Photon Collecting

[Sam]

Yet another clear night! While the imaging rig was collecting photons from NGC 7331 I had the Lightbridge 16" doing the rounds of some stuff I haven't seen before. The first stop was trying to find Stephen's Quintet. I think I found a hint of where they should be and three stars were fuzzy enough that they could have been the central cores of the brighter galaxies - still not really confirmed I saw them though. I then swung the scope to have a look at NGC 7331 which is an elongated smudge with quite a bright core.

The next target was the Blue Flash Nebula, NGC 6905 in Sagitta. It was quite easy too find and apppeared as a fuzzy ball with slightly brighter outer edge - no sign of a central star. Just below NGC 6905 is NGC 6934 (on the other side of Delphinus), is quite a faint globular cluster but nice to view through and individual stars can be seen in the outer parts of the cluster. I then swung the scope around to have another look at the Bubble Nebula and could certainly some fuzzyness around the star - on one side at least. I had a look at the cluster next to the Nebula, M52, for a while as well. The next stop was NGC 281 in Cassiopeia, not much to see as far as nebulosity was concerned but the cluster looked quite nice.

As midnight came and went the square of Pegasus was getting higher and higher so it was time to have a look at M31, M110 and M32. All three were easily visible with a hint of some outer dust lanes in M31. This is a good test of transperancy as I've found if the dust lanes are easily seen then conditions are pretty good, tonight was not so good. M33 was the next one to see, it was easily visible in the finder scope so no problem finding it. Through the eyepiece a hint of one spiral structure could be seen and the core was reasonably bright. M33 is quite large and it's brightness is spread over a large area so the trick is looking for changes in background contrast.

A gap in the trees was starting to open up so I could have a good look at Jupiter. The moons were in a nice line - the end one being higher. On the planet there was plenty of detail in the banding, unfortunately no GRS at that time. On the other side of one of the trees I could have a look at M73, M72 and NGC 7009, Saturn Nebula. M73 is a collection of 4 stars and not much else, well I ticked that box now. M72 is a globular cluster that appears as a round smudge, no individual stars were visible. The Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009) lived up to it's name and looks like a blue Saturn - quite a neat sight and very easy to find. Another great evenings viewing!

Sam

[Doc]

Some great targets Sam. I'm going to try and bag the quintet at Salisbury.

Is the bubble visually visible or does it take a photo to see it?

[Sam]

Some great targets Sam. I'm going to try and bag the quintet at Salisbury.

Is the bubble visually visible or does it take a photo to see it?

Mick, I couldn't see the bubble as a bubble just a faint amount of neb around the star where it is.

[Sam]

Whoops,

Forgot to add that I also a good ol' look at M76, the Little Dumbbell. This is an interesting little nebula and very easy to find. It has the shape of an hourglass and there's some faint nebula evident between the brighter bits. I also saw to really bright meteors, one was slightly yellow in colour and whizzed past about 1/3 of the sky, from the North to the South West. The other one was in the same direction and was redish in colour and was about half the sky, I've never seen any thing like and crikey they go fast!

Sam

[Doc]

Interesting stuff Sam.

Btw I've seen quite meteors shoot through your FOV. Then you quickly look up at the sky with just your eyes and you cannot see nothing.

[Sam]

Mick,

I've only one in the FOV, it was like an instant line appearing. Saw lots of satellites last night.

[Doc]

I mean that also. Just one at a time, not two together, now that would be amazing.

[Sam]

LOL - no for me that's only one ever!

[Talitha]

Thanks for the tour, Sam! Always a pleasurable and informative read.

Does this look like what you saw? It's the best i've ever been able to squeeze out of Stephan's Quintet. The one on the left is ngc7320, and the one on the right is a combination of ngc7381a and ngc3781b. Stellar TLM (telescopic limiting magnitude) that night was 13.6, and the cluster was at 72 degrees altitude.

Have you tried the Pegasus I cluster surrounding ngc7619? More averted fun, lol... i was able to get three of them.

[Beulah]

I really enjoyed reading this, thanks for taking the time to write it. Some new objects to discover.