Another eclectic EAA session

[AKB]

The start of another month, and another Zoom virtual observing session for the local astro club (Abingdon.)  This was the third go at running it this month, the previous Monday and Tuesday being complete washouts.  There was much discussion as to whether the rain and clouds would clear in time to start at 20:00, and for some of us, it did.  Several other members had widefield scopes with colour cameras and gave us some great views of some favourite nebulas:  Monkey Head, Jellyfish, California, Wizard, ...  I stuck with the monochrome Hyperstar/Ultrastar as, for me, it works very well in this scenario.  For simplicity, and to space out my contributions, I stuck to 20 x 30 second images.

• A couple of nebulas – to show that they can look good in mono (although, to be fair, they're great in colour.)

1. NGC 1333, the 'Embryo' reflection nebula, in the western part of the Perseus molecular cloud with very active star formation
2. NGC 1579, the 'Northern Triffid', actually an H-II region, again with star formation

 

• IC 289 – planetary nebula in Cassiopeia, with some features clearly visible.  Also an apparent pair of galaxies on the RHS of the shot, along with a marvellous linear chain of stars below.
• NGC 2419 – the 'Intergalactic Wanderer', actually believed to orbit the Milky Way at a distance of ~300,000 LY, taking 3 billion years to do so

 

  

 

Documented elsewhere from this evening's haul are:

• Arp 331 – https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/351721-arp-galaxies/page/6/#comment-4177351
• Comets 29P and 2019L3 – https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/384395-three-comets/#comment-4177330
• Globular cluster Palomar 2 – https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/387223-auriga-–-palomar-2/#comment-4177323

 

After the rain, the transparency seemed rather good.  It was a great night.

Tony

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by AKB

[Mike JW]

Excellent.  The Wanderer is framed so well with the nearby stars. The line of stars near to the galaxy pair in the IC 289 is freaky. Love the  Perseus shots.

Mike

[Martin Meredith]

Fabulous images. That scope/hyperstar/camera combination is really singing. The wider field increases the chances of capturing some fascinating combinations as the IC 289 field shows. I imagine there was lots to talk about during the meeting.

Martin