Transparent sky but poorer seeing, so I decided to use the 20-inch with night vision for this session. Logged a lot of objects, mainly from the DeepMap 600 and TAC Eye Candy list, which is actually a very good list of showpiece objects. I was pleased with the scope's pointing accuracy even with long slews, I did something right when cleaning and reinstalling the servocat controller!
NGC 2392, stunning bipolar planetary nebula located approximately 2,870 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Seen at small scale, it looked like a fried egg with a brighter and slightly elongated mottled center oval, and a fainter ragged loose mane. Dual band filter showed it best.
NGC 2419 Intergalactic Wanderer, globular cluster in Lynx, 300,000 light years distant, was a puff of unresolved stars in an irregular cloud at the end of an arc of three foreground stars, with some variation in greyscale tone.
M 67 glorious large open cluster in Cancer, with bright and faint stars scattered
UGC 4299 08h 15m 59.0s +23°11'58" mag. 14.0b 1.8 x 0.2' Flat galaxy, very small, in the middle of two stars forming an arc, small bright core and elongated halo. IC 2248 is nearby, round halo with a bright round core.
NGC 2353 Loose open cluster, highlighted by two oval loops of stars overlapping along their edges.
NGC 2355 Pretty, loose cluster, wedge shaped with brighter and fainter stars in middle. Per Wikipedia it is approximately a billion years old and is located about 5,400 light years (ly) from the Solar System and 1,100 ly above the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. At that distance, the angular size of the cluster halo corresponds to a radius of about 23 ly. The core radius is 2.3 ly, and the central component radius is 11 ly.
NGC 2420 Large loose, its brighter stars look like a Hercules asterism, with a body of faint stars in the middle. The cluster is about two billion years old, and it is located 10,000 light years away.
NGC 2683 Stunning near edge-on spiral with bright compact core and swirling arms, prominent dark lanes in the near edge.
NGC 2775 Large bright oval core and what seems a 3:1 halo. Did not resolve the fine dark lanes and arms, through the halo was subtly mottled.
NGC 2841 Bright glowing core with very large, very extended mottled halo. 30 mly, This is the prototype for the flocculent spiral galaxy,[5] a type of spiral galaxy whose arms are patchy and discontinuous.[8] The morphological class is SAa, indicating a spiral galaxy with no central bar and very tightly-wound arms.
NGC 2903 Bright, compact core with large halo inclined and obvious spiral arms, the one side of which has an extension which flows down and away. Two knots on each tip outer end of the arms. A large diffuse haze surrounds the halo.
NGC 3003 Small bright galaxy, near edge-on, the core is off-center, and with the elongated tips the galaxy appears to be curved.
NGC 3079 Amazing long flat galaxy with halo which seems to be curved in a gentle parenthesis, as if galaxy is falling with the bright compact core being slightly heavier and the halo extended wings. The core itself seems to be submerging into the galaxy -- perhaps due to the "bubble" with may be due to star formation triggered by particles streaming from the supermassive black hole in the center. Did not remember to look for the twin quasar nearby.
NGC 3184 Bright, small core and very faint diffuse irregularly oval mottled halo. Did not pick out spiral arms.
NGC 3344 bright small core, round mottled halo, an arc of three stars runs through the halo.
NGC 3384 Three galaxy group, two nearly identical with small bright core and elongated halos, and a third fainter looser spiral with faint core
NGC 3607 Two bright large ellipticals with bright cores, two smaller galaxies in the field too.
NGC 3628 Amazing long flat galaxy with a dark lane twisting through the center from end to end. The halo is hazy and almost rectangular, making the galaxy look like a coin spun on the table. The long diffuse tidal tail was easy direct vision. I remember how hard Akarsh worked for this with his 18-inch at a dark site...
NGC 3675 bright core large extended near edge on mottled halo. Did not pick out spiral arms
NGC 3877 Bright elongated galaxy, near bright star
NGC 3941 small galaxy with a large bright core and hazy oval halo, elongated 3:1 N-S
NGC 3115 Spindle Galaxy Sextans. Very compact bright round core like a ball on a large, elongated halo which looks like a coin spun coming to rest with two rods protruding from each thin side
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