Saturday, September 7, 2024

flat galaxies and more from home

Had a really excellent night going after flat galaxies and other things from home, using my 20-inch and night vision.  I finished up most of the flats which precede the summer Milky Way, so I spent some time poking around Cygnus.  Light pollution and lights from my own house didn't matter, it was no difficulty to have a satisfactory deep sky session from my backyard.  Magnification 38x and TFOV 1-degree.

UGC 10227 (Corona Borealis) = MCG 6-35-37. 16h 08m 58.6s +36°36'38" 15.3p 2.3 x 0.2'
Very small scale, but I can easily see the elongated wing like arms of the galaxy.  Near a bright star and centered with two brighter stars forming a triangle, I can even tell the correct PA nearly N-S.  Not enough magnification to see the twist in the arms.

UGC 10297 (Hercules) = MCG 3-41-144 16h 15m 28.8s +18°54'18" 15.0p 2.0 x 0.2'
Near a bright star, easy bright round core and elongated wings, N-S.  

UGC 11320 (Hercules) = MCG 4-44-10 18h 40m 48.0s +23°41'02" 14.9p 1.9 x 0.2' 
Small but still easy to pick out even in the dense field, bright round core and extended arms -- which are the giveaway to tell it's a galaxy vs the stars which are only round.  PA E-W.

NGC 5777 (Draco) 14h 51m 19.2s +58°58'41" 14.1p 3.1 x 0.4' 
Very faint, barely a whisper, brighter elongated core, medium size compared to the previous.  PA NW-SE.  Did not see UGC 9570 next to it. 

NGC 5981 (Draco) 15h 37m 53.3s +59°23'29" 13.9b 3.1 x 0.6'
Brighter than NGC 5777, but similar in appearance and PA.  Round core is pinched at either end and the pinches extend into very faint long arms.  NGC 5882 is a bright elliptical in the same FOV to the SE.

UGC 10561 (Draco) = MCG 10-24-55 16h 46m 36.5s +62°49'22" 15.1p 2.4 x 0.2' 
Very small at low magnification, compact stellar core with faint spikes for arms, PA NW-SE with a bright star just off the SE tip.

UGC 11455 (Draco) = MCG 12-18-3 19h 29m 57.6s +72°06'47" 15.0p 2.6 x 0.3'
Difficult, very small, stellar core, arms glimpsed with averted vision and by adjusting the gain high to low to contrast it with the background.  Did not see MCG+12-18-2.

UGC 11435 (Draco) = MCG 9-32-1 19h 23m 51.6s +55°59'15" 14.9p 2.0 x 0.3'
Very extremely small, very dense filed, very slight faint arms, PA E-W.

This was my last observation of the night, but to group it with the others:

UGC 11964 (Pegasus) = MCG 3-56-19 22h 15m 28.8s +19°13'12" 14.5 1.9 x 0.1
Incredibly difficult because of how thin it is, very extremely faint, seen only with averted vision and adjusting the gain, unfiltered, it appears as a tiny sliver of barest of contrast change.  I think I only saw the relatively brighter elongated core region.  NGC 7241, on the other hand, was large and bright in comparison, fairly uniform in brightness but heavily mottled especially its southern half.

IC 5146, Sh 2-125 Cocoon Nebula: Irregularly round mottled cloud with a bright star in the middle, dark lanes shot through radially, and one side is nearly cut-off entirely, forming a foot-like appendage.

M 39: A wealth of loose bright stars, against a background of dense fainter stars.

NGC 7082: Unimpressive group of four brighter stars forming a rectangle, with evenly spread fainter stars throughout.

NGC 7062: Wedge-shaped, medium sized cluster, framed with brighter stars but a dense concentration of faint stars forming the point of the wedge.

NGC 7048: Best seen with the Ha+OIII dual band filter.  Beautifully crisp edge, nearly perfectly round with subtle mottling on both sides, almost ying-yang symbol like, and a very small but well seen blowout at the northern end.  Sits atop two stars like lollipop, 

NGC 7039: Four brighter stars forming a mis-shaped square, and a dense clumpy stream of fainter stars flowing through it, very pretty. 

Sh 2-112: I love this nebula for all its dark lanes and sweeps of nebulosity.  Generally round cloud sitting on a nebulous background sky, it looks very windblown, forming streaks and billows and giving depth to the scene, and trifurcated on the lower end by crinkly dark nebula.

Sh 2-115: Faint, subtle, wide expanse of very mottled nebulosity. 

M 29: Butterfly cluster-like, inward facing parentheses of three stars in each arc, with a few brighter and fainter stars scattered within and without. 

Sh 2-104: Rosette-looking medium sized mottled cloud, with a central dark region, streaked and wisped arms like a face-on spiral galaxy, with stars intermixed, and hairy edges.  There's a prominent hook of nebulosity on the western side, which sprouts out of the central region, goes beyond the edge, and hooks south.

Sh 2-101: Appears something like an awkwardly shaped bent mushroom cloud, with a thick faint stem and a very bright, mottled flattened cloud dome.  It is the Tulip nebula, and the top of the dome has to elephant trunk like dark nebula shooting halfway into the dome.

Ced 174: Faint, subtle large streaked wing of nebulosity, N-S, with a dark center area like a knitting needle.

NGC 6940: Moderately large oval loose concentration of moderately bright and faint stars in a very dense field.

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