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Dark and warm out there


John

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Lovely night tonight. I'm observing in a T-shirt and shorts :smiley:

Lots of nice things seen with my 130mm refractor. New to me with this scope tonight was the lovely delicate bubble of planetary nebula NGC 6781 in Aquila sometimes also known as the "Ghost of the Moon". Just about detected without a filter but using a UHC made it pop out nicely. Rather like a smaller version of the Owl Nebula, Messier 97. I'll re-visit this one when I next have my 12 inch dobsonian out.

As well as being dark, the skies seemed steady as well. Silly magnifications as high as 600x were showing up the showcase double stars really well. Can't get enough of Iota Cassiopeia with a fine refractor at high power :grin:

Hope others are enjoying the night as well :thumbright:

Here is my new friend, NGC 6781 imaged by Scott Rosen:

 

ngc8888.jpg.20e97daa2528d2ea5c1a3c6d6c0c9093.jpg

Edited by John
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Clouds just rolled in for the second time here, so I've called it a night.

Yes, certainly steady this evening. I managed to split a 1.5" double with my new Skymax 127, better than I've ever managed before.

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Lovely night,   has been a shorts and t shirt night here as well.

Naked eye NLC watching as well as out capturing jupiter videos - not sure how well they will turn out as it has been a while.

The DS rig was also running and I now seem to have fettled a few gremlins.

Not too many bugs about, a hedgehog joined me for a while as it was munching on discarded mealworms the birds had scattered  which pleased me but upset the dogs and probably the neighbours as well as HH needed a good barking at - opps.

 

Nice dawn sky colours as I was packing away.

 

All in all a pleasant night was had.

 

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@John I take you will be out again tonight. I’m not usually a Summer observer due to work etc but the weather is looking so good I’m gonna be out for the next few nights….as for work…. I retire in 6 months so if I’m late, who cares!! 😀

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4 hours ago, Kon said:

Very nice! Next time I am out I will give the NGC 6781 a try; did it take much magnification or is it better to stay low?

Quite low power will show it - say 50x. 100x - 150x will show the contrast a little better under my skies. A UHC filter makes it stand out noticably more, an O-III filter does as well but on this target I felt the UHC was better.

This one looks like a PN even at 50x, rather than one of those that looks stellar until high power is used.

 

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16 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

@John I take you will be out again tonight. I’m not usually a Summer observer due to work etc but the weather is looking so good I’m gonna be out for the next few nights….as for work…. I retire in 6 months so if I’m late, who cares!! 😀

Yes, I'm thinking of the 12 inch dobsonian tonight.

I retired a while back now - it does help with this hobby !

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1 hour ago, John said:

Quite low power will show it - say 50x. 100x - 150x will show the contrast a little better under my skies. A UHC filter makes it stand out noticably more, an O-III filter does as well but on this target I felt the UHC was better.

This one looks like a PN even at 50x, rather than one of those that looks stellar until high power is used.

 

Thanks. I will give it a try tonight.

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Just a further note on NGC 6781. I've been taking a look at it with my 12 inch dobsonian this evening. The transparency is not as good as last nights currently and the planetary nebula surprised me by being rather hard to spot with the larger instrument without a filter.

I found it eventually looking rather vague. Adding the UHC filter made a lot of difference though. So I'd advise having a UHC filter fitted while you search for it - it will make it much more disctintive.

This also reminds me that a decent aperture refractor can show DSO's pretty well :smiley:

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Took the neglected 8” dob out tonight for a quick hour session. Started with a new favourite in Pi Aquilae and got a lovely clean split at 240x, white and yellow companions, easy peasy. Onto Zeta Herculi and well LOL; horrendous boiling views and not a chance, made even worse by going to 325x, this is going to be a tough one, it’s a lot brighter than I had anticipated!

Whilst in the area took the opportunity to view M13 for the first time this year, such a wonderful object, so mesmerising with its 3D effect. 

Next up Lambda Cygni, nice and easy to find and just visible to the naked eye in my skies. Again, huge disappointment, seeing either local or atmospheric or both not playing ball. There were occasions when I thought i could see the secondary pop out but nothing convincing so it’s a fail tonight.

Next on the list was NGC6572 in Ophiuchus. Star hopping from 71 & 72 Oph I just couldn’t seem to locate this planetary nebula. I kept bouncing between wonderful clusters in NGC6633 & IC4665 and it took me a good 5-10 minutes before I realised a very turquoise looking “star” was the nebula! I do love a good nebula. 

Finished the session off with my favourite constellation and checked out M57 and split the Double Double at 120x. Always a good way to end.

I think the cleaner views I’ve been getting used to in my refractor has somehow made me a better double spotter with the dob, they just seem to “pop” more now than they used to. Great little session, no more neglected dob!

 

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39 minutes ago, John said:

Just a further note on NGC 6781. I've been taking a look at it with my 12 inch dobsonian this evening. The transparency is not as good as last nights currently and the planetary nebula surprised me by being rather hard to spot with the larger instrument without a filter.

I found it eventually looking rather vague. Adding the UHC filter made a lot of difference though. So I'd advise having a UHC filter fitted while you search for it - it will make it much more disctintive.

This also reminds me that a decent aperture refractor can show DSO's pretty well

I saw it with my 8" Dob tonight and my seeing is pretty good tonight. Fairly easy to get there.  I could see it with averted vision without a filter but with my OIII (the only filter i have) it was obvious with direct vision and more prominent. I agree that it does look a bit like a smaller version of the owl nebula but to be honest I could not make much details, rather a diffuse disk, nice to have seen it.  It did not take magnification well, best was at x80 and x48.

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Got a few more planetary nebs in Aquila this evening as well as NGC 6781:

NGC 6804

NGC 6803 (small - just 5.5 arc seconds in diameter !)

NGC 6778 (AKA "Son of M76" but actually much less spectacular than the Little Dumbbell which is in turn Dumbbell Junior to M 27 )

NGC 6772 (pretty faint even with UHC filter)

NGC 6751 (quite a nice "puffball" shaped nebula)

NGC 6741 (AKA "the Phantom Streak" nebula, another small one at 7 arc seconds)

Add the better known "Ring", "Dumbbell", "Blinking" and "Cats Eye" nebulae to that and it's been a planetary nebula centered session I'd say :grin:

I'm developing a bit of a fondness for observing these little beauties. Lots around and all shapes and sizes :thumbright:

Worth observing them with and without a filter to see which ones show the central star - the filter tends to make that central star much harder to spot.

 

 

Edited by John
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20 minutes ago, John said:

Got a few more planetary nebs in Aquila this evening

I was also after a few more in Aquila  that I found in Stellarium but unfortunately my seeing has deteriorated and a lot of mist. 

I am finishing off with Jupiter and Saturn.

Edited by Kon
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Been out again tonight and set up similarly dressed as last night but have had to come in for a break as I'm having a bit of a sneezing session, just got saturn in the FOV of the cam and no NLC tonight.

I will try again in a bit.

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Just been looking / imaging Cas SN and comet 2017 Panstarrs, may have a look at SN in NGC7814 shortly as it's easy to spot being in a galaxy.

Dave

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10 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

.... may have a look at SN in NGC7814 shortly as it's easy to spot being in a galaxy.

Dave

Pegasus is behind trees for me currently otherwise I'd be doing just the same :smiley:

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Dark and warm here, too, in Tacande. We've had a calima (Saharan dust) for several days and that always makes the sky dusty and warm.

Not too bad now the moon has set. Currently imaging (174567) Varda which is a TNO 45.5 astronomical units from us. It must be quite big becase although it is further away than Pluto it is still magnitude 20.1.  Prior that was imaging some starts which are possibly being gravitational lensed. If they are, and if they have exoplanets, they also will be lensed and hence detectable.

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1 hour ago, Xilman said:

Dark and warm here, too, in Tacande. We've had a calima (Saharan dust) for several days and that always makes the sky dusty and warm.

Not too bad now the moon has set. Currently imaging (174567) Varda which is a TNO 45.5 astronomical units from us. It must be quite big becase although it is further away than Pluto it is still magnitude 20.1.  Prior that was imaging some starts which are possibly being gravitational lensed. If they are, and if they have exoplanets, they also will be lensed and hence detectable.

Varda showed up nicely on a quick-look stack, though at a SNR of perhaps 6.  More careful processing should do a better job.  Finishing off the nnight with a few snaps of Pluto (which is very easy in comparison) and then packing in for the night.

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16 hours ago, John said:

Got a few more planetary nebs in Aquila this evening as well as NGC 6781:

NGC 6804

NGC 6803 (small - just 5.5 arc seconds in diameter !)

NGC 6778 (AKA "Son of M76" but actually much less spectacular than the Little Dumbbell which is in turn Dumbbell Junior to M 27 )

NGC 6772 (pretty faint even with UHC filter)

NGC 6751 (quite a nice "puffball" shaped nebula)

NGC 6741 (AKA "the Phantom Streak" nebula, another small one at 7 arc seconds)

Add the better known "Ring", "Dumbbell", "Blinking" and "Cats Eye" nebulae to that and it's been a planetary nebula centered session I'd say :grin:

I'm developing a bit of a fondness for observing these little beauties. Lots around and all shapes and sizes :thumbright:

Worth observing them with and without a filter to see which ones show the central star - the filter tends to make that central star much harder to spot.

 

 

Super list John, I’ll work my way through these in my next session (tomorrow looking good!). Hopefully I can chuck in the Saturn Nebula too if I can stay up late enough. 👍🏻

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It's just coming up to midnight (22:47 UT at time of typing) and circa 21:30 solar time.

The air temperature is 30C.

The wind will almost certainly produce lousy seeing.

The air is so full of dust that Polaris is the only naked-eye visible star in UMi.

It's too hot to sleep but I am not going to open up the observatory in these conditions.

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