On the quarterdeck

[Nyctimene]

There are several sky regions that I have observed very rarely. Puppis, the quarterdeck of the celestial ship Argo Navis, east to Canis Maior, is one of these. Rather low in the winter Milky Way skies, it is often obscured by clouds or fog; and, moreover, I hate the cold winter months with the need of multiple layers of clothing, hand warmers etc. But I was able to motivate myself yesterday evening to search for new targets. So I started at 20.10 CET, again with the 12" f/5 traveldob, under 5.2 mag slightly sub-average skies, but with rather good seeing. My starting point was Gamma UMa, and with SkySafari I worked my way through the star-crowded region to the E. The first target was oc 2360, discovered by Caroline Herschel, a round cluster with about 80 members. Moving further to E, M 47 came into view; with the 26 mmf ES, giving 58x mag and a 1.1° field, a magnificent, bright cluster with several dominant stars embedded in a background of fainter ones. oc 2423, just N, was rather loosely concentrated. M 46 gave a nice contrast to M 47 - a fainter, but very star-dense open cluster, easily to resolve. The "embedded"  11 mag planetary (it's actually a foreground object) 2438 was visible directly as a slightly oval ring, resembling M 57, when I used higher magnification. A very rewarding trio/quartet !

SkySafari pointed me to the Bat Nebula, 3.5° S, a rather bright (11.5m) object, easily to make out with direct vision. It showed at 187x mag (Seben Zoom 8 mmf) as a slightly ovoid-rectangular structure with a brighter central region. The bi-polar structural details could not be made out; I will revisit this object with an O III filter during the next evenings. Was pleased having mastered the cold and being rewarded with fine views, and so to bed at 21.45.

Thanks for reading

Stephan

Edited March 3, 2022 by Nyctimene

[jetstream]

Great report Stephan!

A nice exploration of the area and I must look at the Bat soon.

[bosun21]

Yeah I’m another one putting the Bat on my list of “ to view”