pinnacles

Sunday night joined Jamie Dillon at the Pinnacles National Park at the Chaparral Trailhead parking lot, beneath the hoodoos.  While driving above Soledad on Route 149 I noticed smoke from the Soberanes fire in the mountains to the west.  The winds from the north / north-northwest blew it away from the Pinnacles.  We had an impromptu star party for some hikers who came to the parking lot after dark – they said they got a little lost on the trails and were relieved to make it back.  After turning off their flashlights they enjoyed the starry sky; two of them lay down on the pavement, to both rest and take in the Milky Way.

Seeing was not great in the beginning of the night, but it got better.  I estimated Pickering 6 by 10pm and 7 after 11pm, and I daresay up to 8 after 1am.  Transparency was merely good; minor dewing persisted through the night.  It was surprisingly cold, low 40s at midnight dipping into the upper 30s very late –along with the rise of the Hyades, it was a herald of the approaching winter.  I should have just taken the best near zenith, but the tyranny of my lists drove me to Sagittarius and environs.  Toward 2:00am Jamie was able to make out the Gengenschein just below and to the east of the Circlet in Pisces.  I could not discern it despite Jamie’s careful description; I have never seen it and didn’t know quite what to see.  Here are some other highlights, all in my 20-inch reflector:

NGC 6620, PN in Sgr, 12.7v, 5.3” x 3.8”: @ 205x a small bright disk, bluish grey unfiltered, more strongly blue-green with OIII.  Soft but consistently round rim; no central star. 

NGC 6629, PN in Sgr, 11.3v, 16” x 14”: @ 205x it appears as a smallish hazy disk with a bright central star.  Has a ragged blue-green outer shell [others report seeing sharp edges, so my view may have been distorted by poor seeing].  Very dense field.

IC 4732, PN in Sgr, 12.1v, 3”: @205x, small and faint somewhat bloated star in line with two other brighter stars.  OIII makes it blink as a PN.  No central star seen.

NGC 6644, PN in Sgr, 10.7v, 2.5”: @205x, small but bright & stellar, blinking with OIII.  Soft edged, bluish disk, no central star.  333x made the disk more apparent but did not give more detail.

IC 4776, PN in Sgr, 10.9v, 8”: @205x, bright and small, bluish, blinking with OIII.  Soft edges and no central star.

NGC 6526, Bright Nebula in Sgr, and part of M8, 40’ size: A real stunner and an easy Telrad find.  @ 121x the M8 complex filled the field; UHC was best filtered view, bringing out much detail.  6526 is the SW portion of M8, and was a bright sweep of nebulosity, providing contrast for the dark nebula dividing it from NGC 6523, the NE portion of M8.  A very bright bow-shaped nebula appeared at the end of three stars near the SW tip of the dark nebula, which I took to be 6526 but which I find out now is the Hourglass Nebula.  Panning around the scene, there was more, fainter nebulosity to the north and east, and many pretty groups of stars.

NGC 6309, PN in Oph, 11.5v, 20”: “Exclamation Point Nebula”: Bizarre looking bright cigar shaped PN elongated 3:1 NNW-SSE with a bright star off the NNW tip, making it appear as an exclamation point.  Used 333x; UHC helped contrast.  The NNW portion of the PN is brighter.  According to Wikipedia it is quadrupolar but I did not resolve the separate portions.

M 2-9, PN in Oph, 13.2v, 60”x30”: “Minkowsky’s Butterfly”.  @ 333x a small, elongated 3 or 4:1 N-S.  It looks rather like a galaxy, overall very faint but with a small brighter round central region with quickly fading and tapering tips.  The center flashes a central star with averted vision and brief moments of good seeing.  Filters don’t seem to help the view.   

NGC 6712, Globular Cluster in Sct, 8.1v, 7.2’:  @ 333x, pretty large and irregularly round, with a couple dozen stars resolved in front of the misty grey core, and more stars sparking out to the west side.  Very dense field of stars mixing up with the cluster’s stars.  (I used M11 as the start of the star hop to this object, and had a nice if not picturesque view of the center of the cluster, its red star reigning over the crowds of faint and fainter stars surrounding.)

IC 1295, PN in Sct, 12.5v, 102”x87”: Unfiltered at 333x a large round haze, mottled through the central region.  OIII and UHC both help.  The edge appears uneven at first but it is really round, with some parts dimmer than others; the south / southeast edge is brightest.  The center is more strongly mottled with the filters.  A second planetary, K 4-8, was plotted on the atlas just to the NW, and I found it blinking with the UHC filter.  A nice contrast in sizes of planetaries in the same field of view.

NGC 6604, OC with nebulosity in Ser, 6.5v, 4’: At 86x and 1° TFOV, the large nebulosity is an irregularly round fairly bright patch around a handful of stars in a shallow arc, with chains of stars stretching to the north and south.  UHC brought out more faint wisps of nebulosity.  Nearby to M16 which was visible in the 80mm finder.

Peimbert Costero PC 19, 12.2v, 14”: PN in Ser:  At 333x, small, fairly faint, bluish, blinks with OIII.  Two close fainter stars make a string with it pointing NW.  I think this was put on the AL PN list to make people research it: Digital images of the PN reveal it looks something like a spiral galaxy with bright “arms” in the SW and NE part of its “halo”.  It is a “Point-Symmetric” PN, meaning the star’s material is being ejected by a bipolar rotating episodic jet, giving it its weird shape. 

NGC 6572, PN in Oph, 8.1v, 16”x13”: “Emerald Nebula”: Very bright and a very beautiful deep green color.  Out of round and orientated N-S.  I think I saw a central star flash out of the very bright central region when using averted vision, very brief.  The edge is hazy and seems to be a diffuse outer shell. 

I made another unsuccessful attempt for Pease 1 in M15.  The globular itself bristled with resolved stars down to the brilliant core, and was very impressive at 333x.  My main struggle to find the planetary is to pick out the “trapezium” stars to begin the star hop on the finder chart.  I eventually just tried blinking with my OIII in the general vicinity of where I thought Pease 1 was, but with no certainty.  Today I went back to blackskies.org and found a good picture of the trapezium stars’ location – turns out I have been searching for them too far away from M15’s core.  I’m hopeful next time out I will be able to find the PN.

NGC 7094, PN in Peg, 13.4v, 99”x91”: Visible in 80mm finder as a stellar point.  @ 333x central star is visible within a round faint moderately large shell; view improves with OIII

NGC 7042, GX in Peg, 12.2v, 2.0’ x 1.8’: I found this easier to hop to from Gamma Equuleus than from M15 where I just was.  @ 205x, fairly faint, pretty large, 3:2 elongated NW-SE, bright core and clearly disrupted diffuse halo [Sb spiral].  Another galaxy in same field, NGC 7043 to the NE as a small, faint round glow with a brighter core. 

NGC 7177, GX in Peg, 11.4v, 3.1’x2.0’: Immediately see a strange sight: the bright core is elongated (barred?) and sits at a sharp angle SW-NW compared to the faint halo, which is E-W 2:1.  Pretty large overall.  The halo has diffuse edges and is mottled. 

NGC 6991, OC in Cyg, 6’x4’ & 12’x8’: At 125x, open cluster who’s brighter loop of stars form an omega or octopus shape, with a bright red star as one of the arms.  A mini little dipper asterism is to the south.  Loose, poor, no concentration or nebulosity.  [It seems I observed John Herschel’s cluster, rather than William’s, which is close to a 5.7 magnitude star to the NE.]

NGC 6997, OC in Cyg, 10.0v, 6’: In the east coast of the North America Nebula; so viewed without filters otherwise it would be obscured.  At 125x, roughly circular arrangement of ~60 stars within a couple magnitudes of each other.  A distinct “S” shape runs through the middle.  Nebulosity apparent even without filters.  A poor, loose, but pretty cluster.   

NGC 6946, GX in Cyg, 9.1v, 11.5’ x 9.8’: “Fireworks Galaxy.”  Its brightness spread over a large area so appears dim; seen through a heavy sprinkle of foreground stars.  Bright small core with three arms easily seen, the most prominent of which sprouts from the core and heads north in a thin line before sweeping and spreading to the east.  Its opposite heads west and is much thicker.  A third is tucked under the north arm in a tighter arc to the core.  I know from prior reading there are several HII regions to be seen in this galaxy but did not bring a finder.  I see one in the NE rim of the northern arm [A4]; a bright oval in the third arm between the north arm and the core [HB481-486]; a nearly detached cloud at the tip of the eastern arm [H1-2]; and a very faint cloud in the gap between the eastern and northern arms [A36-41].  [Identified come HII and star clouds with a finder from Deep Sky Forum.]

NGC 7008, PN in Aquarius, 8.0v, 44” x 23”: Unappealingly called the “Fetus Nebula,” which does, however, describe the appearance fairly well.  Pretty large, it would be oval shape if the SW side of it wasn’t raggedly missing from the rest, with some extensions hanging down from the remaining nebula.  It reminds me a little of one of those broken heart pendants, which is supposed to be matched with a corresponding, missing half.  The NE side is smoothly oval round, and has a bright rim.  Bright star at the SSW rim, the nebula seems to rise up from it like a gene from a bottle.  There are a few stars superimposed on the nebula but there is one in the geometric center.  What a weird sight.

NGC 6824, GX in Cyg, 12.4v, 1.7’x1.2’: Fairly large and oval, 4:3 NE-SW, bright core, stellar nucleus, and diffuse halo.  Star on the southern tip of halo; very bright star just to the north.

NGC 7023, BN in Cyg, 7.1b, 5’: Bright star with extensive milky nebulosity surrounding it.  Seems to have a dark lane to the SW radiating from the star.  Nebulosity permeates the whole view.

NGC 7129, Cluster with nebulosity in Cep, 11.5b, 2.7’: About 7 stars with extensive nebulosity in the area.  7129 forms around three stars in a squat triangle shape.  The nebula seems not just bright but dusty, as if we could see the grains of dust floating in the star beams.