A Bow-tie in Cepheus

27 August 2019, 22:00 – 23:00 BST

The third clear night in a row, although the transparency was rather poor. The imaging target for the evening was the globular cluster M15.

Observations of M15, M71, M57 and NGC 7662 were affected by the conditions and so not really worthy of note-taking, although the latter (7662) did show a hint of a darker core at the higher magnification of 240x. However there were a couple of other highlights:

M103, open cluster, Cassiopeia
Triangular cluster with prominent red star at centre. While sweeping the scope towards Epsilon Cas I stumbled upon a tiny little cluster of stars, the four brightest stars of which formed an almost dead straight line. Not plotted in PSA, but confirmed in Uranometria as Trumpler 1.

NGC 40, The Bow-tie Nebula, Cepheus
Medium sized planetary nebula; faint envelope surrounding central star (not unlike the Crystal Ball Nebula in Taurus). The addition of the OIII filter gave a hint of a lobed structure, at the expense of the central star (which was swamped by the nebulosity). Worth revisiting under better sky conditions.

Other notes
Saw another late Perseid streaking through Lyra towards the end of the evening.