I discovered another comet! (spoiler alert: no I didn't)

[Wiu-Wiu]

I was observing galaxies and crossing NGC's off my list tonight, during a quick getaway to a dark location for the rest of the week. 

When I come across something peculiar or quite pleasing to the eye, I tend to make a sketch of the view.

 

So I came across NGC 784. A surprisingly big and mottled streak with no further details but in a nice field of stars. Out came the sketchboard and I started to soak up the details. 

As my eyes were becoming more dark adapted (I use skysafari for starhopping and it is handy but kills my night vision), I noticed a round wooley patch when lookking with averted vision. 

I moved it in and out of view a couple of times, or in another spot in the FOV, but there was definately something there... 

...but not in skysafari... (And I bought the extension pack so I have a lot more stars and galaxies in the database..) 

Sometimes I limit the magnitude to 15 or even less, depending what skies I'm in, in order to clean up the screen and only look at the stuff I can see. I bumped up the magnitude to maximum... Still nothing there. 

Last resort: DSS survey check.. And there it was... A mag 15 galaxy in the place where I saw the nebulousity. Darn it! 

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Wiu-Wiu

[alan potts]

Takes a bit of doing picking up a mag 15 galaxy as some even brighter test even large scopes to the very limit, so that is very well done Dave.

Alan