Meade Lightbridge Observing report as of 20.11.2009

[Doc]

20.11.2009

Meade Lightbridge 16" F4.5 FL1829mm

No Moon

Seeing only mag 4.0

Started off by trying a few open clusters in Cygnus, the first was Ngc6834 this turned out to be quite a challenge as it's embedded within a very rich and concentrated part of the sky. I had to check a photo on the web to make sure I had the correct cluster. In the 28 Uwan at x65 this cluster turned out to be pretty small at 5' in diameter and consisted of many faint stars with a line of brighter stars running through the centre. No nebulosity nor colour was detected.

Next was Ngc6910 a beautiful little cluster that in my 28 Uwan ressembles the shape of a tree. A mixture of a few bright stars but mostly pretty dim stars. Very pretty indeed and one I will revisit again.

Over to Andromeda next to find Ngc752, well this open cluster is very easy to find as it covers nearly 1° of sky and shines at a bright mag 5. In the 28 Uwan that gives me a fov of 1.26° this cluster looked fantastic. There must be at least 80 stars of all different brightness and sizes, even noted a couple of colour stars that looked very yellow. This is one of my favourite open clusters and well worth a regular visit.

Staying in Andromeda I moved the scope to Beta Andromeda and found Ngc404 staring back at me. I cannot believe how well this galaxy appears considering it is overwhelmed by the yellow glare of Mirach. In the 28 Uwan it's just about visible but place in the 16 Uwan at x114 it appears very bright indeed, you can make out the circular shape and it looked so wonderful I spent 20 minutes sketching it.

Next was the constellation of Sagitta and a globular cluster known as M71. This is an extremely loose cluster, and for some time there was doubt as to whether this was a globular cluster at all. Some astronomers believed it to be a condensed open cluster. This globular is located about 11,700 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of only 25 light-years. This makes it one of the smallest known globular clusters. Recent findings suggest that the size may actually be 90 light-years, but it is uncertain at this point how many of the surrounding stars are actually part of the cluster. I love looking at this cluster as it you can really resolve it right to the core, the 7 Uwan at x261 was amazing it actually resolved loads of stars and it looked fantastic.

Back over to Cygnus and had a look at Alberio, I love this binary star, the colours were so intense. The yellow star shines at mag 3 and it's companion a blue star at mag 5, they are seperated by 34'.

Staying in Cygnus the highlight of the evening was finding the planetary nebula Ngc7027 also known as The Pink Pillow Nebula. This is a very small nebula that shines with a magnitude of 10 and a was 0.3' in diameter. I went straight in with the 16 Uwan and eventually found it. Wow what a moment, it appears as a very bright green oval smudge, it holds magnification very well and a little more detail emerged while using the 7 Uwan. No central star was seen but the nebula really did look great. I tried to Baader O111 filter but this didn't improve the view. I then placed the 28 Uwan in found it quite easily, but it did appear as a very small non stellar green point of light.

Had to pack up about 21.30 due to cloud cover.

[Jupiter Martin]

Nice report Mick I have made a note of some of theses to see if I could find them

[iamjulian]

Another great read Mick. I'm never sure how many of these you tell us about would be visible to my scope, I haven't strayed from M numbers yet. But your descriptions of these faint jewels make me want to point my scope at them.

[Scottie]

Hi Mick,

Thanks. A much appreciated post and nice to know we were looking at the same region yesterday evening. It makes me ever eager to upgrade the focuser and get more out of the 6" Newt.

Gordon

[Doc]

Thanks guys. Julian try Ngc7027 easily to make out the nebula at x65, very pretty indeed.

[robneath]

One problem I have is western view - investigating where I can put scope so I can see the western targets. Inspires to look, and who knows I might even put together a devent report

[Theninjagecko]

I really like your reports doc. When i have my car on the road im coming to visit you and your Meade

[dobserver]

Glad you managed to get out there Mick and another great report :0)

[leeq]

Very nice for me to read Mick, thanks!

Reading all these reports is definitely getting me pumped for some clear skies... which I may get late tonight. Your descriptions of the objects definitely make me eager to see them.

Cheers!

[pvaz]

Thanks for the report Doc. At least I can "imagine" some of the things you observed!

All I got is clouds... This last week has been really bad.

[albedo0.39]

Nice report Mick - yet again, a cracking set of objects... you'll soon be clearing up the entire Abell list eh ?

Cheers

Steve