless” list. Its an interesting target that’s  a but like a stretched out and thinner California. The centre is “pinched in” to make a narrower thread section. The RHS expands like an upside-down “spade”.smile.gif
Flame & HH – I tried a few EPs here and its clear that the Flame responds to focal ratio and was at its best and brightest in the 55mm Plossl. The Horsehead can take more magnification but you still need focal ratio to keep the white line in IC434 in the view – 35mm Panoptic the winner here.
NGC1975 - I now head down to my target of the month “January” which is the “Running Man”. I have been revisiting and sketching this target whenever possible over the last 8 weeks and I am now starting to get some success with the “black trousers” within. Again, playing with various EPs, I find that the bright nebulosity is best with the 55mm Plossl (but the black trousers are toughest). With the 35mm and 27mm Panoptic the bright nebula is reduced in brightness but the black trousers (edges to begin with, then dark areas) are more prominent. I was pleased with the view in the 27mm Panoptic where the right leg was pretty good. It is a target where you cannot get it “all in one go”, you have to work a section at a time but there is joy to be had.
M42 and M43 were visited and I have described then many times before. I could see 5 stars in the trapezium with the 55mm Plossl for the first time AND I seemed to be holding a small star right in the centre of the trapezium too. I had a look away and then back the eyepiece – this central star was still there!
Rosette The King of nebula! I used the 35mm Panoptic and spent quite some time taking in every inch of this lush nebula. The black vein details were really clear last night. The three little nebula patches within the central star cluster were there to.
Sh2-280 – Not visited for a while, so I nudged down from the Rosette to a large clear patch of nebulae with stars and dark patches visible within.
Then onto sh2-282 & sh2-283 before visiting sh2-284 (now added to my “best of Sharpless” list too)
Sh2-284 – An easily seen large patch of varying brightnesses. The brightest edge has 3x2 stars and then the edge curves and heads back over the top.smile.gif
I continue on through sh2-285, sh2-286, sh2-287 & finally sh2-288.

 

A spot of general viewing.

I now remove the Chroma filter and go unfiltered for some clusters.
M48 – Was a bit washed out at first so I added the 610nm red filter to darken things up a bit. Now the cluster was a little better and I can give it a bit more gain to brighten the stars.
M67 – A big improvement on M48. There are a lot more stars on offer including a majority of seemingly similar fainter stars.
M44 – After @Nyctimene's posting on galaxies hidden in M44, I decided to centre it up. It was a lovely bright cluster with some really bright sharp stars. I nudged around but with the 55mm Plossl, none of the tiny galaxies were seen.

 

A sweep through some comets.

C/123P West-Hartley – This comet was tough to spot even though it turned out that Sky Safari had it spot on. It really is very small but once located it was easy to observe and definitely a comet!
On Monday night, I observed
C/2018 Y1 – 27mm. dot core and large dust halo. Easily seen.
C/38P Stephan-Oterma – much smaller and tougher than Y1. Small dot core and faint dust halo (sometimes obscuring the core).
C/46P Wirtanen – A bigger comet than Y1 & 38P. Small dust halo around a larger core.

 

How many galaxies?

It was now about midnight and I turned my attention to galaxies.
NGC2903 – To test the conditions, I headed for 2903 where I have had glorious double arm views recently. Tonight the sky was not “the best” but I could see the core and long bar section. The bar ends were brighter. With averted there was a double arm on the top RHS. A single faint curve of an arm could be seen lower LHS.
NGC2683 edge-on. A bright core and large dust disk. Definite appearance of a black leading edge.
NGC6929 & SN AT2019bm – time for a supernova and I headed for NGC6929. The galaxy was easily seen and centred. I had not seen an image of this galaxy but knew the SN was 40” from the centre. After some time spent looking, I started to see a faint dot above the galaxy and made a star sketch. I managed to find an image on the “transient name server” ( https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2019bm ) and with my sketched triangle of stars matched up then the faint dot was in the right place so it seems that I saw it!
On Monday night, I observed
UGC3554 & SN2019rz – With the 27mm, the SN was coming and going. I made a sketch that matched the location image.
UGC4642 & SN2018hfg – The 27mm showed two dots within the galaxy. One was the SN.
NGC3304 & SN2019aik – Both the 55mm and 35mm views split the SN from the core as a double. Sketch later showed that I had it.

 

I now worked my way through the “brightest galaxies” using my Sky Safari observing list. I shall not list them all here, just mention a few…
3294 – A small dot core with a nice swirly disk.
3184 – A larger face-on. Core and central bar seen. There is an outer “circle” where the arms are but the arms are not seen.
2841 – Mostly edge-on. Seems to have a black lane underneath that sweeps back around LHS.
3226 & 3227 – A pair of different sized galaxies. Both have dot core and dust disk. One disk is longer than the other and the angles are not the same.
3186 & 3190 & 3193 & 3187 – Three in a row, plus a faint easy to miss to the left of the centre galaxy!
M96 – Core and bright bar. Disk swirly in appearance. Black areas above & below. No arms tonight.
M66 – Nice. Large bar spirals seen. Arm LHS up and over, arm RHS down and under.
M65 – Sits next to M66, smaller and its arms are reversed. LHS down and RHS up.
3628 – Long black lane in a white disk sandwich. The disk is wider and brighter underneath. Brightest bit is the central bulge.
3521 – bright core & decent size disk. Disk looks swirly.
UGC7367 & SN2019arb = FAILURE. I could not get the SN tonight. I had this one on 15th February so maybe it was the conditions or its now fainter?
UGC8577 & SN2019va = FAILURE. I also had this one on 15th February so maybe it was the conditions or its now fainter?
M51 not my best ever view but a decent view. The bridge is not easily seen in entirety and the outer arm is shorter than I have seen it on occasions. I can see black detailing within the arm above the core and down the RHS of the core.
M101 – A decent view. Its always amazing to me how you have to let M101 come to you. On first glimpse you see some arm details but it takes time for the brain to notice the finer sections and the more you look the more you see. It’s a great target and up there with M33 for the best there is! I made a quick sketch of “tonights arm structure”.
M94 – core with halo around. Averted shows a circle of black outside the halo. No arms tonight.
4618 & 4625 – A nice pair of spirals. One is larger with a bar and an arm up and over. The small one also has some structure.
Cocoon – A large swirly galaxy, bending over at one end towards a tiny galaxy sitting underneath.
4449 – Nice & bright. Strange shaped object.
M106 A winner. Core with central bar. Arms on both sides, plenty of galaxy dust around the inner arms area.
4559 – Unusual (almost irregular) shape. Bright.
Needle great. Very long with averted vision. Dot core and bright central bulge. Long black lane runs along the leading edge.
4725 good one. Spiral arms seen, they are faint and circular.
4536 – An interesting one. Small with faint circular arms.
M61 – similar to 4536 but with increased contrast. I see swirly arms and glimpses of longer arm further out.

 

Time to sweep up galaxies en-mass.

I head into Virgo and Markarians chain. I get my chair setup and begin to sweep forward as far as I can reach, then nudge up a bit and sweep all the way back, up & forward, up and back…
I pause as galaxies pass through the fov and ponder the variation in size, shape, brightness. Disk or no disk, Bar or no bar. A few really faint one pass by. Then we have the long thin twigs of the edge-ons. Occasionally a nice one appears and I pause and check Sky Safari for an id?
On many occasions there are several to see in the same fov, these are easily compared and ranked. Some are close by and interacting like the Antenna galaxies other just seem to be non-speaking neighbours but its clear that these tiny objects are a long way from my back garden and I will never get a chance to visit them but its just so amazing that I can actually see them.

 

Time to call it a night.

The Moon (red in the atmosphere) is just appearing over the Pennines and my cat is back for her third visit over the shed wall “Its time to come inside” she seems to be telling me. I decide that I agree and after lifting her onto the floor, I slide the roof closed...

 

Clear Skies,

Alan

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  • 2 weeks later...

Somehow I missed this topic, great report Alan.

On ‎27‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 14:12, alanjgreen said:

M101 – A decent view. Its always amazing to me how you have to let M101 come to you. On first glimpse you see some arm details but it takes time for the brain to notice the finer sections and the more you look the more you see. It’s a great target and up there with M33 for the best there is! I made a quick sketch of “tonights arm structure”.

Great to see arm structure, I find M101 and M33 them very hard to observe.

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