8 October 2021, 20:45 – 22:45 (BST)
Seeing: Average
Transparency: Average
Conditions: A mild night with a light breeze. Patchy cloud at the start and end of the session.
With all the forecasts predicting clouds at some point, I wasn’t sure how much time I was going to get, so I kept the 13mm Ethos in the focuser for the entire session.
NGC 7789, open cluster, Cassiopeia
92x. Lovely, rich cluster – looks like a very loose globular in the Ethos. Orange star on the leading (west) side of the cluster.
NGC 457, open cluster, Cassiopeia
92x. The unmistakable Owl Cluster; this was always one of my favourites in the SP-102. Rich central spine of stars with several close doubles. Looks good in the Ethos.
NGC 436, open cluster, Cassiopeia
92x. Companion cluster to the Owl. About 15 members resolved in direct vision, with an underlying haze of unresolved stars.
Nature note: At approximately 21:20 I heard the first of several Redwings flying overhead. Winter is coming…
Double Cluster, Perseus
92x. What more can I say that I haven’t already said other than: wow! I don’t know if it’s the eyepiece design or something to do with the magnification I’m using, but star colours really seem to “pop” in the Ethos, particularly red giants and carbon stars.
NGC 957, open cluster, Perseus
92x. Elongated, almond-shaped cluster, with a mixture of bright stars and an underlying haze. Two bright stars at the east and west ends of the cluster. Not bad as clusters go, but its cause isn’t helped by its close proximity to the Double Cluster.
NGC 744, open cluster, Perseus
92x. Loose, vaguely bat-shaped cluster. (It also resembles – putting it less charitably – a concertina clothes horse.) Central diamond-shaped concentration of stars with a few close doubles. Bright star on the northern corner.
M76, “Little Dumbbell Nebula”, Perseus
92x. Seemed a little fainter at this magnification (possibly due to lower contrast). As noted previously, aligned NE-SW, with the SW lobe being the brighter of the two. The orange star noted last time out is due east. Field star west of the nebula, another one NW, and two more in a line farther out on the eastern side.
NGC 278, galaxy, Cassiopeia
92x. Small, round condensed fuzz southwest of a prominent blue field star. Bright core with averted vision; like an unresolved little globular cluster. A MEO satellite crawled through the field at around 22:15.
NGC 278 is certainly a lot easier to see than the two Andromeda satellite galaxies that also occupy this corner of Cassiopeia. Talking of which, NGC 185 was just visible as a faint featureless oval, but NGC 147 was a lot harder to see (as usual). After sweeping the area I thought I could detect a very faint glow south of a triangle of field stars – and by “very faint” I mean right on the threshold of visibility. I was going to take a breather and try again, but unfortunately the clouds returned at this point, bringing with them a thin layer of haze. When I went indoors I looked at a photo of NGC 147 in NSOG, and there it was south of a triangle of field stars, so I think maybe I did spot it at last. (But I’d like to see it again to be sure.)
I also went out the following night (9 October) from 21:00 to 22:15. I had planned to follow up on the observation of NGC 147, but it was quickly apparent that the transparency was too poor for viewing faint objects. The air temperature was also noticeably cooler, with condensation appearing on the scope from the outset. (The big eye lens of the Ethos doesn’t cope well with dew.)
So instead I switched to the back-up plan and spent an enjoyable hour observing Jupiter and its moons. The seeing was mostly poor with fleeting moments of clarity, so I didn’t go higher than 240x (5mm Nagler). However it was good enough for me to watch Europa emerging from Jupiter’s shadow at approximately 21:35, appearing first as a pinprick of light, then growing to full brightness in just a few minutes.
One brown barge was visible above the NEB, and the GRS was starting to rotate into view near the end of the session, but the seeing was deteriorating badly by this point. The metal tube of the scope was also dripping wet, so I packed up for the night.
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