A planetary nebula NGC 6781, a galaxy NGC 5529 and a globular cluster NGC 5466

[Bill S]

A bit of an opportunity a night ago rambling around looking at things mentioned on the Webb Deep Sky Society web pages.

The object of the spring season is a planetary nebula (NGC 6781). Quite a fine ghostly object.

 

 

The Webb Soc's galaxy of the month is Hickson 62 and I had a look at that but also had a look at this one from their GoM for May 2014. NGC 5529 is the obvious one in the centre but there are plenty of other galaxies in the shot some of which I managed to identify using their finder chart (by using Jocular's flip settings to match the orientation. I also liked it in the negative) :

https://www.webbdeepsky.com/images/galaxies/n5529bw.pdf

 

 

I also had a look at NGC 5466, which is globular cluster. I have to say it's bit of unglobular cluster in my opinion. Reading up a bit I see it's classed as a Shapley-Sawyer Concentration Class XII. (Didn't know such a description existed until yesterday!)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley–Sawyer_Concentration_Class

 

 

Incidentally, the Webb Deep Sky Society's annual meeting is in June:

https://www.webbdeepsky.com/annual-meeting/

 

There is even a talk about video astronomy. I believe Dale Holt generally looks with a Watec or another camera and then sketches what he sees. Unfortunately his website was not working the last time I looked.

Best regards

 

 

[Mike JW]

Hi Bill, Dale  and I met up recently for a yarn about video. I always enjoy his sketches from the set up he uses. Mike

[Martin Meredith]

Hi Bill

Great to see some more images from you! I hope Jocular is still live-stacking away merrily. I haven't been out for more than a month...

NGC 6781 seems really under-rated to me. It has plenty of structure to pull out and sits in a nice crowded star field.

I was checking out an old shot of NGC 5466 and it does look a bit more glob-like. There are a ton of really faint stars so if they're just below threshold it can look very sparse.

regards

Martin