M76 and M33 w/ NGC 604

[josefk]

It was my first time out after the "summer break" 😂 with a larger scope last night and rather excellent it was too until i lost my objective to dew at 02:00 or so.

I am a bit short of planned lists for September (at least lists with new stuff on them) but the tour included:

• M76 The Little Dumbbell (2nd visit in a fortnight),
• NGC 278 (a new m10 spiral galaxy in Cassiopeia),
• NGC 185 (a new elliptical galaxy in Cassiopeia, it's m9 but quite big so the surface brightness is very low and this one has an asterix against it for now)
• NGC 7789 Caroline's Rose (lovely),
• NGC 7217 (another new m10 spiral galaxy but in Pegasus),
• NGC 404 Mirach's Ghost (cool),
• M33 for NGC 604, 

With the face on spiral galaxies on the list last night, and using only a 130mm scope, i was paying particular attention to dark adaptation and screened my observing eye 100% of the time away from the EP - only taking screening away once under a hood at the EP. It seemed to make a considerable difference. Caroline's Rose was wonderful with a really dark adapted eye. Unfortunately using a hood was also splaying havoc keeping my ep free of condensation. Grrrr.

Here's a sketch of M76. Even this morning i can't exactly tell what orientation of the PNe i've seen. I'm relatively sure i've only seen the bright central bar and not the extended lobes i.e "my rectangle" of light oriented SW is really the narrow axis of the PNe and the bigger dimension that would be oriented NW was not seen. The central bar wasn't evenly bright. it was definitely brightest and a tad rounder on the SW "end" with a bright knot in that end or a star in front of it. The bar did have some glow around it. I found magnification with UHC to be better than a slightly larger exit pupil with O-III last night.

 

Here's sketch of NGC 604 within M33, M33 is bigger than this whole EP field of view so only the brightest central part of M33 is being seen here and making it look like NGC 604 is off to the side:

 

This highlights NGC 604 and the "hourglass" asterism is great for zeroing in on it:

It was strangely "easy" to see once i'd seen it which i found bemusing because i spent hours trying to see it last year in the darker nights of November.

It was cold out - damp paper and cold fingers are back!

Clear skies.

 

[SwiMatt]

Awesome sketches @josefk! Cool work with the detail of the sketch, lovely work.

 

[RobertI]

Great work and thanks for the tip on locating NGC604. Some interesting galaxies to track down too. 

[lunator]

Very good sketches 

damp paper and cold hands I sign of darker nights ahead

Cheers

Ian

 

[John]

Really nice sketches and observing report - thanks for posting them 🙂

When you think about what we are seeing, and it's distance, NGC 604 is such an awesome object 😁

[josefk]

That’s exactly what captured my imagination last year @John  - just incredible to imagine this to be somebody else’s “Orion”. 😎

I think this may only be my second (maybe first with 100% certainty) extragalactic object within another extragalactic object. 

Onwards and upwards (outwards) with the bigger scope for these type of targets this winter I hope!

[josefk]

...for anyone with an interest in M33 (and particularly detail within it) there is an informative article (it is the cover feature) of Novembers Sky & Telescope. 

This Saturday (28th September) looks clear and the moon shouldn't be too much trouble so that's my Saturday night provisionally booked 🤞