Finally had a night out at Willow Springs 3000. Steve and I met up at the entrance at 7pm. It was not too hot. I drove Harry’s F250 and had a lot of fun going up the dirt road, careful not to get too far ahead of Steve. The property was overgrown, as was to be expected, but it was mostly weeds and not tall grass. I used the weed whacker to clear out the observing area. It was windy and a little cold; the wind didn’t let up until very late at night. The air was moist, and we only got to about 21.4 on the SQML. But it was fun to be out. I brought my 10” Springsonian and binoculars. I intended to keep it a low power night, but as I searched around for objects on my atlas found I was interested to see galaxies and such, so ended up using higher powers. I started out at the base of Scorpio’s tail to exploit the good southern horizon. (Images DSS2 snipped from Aladin unless otherwise noted).
The area around Zeta Scorpius is a busy place. It’s already thick with stars, but then one adds 7 open clusters of varying sizes and densities, dark and emission nebula, and there is a lot to spend time seeing. Zeta & Zeta 1 Sco form a nearly perfect triangle with a third star; Zeta is orange and the other two blue-white. Slightly northeast is another bright star but with a sparkling of faint stars around it, which is NGC 6227. Just to the north is NGC 6231, a compact open cluster of loose stars, the brighter of which form a baby scorpion asterism (hence its nickname), with a fine mist of fainter stars shimmering behind them. There is a line of stars connecting this OC to another, larger cluster, Tr 24, which is very open with strings of stars flowing east. Two more open clusters sit at the southern border, ESO-332-8 & Ru 122, but both of these appeared as very faint, tight knots. I added a H-beta filter to view IC 4628, the Prawn Nebula, which appeared as a bright, curved thick arc (its back) with faint streamers (legs) reaching down to feed on the stars in Tr 24. A small nebulous cloud appeared just north east off of the Prawn’s back (still part of the same nebulous complex). Two more small, fine open clusters appeared to the north, NGC 6268 which was tight and bright, and NGC 6242 which was slightly larger and looser, and had a pretty bright red star on its southern border. Lastly, dark nebula B48 lies along the eastern edge of the field like a lake.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24062854@N04/4802705615/
Ly 13 Open cluster, condensed but loose collection of stars, well detached from surrounding (shows better than this DSS capture). With H-beta filter, there is extremely faint nebulosity to the north and east, a milky sheen without definition; the nebula is part of RCW 113.
NGC 6192: Open cluster, out on its own in a star poor area. It is visible in my 50mm finder as a hazy glow. Oval shaped, resolved to many stars like a loose globular cluster.
H-beta wisps south of Omicron Sco. Some time ago I noticed two faint wisps to the south and east of Omicron Scorpius in my atlas, with notation they were visible with H-Beta filters. This night was a great opportunity to try. I spent a good while searching for the one lying between Omicron and NGC 6388, and sensed a thin column like smoke from a cigarette resting on an ashtray’s edge. I moved up from 37x (7mm exit pupil) to 50x (5mm exit pupil) which seemed to help bring out the nebulosity more. NGC 6388 itself very bright, condensed, and round in a bright star field – terrific. It was a round haze at 37x and stars resolved throughout at 84x. The wisp looking like a lazy Epsilon to the south west of NGC 6388 was easier to spot, and I could follow the column shape pretty much as shown in the atlas. It reminded me of the Veil Nebula. The wisps appear to be part of a larger nebula complex, perhaps a bubble?
NGC 6441, “Silver Nugget” Cluster: Bright globular cluster, an easy Telrad find from Scorpio’s stinger stars, as it is next to the brightest star just to the east of the stinger (in the DSS it looks like a twin of the star). Round, very bright, condensed in the middle, with a round hazy halo glowing around it with strings of stars like spokes. Viewed at 37x, 50x, 84x, with greater resolution each time.
H1-52, Planetary Nebula: Seen at 137x and OIII: Small, round shell which blinks, brighter thick tire shape with fainter middle. No central star seen. To the south east of a narrow four star kite asterism. (Tough to see the PN in the DSS, so I kept the reticle in the image; there were not nearly so many stars visible in the scope).
M55: Seems to me this globular is somewhat neglected, off on its own to the east of Sagittarius in a fairly small-scope-DSO-poor part of the sky. I find it every bit as engaging as M13 and M22.
The area around NGC 6723, on the north east boarder of Corona Australis, is another busy area. NGC 6723 is a beautiful globular, nicknamed the “Chandelier” for the bright streamers of stars flowing out from the core to the south east. There are two bright stars to the south east of the cluster, both of which have bright emission nebula around them (NGC 6726-7 & IC 4812) making them look like headlights shining through fog. Another nebula, NGC 6729, was a bright small puff near the northern star. Between the cluster and these stars is a soft-bordered dark nebula, SL 41, medium opacity. Then, flowing further to the south east is dark nebula SL 39-40, which is more opaque but still with a soft boarder to the mist of stars behind. All of this was well seeing at 37x 2.4° TFOV; I had to pan the scope to follow the extent of SL 39-40.
I took a break to pan around the sky with my binoculars: 15x70 and 2.1x42 on a mirror mount. I was so pleased to see dark nebula just about everywhere along the Milky Way. Using the 2.1x42s gave a huge perspective. Everyone is familiar with Cr 399, The Coathanger, as seen in scopes and binoculars, but I was shocked to find it lying along the shore of The Great Rift like a small group of flowers as I followed it down from Cygnus. It was a really special view, tough for a photo to do justice to.
Then for something completely different: NGC 6822, Barnard’s Galaxy. Very faint and diffuse elongation with two stars on the northern edge. Saw at 37x, better seen at 50x. Steve invited me to his scope to look at two globular clusters in the center of the glow, H-VI and H-VII. I tried for a good while in my 10”, but I had a tough time identifying the correct field. I think I was looking too far out from the center. I did see one non-stellar glow with certainty, which I think was probably H-II region MCG-2-50-3. But I’m too uncertain about this to claim.
I noticed this time the southern constellation Grus was up, and having never explored it gave it a try:
NGC 7213: Very close to a bright star Alnair (alpha Grus); I can see the galaxy with the star in the field, but it’s better with the star moved out of the field. Slightly elongated halo NE-SW, stellar nucleus and bright round core. 10” 84x.
NGC 7117 & 7118: Pair of nearly identical galaxies to the NE of a pair of orange, widely separated stars. Bright round cores, elongated NE-SW 2:1.
NGC 7144 & 7145: Another pair of nearly identical galaxies. Both bright and round with very bright nuclei. Pretty star field.
NGC 7232: Two pretty orange stars and three galaxies crowded around them. The brightest is NGC 7232, bright elongated 3:2 E-W. NGC 7233 was a faint round mottle on the east tip of NGC 7232. Just above the two stars, with averted vision, I could just discern the small faint elongated glow of NGC 7232B.
NGC 7496: Elongated N-S, bright on N side, mottled. This is a quite beautiful barred spiral (though I did not see structure), with a light orange star on the N tip of the halo.
NGC 7476: Small, faint elongated N-S 3:1; the east side of the halo is much fainter than the west. Makes a triangle with two blue-white stars. [It appears I sensed the southern spur, if not the arm spinning out from it to the north]
Grus Quartet: What a beautiful sight!! Four galaxies I can get into view at 50x. Furthest east is NGC 7599, a 3:1 NE-SW elongation with a bright nucleus and turbulent halo, suggesting spiral. Next to it is NGC 7590, a compact bright 2:1 also NE-SW. They both point SW to NGC 7582, a 4:1 edge on with a faint halo and elongated core; this one is longer by half than the other two. Further to the SW, which I can fit into the FOV, is NGC 7552, a faint round mottled glow with a bright nucleus.
HCG 90: Located 1.5° NW of Upsilon PsA, I could make out four galaxies: 90b is fairly bright and round, with a very faint elongated extension flowing from it to the south west seen with averted vision; this is 90d / NGC 7174. 90c, NGC 7173 is an identical fairly bright round galaxy just above this pair. 90a floats aloof from this smash-up, a mottled 3:1 W-E elongation, faint with mottling (the mottling is a dark lane running the axis).
For my final object I wanted to see the Sculptor Dwarf, ESO 351-30. I tried for this before, most recently at CalStar last fall, but had failed. To get there I went on a grand finale tour of deep sky objects, all of which were visible in my 50mm finder and all of which were in a fairly straight north to south pan. Starting from Beta Ceti (Daneb Kaitos), hopped to NGC 247, the Dusty Spiral; then down to NGC 253, the “Silver Dollar” galaxy, looking especially turbulent and spectacular in the scope; then NGC 288, one of the great globular clusters; then finally hopping down three sets of brighter wide star pairs. The Sculptor Dwarf hangs from the last of these like a water drop. I tried 37x at first and added a Wratten #12 filter (which is supposed to suppress blue and highlight the old red stars such as those in dwarf galaxies). I sensed a large curved glow but was unsure. I went to 50x and the smaller exit pupil, and could see with averted vision a large glow, oval shape. I believe this to be the central part of the galaxy, since the area seemed less than what was plotted in the atlas. To finish this string of wonders, I moved the scope down four more degrees to NGC 300, the “Sculptor Pinwheel,” which was fairly bright, mottled oval mess with a bright nucleus.
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