Tag Archives: visual observing

LVAS October 2018 Observer’s Challenge: NGC 7129

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Report by ASSNE Member Mike McCabe

The LVAS Observer’s Challenge object for October, 2018 was NGC 7129, a cluster associated with nebulosity in the constellation Cepheus. I got my first look at this object on the evening of October 9th, which also happened to be the night of the new moon. I was also in a unique location for this observation, having rented a cottage for the week in a place called The Gurnet, which is located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The sky quality at the Gurnet, at least up where Cepheus is located at this time of year, is about a magnitude better than what I typically have at home on a good night. So while I had a pretty good sky to work with during that first observation, the aperture of my observing instrument was limited by the amount of room I had available when packing the vehicle for the trip, which was not an astronomy-specific venture.

So while the instrument itself was of good quality, the size of it (4.5” F8) left something to be desired when chasing dim nebulosity. The cluster itself was readily obvious, with four relatively bright stars populating the area of the cluster. The nebulosity however could only be described as a ‘suspicion’ with averted vision, but it was definitely a strong suspicion. I think had I known the exact layout of the nebulous patch, then I could’ve made a more definitive observation on that night, even with the small optics.

My second look at this object came on the 14th of October from my home location, with the seeing and transparency both decent at 3/5. This time I was using my 10” F5 Newtonian reflector, and the nebulosity was readily visible with averted vision. I can’t say that I was able to see the patch with direct vision, but it was definitely there every time I applied averted vision, and was never an intermittent apparition. I’m confident that from a dark sky site the nebulosity would be definitively visible with direct vision in the same telescope, and probably a positive averted vision object in the smaller scope.

Cepheus is a wonderful constellation for these types of objects, and now that I know about NGC 7129 I’ll be sure to return in the future for more sightings of this object.

September 2018 LVAS Observer’s Challenge: NGC 6818 and NGC 6822

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Report by ASSNE member Mike McCabe

The LVAS Observer’s Challenge object for September 2018 may have been the planetary nebula NGC 6818 in Sagittarius, but upon closer inspection of its exact location, it was clear that this challenge would be a “two-fer.” The very close proximity of NGC 6822, aka Barnard’s Galaxy, was impossible to ignore and simply had to go into the mix.

Research on the objects revealed that with 6818 I’d be looking for structure and color in the planetary nebula, but with 6822 I’d be lucky to merely confirm the existence of the galaxy. The planetary is bright enough to be seen in virtually any scope, but the galaxy exhibits a very low surface brightness that makes observing it a challenge no matter what scope you’re using. Regardless, NGC 6822 has such a colorful observational history that it practically begged to be included.

I was fortunate in this difficult stretch of poor observing weather along the US East Coast to get a few nights of clear skies near new moon time to work with. I also got lucky with the transparency and seeing on two of the three nights that I observed. Transparency ratings of 3/5 and seeing ratings of 3/5 would be considered above average for my area, and we consider those to be good nights indeed.

On the evening of September 1, 2018 I used my 80mm F7ED refractor and a 30mm/82* eyepiece to view the pair in a wide star field. I was decidedly applying the “less is more so maybe I’ll see this galaxy” approach, wherein you use low power to separate the low surface brightness object from the broader field of view. It didn’t work. I could never say on that evening that I caught a glimpse of NGC 6822.The planetary nebula was apparently non-stellar even at low power, and pushing the magnification up to 140x showed it as a fuzzy disc, but the small aperture limited the detail.

I was back out on September 3rd, this time using my 5” F9.3 refractor with the 30mm/82* eyepiece and the conditions were good enough to support a faint glimpse of Barnard’s Galaxy. The only way I could tell for sure was when I picked up on the orientation of it in the eyepiece. I was using an alt/az mount and in the field of view it appeared to slant with the bottom/east to top/west, which was of course reversed due to the diagonal mirror. It was a fleeting apparition at best, but that discernment felt like a confirmation to me. Soon after that observation, some clouds moved in and shut down my observing for the evening, and so with it any further study of the planetary for the night.

My final observations were made on September 4th, using my 10” F5 Newtonian reflector. Using the 30mm/82* eyepiece again, I was not able to repeat my success of the prior evening in seeing NGC 6822. The sky conditions were slightly worse than during my previous attempts, so I concentrated primarily on NGC 6818. Even though there is much knowledge about this nebula and it’s well known to be somewhat oval in nature, to my eye at 133x it appeared spherical and it also appeared evenly illuminated, so I wasn’t discerning any structure either. It did appear to hint at some color, which if pressed to say something I’d call bluish grey. The seeing wasn’t supporting any more magnification on this evening, and that ended my run with the Little Gem Nebula for this year.

June 2018 Looking Up: Astronomy Calendar

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A monthly roundup of upcoming astronomy events visible from MA/RI…

Dated events
June 9-11: Venus, Castor & Pollux in a line (west, dusk)
June 12: New moon supermoon!
June 14-16: Waxing crescent moon passes Mercury & Venus (west, dusk)
June 19-20: Venus near the Beehive (M44)
June 23: Moon-Jupiter conjunction
June 27: Saturn opposition and conjunction with Moon

Where to find the planets
• Mercury: Early evening 2nd half of month, setting 90 min after sun
• Venus: Brilliant in west, moving from Gemini to Cancer during month, sets 2.5-3 hrs after sun
• Mars: Brightening this month, in Capricornus, rising after midnight early in month but this improves by 90 min by month end
• Jupiter: Up all night in Libra. Just past opposition, excellent time to view
• Saturn: Up most of the night in Sagittarius, coming to opposition, excellent time to view
• Uranus: Pre-dawn object in Aries (later in the month)
• Neptune: Rises after midnight by month’s end, in Aquarius

Observable dwarf planets/asteroids up to mag 10
Approx. observing window as of June 9. Click here for your current date & finder chart for exact times.
• 4 Vesta, in Sagittarius, mag 5.6, 11 pm-3:30 am
• 1 Ceres, in Leo, mag 8.7, 9:30 pm-10:30 pm

Selected deep sky objects
Well placed for evening observing with binos/small scopes. Does not include circumpolar! Set your exact date/location by clicking here (and see additional DSO’s).
• Open clusters: M44, IC4665, NGC6633, IC4756
• Globular clusters: M2, M3, M5, M10, M12, M13, M92
• Galaxies: M94, M104

LVAS April Challenge: M81/M82

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Report by ASSNE member Mike McCabe

With the LVAS Observer’s Challenge for April 2018 being iconic galaxies M81 and M82, I had high designs for my report sketch. Having looked at this duo countless times over the years, I planned to have a good sit-down with a quality optical instrument and painstakingly capture as much detail as my limited art talent could muster. It would be one of my best ever, maybe the best ever drawing I’ve ever made of an astronomical object. April, however, had other ideas in mind.

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but up here in the good ol’ Northeast of the United States we’ve been stuck in a weather pattern that hasn’t been very conducive to astronomical observing. Even normal people have become so winter-weary that they’ve been identifying days not by their conventional month/day format, but by the number of days into the year. Using this format, I finally made my observation for this report on what we’re now referring to the 106th day of January.

Regardless of the challenges brought forth by the weather, we did get a break or two here and there to get a peek at the sky, and one of those breaks came on the 16th of April – the night of the new moon. For reasons that meteorologists don’t even understand, all of the sudden the cloud cover broke and we were presented with a crystal clear sky. I swiftly deployed my little SV80ED scope to have a look around. I was just touring around a bit when it dawned on me that I should probably take advantage of this hole in the ceiling to get my challenge sketch made. It actually worked out better than I expected.

The little refractor has always put up good images, but 80mm isn’t exactly a ton of horsepower when it comes to deep sky stuff. Regardless, the transparency was good and the image was better than I expected. No, I wasn’t seeing spiral arms in M81 or dust lanes in M82, but the image was very pleasing and I enjoyed getting the sketch. This is one fine deep-sky duo, and they’re always a pleasure to observe.