Cas Herschel 400 objects, 22-11-2009 with Orion XT8i

[pvaz]

The plan:

I been busy this last weeks trying to go through the Messier catalog but all objects I'm missing have been under the horizon or too close to it at decent hours. So, looking for a challenge, I decided to start on the Herschel 400.

Today's plan was to go through the 16 "Herschel 400" objects in Cassiopeia.

Report:

NGC129: Open Cluster. Nothing remarkable about it, but it was a nice sight.

NGC136: Open Cluster. Had a triangle of bright stars and many low mag ones around. After a while the amount of stars resolve was too hard to count. Didn't see anything special in the shape.

NGC225: Open Cluster. I enjoyed this one. Haves around 15 bright stars with a lot of fainter ones around. Couldn't make any particular shape out of it but it's still a good sight and it fills my lowest power FOV.

NGC381: Open Cluster. Dense but mostly faint stars. I had to use the laptop to confirm since I wasn't sure at 1st. I wasn't very impressed with it.

NGC436: Open Cluster. This one was very small and it was hard to focus on it since it haves 457 as a neighbor. I used the 15mm to sketch it.

NGC457: Open Cluster. This one was staggering. One of the best OCs I seen so far. Known as the Owl Cluster it resembles a bird with big eyes and open wings. It haves "two bright stars, magnitude 5 Phi-1 Cassiopeiae and magnitude 7 Phi-2 Cassiopeiae can be imagined as eyes. The cluster features a rich field of about 150 stars of magnitudes 12-15.". Definitely one to revisit many times.

The cloud gods got mad at me for some reason and ruined the observation plans.

As soon as I can get a decent night I'll take on the other 10 objects missing and add a post to this thread.

Report part 2 (23-11-2009):

NGC185: It's a dwarf spheroidal galaxy orbiting M31. It's 2Mly away and haves magnitude 10. It's small and I found it hard to spot. At 1st I confused it with it's neighbor NGC 147, witch is also a galaxy of the same type and also orbits M31. After scanning the area I sow both with my 32mm EP and did a sketch. They make a nice pair, are a bit of a challenge to find but are nice targets to look if you remind yourself of what you are looking at. Visually they are not very staggering.

NGC637: Another open cluster in the Cassiopeia region. I could count around 10 bright stars and a few dimmer ones. It's not very compact and nothing out of the ordinary.

NGC559: Open Cluster. It's also known as Caldwell 8. It's somewhat small with only 4 arc min so I had to use 80x to resolve some stars in it. Also didn't find it very interesting but I must warn you I'm not that much into OCs, although I like some.

Clouds came fast with no sighs to clear any time soon, so observations got postponed again.

Notes:

All observations done at 37.5x with a 1.8º FOV. In some cases a I used 80x to resolve fainter stars.

Pocket sky atlas and a telrad finder ware used to locate the objects.

I printed a paper with a circle representing each FOV with the object NGC number on the side so I could do a rough sketch to confirm the observation later. I find this helps me appreciate the objects in more detail too and gets me more "immersed" into the EP.

Google Earth was used for confirmations since it haves the best photos (IMO) and the ability to rotate the perspective freely to match my sketch inverted image.

I toke some ideas from Doc's reports, witch I always find to be informative and interesting. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get good information on most of the targets.

References:

- William Herschel 400 List

- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mark at Beaufort]

Hello Paulo

Like you I recently decided to view the Herschel 400 objects having virtually completed the Messier objects and a large number of the Caldwell which are visible from the UK.

It is also interesting that you started with the Cassiopeia objects which is what I decided to do in late October.

I recently obtained Steve O'Meare's book on the Herschel 400 which is a very useful guide although expensive in the UK. If you have a chance to see the book I think you be impressed.

Anyway clear skies in Portugal and success the 400.

Regards

Mark

[Doc]

Very interesting read Paulo, I do the same as you and concentrate on a constellation at a time, I think you get more involved that way.

I'm really pleased my reports are helping you Paulo, I'll keep posting them.

[pvaz]

Very interesting read Paulo, I do the same as you and concentrate on a constellation at a time, I think you get more involved that way.

I'm really pleased my reports are helping you Paulo, I'll keep posting them.

Thanks. Picking one constellation at a time really helps, since I can pick one that will be high enough, for the best seeing possible and keep track of what I've seen so far.

[robneath]

Coincindently my plan involves Auriga - thanks to Doc's reports im more inspired to look once the damn cloud has gone. Which cluster is the most difficult to observe in Auriga in your opnion Doc?

[Doc]

Coincindently my plan involves Auriga - thanks to Doc's reports im more inspired to look once the damn cloud has gone. Which cluster is the most difficult to observe in Auriga in your opnion Doc?

Out of the three main clusters M36,37 & 38 I would say the dimmest one and hardest to see is M36.

[pvaz]

M38 is easy and my favorite of the 3Ms in Auriga. Right beside it is NGC 1907 witch is smaller and a bit dimmer. They are nice to see together with a wide field EP.

[robneath]

The three Messiers are on my list already, I'm also thinking of the Herschel objects as well. From what I've been able to research some of those are pretty faint as well.

[pvaz]

The three Messiers are on my list already, I'm also thinking of the Herschel objects as well. From what I've been able to research some of those are pretty faint as well.

Yeah. I read on one of the sites about the Herschel 400 a 10" is recommended to see all of them. I'm trying with an 8" and it's been OK so far. But I need decent nights to keep it going.