Galaxies and Ice Giants

4 October 2018, 21:45 – 00:00 BST

Conditions: The seeing was quite good but the sky was a little hazy, affecting the transparency.

NGC 7479, galaxy in Pegasus
Viewed at 133x (9mm Nagler): faint, extended streak of light with bright star at one end and a fainter one at the other. First impression - not unlike NGC 891. Sky transparency not good enough to see spiral arms, but suggestion of mottled structure along central axis.

NGC 404, Mirach’s Ghost, galaxy in Andromeda
Follow up observation at 240x (5mm Nagler). Showed up very well. High power made it easier to keep Mirach out of the field of view and to see more detail in the galaxy itself: condensed core and suggestion of nested structure rather than smooth gradation – arranged in two or three “shells” of brightness.

Neptune
Appeared as a blue “out of focus” star. The colour made it stand out from neighbouring stars. Hard to resolve, even at 240x. Two faint stars in vicinity.

Uranus
Obvious green-grey disc even at 133x. Clearly resolved at 240x – no detail or moons seen.

NGC 7331, spiral galaxy in Pegasus
Bright core, extended envelope, sharp cut-off on one side, indicative of dust lane. Very much like a smaller copy of M31. Could probably take 240x.

M74, spiral galaxy in Pisces
Faint, but still obvious despite its reputation as the toughest Messier. At 133x it showed a condensed core surrounded by a large faint disc. Hard to see any detail, but darker areas possibly indicating regions between spiral arms.

NGC 772, spiral galaxy in Aries
Small asymmetric patch of light, lacking same degree of condensation as M74. Seemingly irregular. My old notes tell me that I did see this with the Vixen 102, describing it as looking like a "ghost globular".

NGC 925, spiral galaxy in Triangulum
Extremely faint, amorphous patch of light. Could be easily overlooked if just sweeping through the area.

M33, spiral galaxy in Triangulum
Seemed positively bright compared to the previous three galaxies. One spiral arm clearly seen: clumpy patch of light curling from core towards a bright field star. The question remains (as with NGC 891) as to how much of this I would be able to see if I wasn’t already familiar with the photographic representation.

A quick look at the M31 satellite galaxies:
M32, Andromeda: star-like core.
M110, Andromeda: faint field star nearby perhaps matching location of globular? Maybe that's wishful thinking, but the G1 globular should just about be within my the range of my scope. Will need a detailed finder chart or photo to verify.

A quick look at two open clusters in Perseus:
NGC 1528 & NGC 1513: misty patches at 50x, partially resolved.

NGC 1664, open cluster in Auriga
Very distinctive cluster; stars form an outline resembling a kite or a stingray.

NGC 1579, emission nebula in Perseus
Very faint patch of light, possibly doubled. Somehow managed to lose track of it when I put in the Ultrablock. Though I might have been hampered by condensation.


Eventually the session was curtailed by condensation on the secondary mirror (although the primary remained dry). Could mean that I’ll be limited to two-hour sessions between now and spring.

Nature Note:
3 frogs in the pond: 1 big, 2 small.

Double Stars and Double Clusters

16 September 2018, 22:00 – 00:00 BST

First quarter moon adding to the light pollution in the south-west, but at least the seeing was good.

M15, globular cluster in Pegasus
Examined at all three available magnifications. The sky background was too bright to resolve stars at 50x; there was an improvement at 133x, but on this occasion the best view came at 240x – pleasing contrast, lots of faint stars resolved.

Veil Nebula, supernova remnant in Cygnus
Hindered a little bit by moonlight, but with the Ultrablock to filter most of it out, plenty of detail still visible. The nebula had a winding, braided structure. Brightness held up well at 133x with the two main arcs extending across several fields of view. Pickering’s Triangle suspected, but not confirmed – if so, it was right on the threshold of visibility.

A quick tour of the open clusters in northern Lacerta was a little disappointing. The sky was too bright to do justice to the 24mm Panoptic, and at 133x the field of view was too small to properly frame the clusters. For the most part, they just looked like sparse associations of bright stars.

A similar tour of the Cassiopeia clusters at 50x fared better due to the richer clusters and the darker background in that part of the sky. An intermediate magnification might help with some of these NGC clusters.

Eta Cassiopeiae, double star 
Looked very nice at 133x, with the secondary appearing to have an unusual purple hue.

Double Cluster in Perseus
The red giant stars stood out more at 133x, but the two clusters lose some of their impact at this magnification. However, higher magnifications might be useful for separating close pairs and picking out fainter cluster members at 240x.

The following observations were all carried out with the Ultrablock filter.

M76, planetary nebula in Perseus
Holds brightness very well all the way up to 240x. Bi-lobed, boxy shape, with the brighter lobe appearing almost rectangular. No colour apparent. Prolonged examination suggested one or two knots/condensations within the brighter lobe.

NGC 404 (Mirach’s Ghost), galaxy in Andromeda
Only a quick look, but this little galaxy showed up surprisingly well. It seemed the Ultrablock dimmed the glare from Mirach more than it dimmed 404, but I’ll have to try this again without the filter to verify.

NGC 604, emission nebula in M33, Triangulum Galaxy
Perhaps it stood out a little more through the filter, but the difference seemed marginal at best.

NGC 1491, emission nebula in Perseus
I actually meant to look for a different nebula, but this one stood out surprisingly well as an extended misty patch with a single reasonably bright star offset from the centre. Suggestion of mottled structure at higher magnification. Faded smoothly into the background sky, unlike some of the nebulae I’ve been looking at recently.

A Nebula in another Galaxy

14 September 2018, 23:00 – 01:00 BST

Started by looking for Neptune but I couldn’t be sure I’d found it, even at higher magnification. Lack of bright stars nearby makes it difficult to star-hop with the EZ Finder.

M31, Andromeda Galaxy
Satellite galaxies M32 and M110 showed up well at 133x, but M31 still frustratingly bland apart from the dark lanes.

M33, galaxy in Triangulum
Viewed at 133x for a change and very quickly spotted the star-forming region NGC 604 as a small but obviously non-stellar patch of nebulosity close to a foreground star. I could still see it when I switched to 50x, though it’s easy to overlook at lower magnification. (Certainly much easier to pick out than the NGC 206 star-cloud in Andromeda.) With hindsight I probably could have seen it with the Vixen 102 if I’d known where to look, but now I can use it as a reference point to trace out the spiral arms. It's kind of mind-boggling to realise that I’m looking at a nebula in another galaxy. A reminder that higher magnifications are worth trying even on low surface brightness objects like M33.

NGC 891, edge-on galaxy in Andromeda
Still very challenging, but an improvement on my last attempt. Appeared as a very faint spindle of light, a little brighter on one side. Central dark dust lane seen fleetingly with averted vision as a narrow bar of empty space. I'm not familiar with using averted vision to see a dark or “absent” object (especially when I'm already using averted vision just to see the galaxy), so the effect was slightly disconcerting. It was as if the dark lane was right in front of my eyes the whole time, but for whatever reason I had to “allow” my brain to see it. Would I have noticed that level of detail if I hadn’t already seen so many photos of NGC 891? That's a tough question to answer, but I'd like to observe this galaxy again on a really dark, transparent night to put it beyond doubt.

Almach, double star in Andromeda
Very pretty at 133x – straw coloured primary, aquamarine secondary. Shows what an improvement steady atmosphere and properly-cooled mirror make not just to resolution, but colour perception too.

NGC 1023, galaxy in Perseus
Extended ellipse of light with a bright core, not unlike 7331 in Andromeda.

NGC 1245, open cluster in Perseus
Faint but rich sprinkling of stars, shaped like a large swift or a bow “aimed” at a brighter nearby star.

Double Cluster, Perseus
Hard to put into words how stunning this is through a telescope. Red giant stars showed up better with improved seeing and higher altitude. Exquisite resolution of bright and faint stars in the densest regions of the clusters.

Pleiades (M45), Taurus
Too large for field even at 50x. Definite mistiness around some stars – reflection nebula at last? Need to cross-check against photo, and inspect at higher magnification.

Cygnus Planetary

2 September 2018, 22:00 – 23:00 BST

Conditions: Poor transparency, hazy, fully clouded over by 23:00.

Sensing that time was against me, I took a quick look at M71, the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), the Coathanger cluster/asterism (could barely see NGC 6802), M15, Mars. These are all objects I've seen before under better conditions, but the evening did have one new highlight:

NGC 7027, planetary nebula in Cygnus
Observed at 133x (9mm Nagler) with and without Ultrablock. Small, but bright and conspicuous with a greenish hue. At first the nebula seemed round and featureless, but prolonged scrutiny showed an elongated oval shape. Brighter at one end, suggestion of shell structure. Possible bright knot masquerading as central star. Definitely worth revisiting at 240x on a better night.

Three More Clusters

31 August 2018, 22:00 – 23:00 BST

Just time to get in an hour of observing before the moonlight interferes.

Mars
240x (Nagler 5mm). Dust slowly clearing, hint of dark markings, polar cap very bright – like a sliver of fluorescent light.

NGC 6940, open cluster in Vulpecula
Best views at 50x (24mm Panoptic): an impressive sprinkling of stars with what looked like a central ribbon of brighter stars defining the long axis. Overall its shape vaguely resembled a tadpole or a deflating balloon on a string.

NGC 7063, open cluster in Cygnus
Loose, sparse gathering of bright stars – better suited to a wide-field refractor.

M15, globular cluster in Pegasus
The faintest stars were washed out by light from the rising moon, but it still looked impressive, particularly with averted vision.