I used my 20-inch and tried to make some headway on the H2 list but I was a little bit unfocussed in my observing. I noticed some interesting things on the chart and spent time observing those. I mooched some views of different things on the others' scopes (MJ showed Copeland's Septet in his 18-inch; MW showed an attractive galaxy and star field in his 18-inch; SG showed some of his galaxy pairs and we spent some time on the Hercules Cluster in his 24-inch). I shared my 2.1x42 Vixens with MJ & MW and we all enjoyed the view (I liked it when MW exclaimed: "Scorpius just turned into a giant open cluster!"). I was already tired when I started observing, and since Astronomical twilight was not until 10:30pm there wasn't a lot of time to observe before I conked out at around 3:30am. No matter, it was still a rewarding night. Here are my recorded observations, all at 205x except the Hercules Cluster at 333x:
SN 2016coj in NGC 4125, galaxy in Draco: 4125 is a bright elliptical core with very faint halo, WNW-ENE 2:1. Supernova 2016coj was just to the east of the core, still well within the halo; a bright point, brighter than the core itself. Est. 14.3 magnitude. To SSE is NGC 4121, small faint roundish patch. http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=9095
NGC 3065, Gx in Ursa Major: Small, bright round core, stellar nucleus. Round haze hints of halo. NGC 3066 3' to the SSE, a little fainter but about as large, round.
NGC 3516, Gx in UMa: Small. Bright core, very slightly out of round ENE-WSW; very diffuse round halo.
Arp 329, Galaxy cluster in Dra = HCG 55 = UGC 6514: A small, faint mist, shallow-S shaped, 1.2' long, with three condensations seen. I should have tried higher magnification; these are three of five members of the galaxy chain, 16.88 mag to 18.03.
NGC 3622: Gx in UMa: Need to keep 6.2 mag star SAO 15478 to SSE out of FOV. 2:1 N-S elongation, fairly bright core appears disrupted with a couple bright patches on the west end of the core. Very faint halo appears a little longer to the south of the core. Said to be an inclined spiral.
NGC 3735, GX in Dra: Lovely bright long edge on, 4:1 NW-SE. Stellar nucleus is a little SE of center and is like a ball floating on the halo. Bright elongated core and uneven brightness halo which fades imperceptibly to the tips.
NGC 4133, Gx in Dra: Face on spiral. Needed to keep nearby bright star to south (HR 4627, 6.34 v mag) out of the FOV. Rather small and faint, the core is oval and of uneven surface brightness, faint. Seems to be a dark lane on the west side. Diffuse halo is elliptical, NW-SE. 11' to SE near edge of FOV is UGC 7189, 14.8 b mag, a small faint oval patch with brighter core NNW-SSE
NGC 4236, Gx in Dra: Large, long maybe 6:1 NNW-SSE elongation, low surface brightness halo with a gradually brightening core and a sudden sharp stellar nucleus (which could be a fortuitously placed foreground star). Several foreground stars and perhaps fainter non-stellar patches on the SSE tip. Detected with AV and then can hold in DV, there is a bulge in the halo on the SW facing side of the NNW tip. The "bulge" I find in Aladin using the NED filter are identified as HII regions (the brighter being HK83 16, 17, & 18). One of the brighter "non-stellar patches" on the SSE tip (it is in line with the major axis of the halo) Aladin has as VII Zw 446, mis-identified by Zwicky as a separate compact blue galaxy.
NGC 4250, Gx in Dra: Stellar nucleus, bright oval core NNW-SSE. Very diffuse roundish halo. AV widens and lengthens the amount of halo seen. It is a barred spiral seen face on.
NGC 4256, Gx in Dra: Beautiful, bright long edge on. Stellar nucleus and tight round core which floats on the long halo, gradually fading to its tips. Extends 2/3rds the FOV, 5:1 NE-SW.
NGC 4291, Gx in Dra: Bright round core, round faint halo; slight mottling in outer edges of core. Lies as one corner of a rectangle with three foreground stars. With 4319 and 4386 in view.
NGC 4319, Gx in Dra: Fainter than 4291, has an elongated rice grain shape N-S core and a faint roundish halo. Markarian 205 quasar is a stellar point just S of core, 1 billion light years away! To the north on edge of FOV is NGC 4386: Bright round core with elongated halo piercing it, NW-SE 3:2.
Abell 2151, the Hercules Galaxy Cluster: Observed near zenith. I started out with the string of galaxies comprised of 6040A/B, 6041A/B, and 6042. It was easy to find and brighter than I recall at Fremont Peak. The A/B pairs were more clearly split, and IC 1170 popped out consistently with AV, and I could barely hold it DV. I used this group as my home base as I searched around the area – I could find it easily enough. Letting the sky drift a little to the east, I could easily make out NGC 6045 following a wedge of stars, the two ends of which were hazy patches NGC 6043 and NGC 6047, respectively. 6045 had a very slightly brighter elongated core and very faint halo; stare as I might I could not see the small 6045B attached to the following tip, however I glimpsed it very briefly in Steve’s 24-inch scope. I could see much more definite splits of all the A/B pairs in Steve's scope. Back to my scope: NGC 6050A followed this group and appeared as a small round mist with a pretty bright core; 6050B (IC 1179) appeared as a small bulge to 6050A’s halo. NGC 6054 was very faint & small, with a NE-SW elongation just detectable. IC 1182 and 1184 following it were faint small non-stellar patches, forming a triangle with 6054. IC 1178 and 1181 appeared as a slightly larger than small irregularly round haze with two very hazy slightly brighter areas for their cores. NGC 6044 was very faint, small, round. I missed more galaxies, some of the ICs and PGCs. I felt I was straining a bit to detect the very faint small glows about – I have to get more used to viewing these very faint objects.
NGC 6026, Planetary Nebula in Lupis: Central star seen easily. Faint small round shell. OIII makes shell disappear at first but can bring it back with more contrast by blinking. Inner part of shell is brighter, with a thin diffuse haze around it. OIII loses the CS
NGC 5986, Globular Cluster in Lup: Bright, pretty large; string of resolved stars runs E-W along the northern half. Bright star at NE edge. Highly concentrated and compact. About 50 resolved stars in front of grey mass.
NGC 6072, PN in Scorpius: Pretty bright, brighter central glow; overall diffuse and round. Ill defined edges; greenish color. OIII enhances view and reveals mottling in the shell and an inner ring structure.
HP 1, GC in Ophiuchus: Haute-Provence 1, mag. 12.1, size 1.2'. According to one "Dennis" who posted his image of the object in IceInSpace: "Discovered by Dufay, Berthier and Morignat in 1954. Independently rediscovered by van den Bergh and Hagen in 1975. Globular Cluster HP 1 was discovered by Dufay et.al. (1954), and sometimes referred to as "HP" for the Haute-Provence Observatory where the discovery occurred (e.g., Sawyer Hogg 1959). This designation was mutated to HP 1 as more globular clusters were discovered at that observatory in the 1960s by Terzan. Until recently, it was thought that HP 1 is situated close to the Galactic Center, but recent estimates have put it as far as about 20,000 light years beyond, to a total distance of 46,000 light years from us." In my scope it appeared as a very faint, small irregular splotch at the western rim of a shallow upturned arc of 5 stars. The greyishness began to turn grainy with AV, hinting of some resolved stars
At this point I was too tired to focus on chasing particular targets, though the sky was chock full of them. I put in my lowest power eyepiece (1 degree TFOV) for some sweeping through the Milky Way. The grey sky background became grainy with resolving stars. Dark cracks appeared in the graininess, dark nebulae or just gaps in stars. Then, a giant globular cluster came to view, bright, concentrated, and well resolved, with streamers of stars radiating out into that dense grainy Milky Way field. A sight I hope not to forget.
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