Cruising The Skies

[Epick Crom]

Hi my fellow stargazers! With the moon now rising later and darkness falling earlier it was time for some deep sky diving. All observations carried out through my 10 inch dob:

NGC 4945: Edge on spiral galaxy in Centaurus. Really thin haze shining from 13 million light years away.

Mars: Way past its best and really far from us in its orbit currently, just managed to make out its tiny gibbous shape at x270.

NGC 6397: This is one of the closest globular clusters to us, located in Ara.A beautiful sight with a circle of bright stars surrounding the core. Never seen a feature like that in any other globular so far.

NGC 5986: Faintish globular in Lupus. I could make out a bright gleaming star in its outer halo, unresolved core.

Zubenelgenubi: Wide double in Libra. Love the name!

NGC 6231: Delightful open cluster in Scorpius! Nice arrangement of stars and beautiful colours.

NGC 2264: Two for the price of one deal here! Christmas Tree cluster in Monoceros plus I got to glimpse the Cone Nebula this cluster is embedded in. A definite highlight!

NGC 2261: Hubble's Variable Nebula. This one took my breath away. Thought I was looking at light reflecting through my telescope at first. Interesting fan shape.

NGC 4755: The Jewel Box cluster in Crux. Simply stunning with a line of three stars in the centre of the cluster coloured white, blue and orange.

M95 and M96: Been searching for these two in Leo for a while and finally found them! Two attractive galaxies not too far from each other. Always great to see distant galaxies!

Session lasted about two hours in the evening. Was great to be back under the stars again after an extended rainy period. Clear skies to you all 😊

Regards

Joe

Edited April 30, 2021 by Epick Crom

[Kon]

Nice report Joe. I envy your Cone nebula observation; did you use a filter? NGC 2261 was one of my highlights and the fact that it looks a bit like a comet is rather fascinating. I hope to be out soon for some fuzzies after the bright moon is gone but our skies are getting brighter every night. 

[Epick Crom]

Hi Kon. No I did not use a filter on the Cone nebula. I was surprised to see it too as I've been unsuccessful many times before. My skies were darker than usual so this definitely helped. It was barely there though, a faint haze! I'm planning on buying a filter soon. Sorry to hear your skies are getting brighter, here it's the opposite, it's getting darker earlier with the onset of southern hemisphere winter.

[Jiggy 67]

On 30/04/2021 at 13:50, Epick Crom said:

Zubenelgenubi

Just been speaking to myself to see if I can pronounce it 🤣🤣 Sounds great when you speak it!!

[Epick Crom]

On 05/05/2021 at 00:11, Jiggy 67 said:

Just been speaking to myself to see if I can pronounce it 🤣🤣 Sounds great when you speak it!!

It does sound great hey Jiggy😆. Definitely my favourite star name😁