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Observation Report from Backyard 07/05/02
Hi All;
My original plan was to get out to Coyle field for a nice clear night. As I was packing up the 12” LX200 in the car, streaky clouds started rolling in. The last 4 times I pack up the scope and went somewhere, I stood looking at streaky clouds when I got there. So this time I just set up in the yard. Saturday night might have been good if not for the smoke blowing down from Canada. (Blame Can-a-da, Blame Can-a-da). Back to Friday. It cleared at 10:00 for about 45 minutes, then clouded again, then cleared again at 12:00 but it was hazy so I packed it in about 1:15. I looked at few of the usual Messiers for this time of year. Globulars M13, M92,M10, M12 all looking less than spectacular. The Ring Nebula M57 looked good with the Ultra Block Filter at 138X with the PanOptic 22MM eyepiece. I switched to the 14MM at 218X, but with the hazy sky the 22MM was better. Open clusters M39, M29 NGC 7160 (the Gator) in Ceph & NGC7243 in Lacerta all looked good but way less stars than I’ve seen before. Planetaries NGC6210 in Her looked nice and blue, NGC6543 the Cat's Eye in Draco looked great with the central star very bright and good detail in the halo. Galaxies were not good at all with the hazy sky. NGC6207 next to M13 was just about visible. I did look for quite a few new items but didn’t see many. Here’s what I got.
NGC6194 - Gal, Her, mag. 13.8, Star like with a small amount of haze around it using averted vision. Don’t know how I managed to see this. I couldn’t see many in the 11 – 13 magnitude range.
IC4593 – PN, Oph, mag.11.0, dis 2.0’. A real surprise! Real nice blue spot in the sky. No haze around it that I could see. It blinks just like NGC6826 the blinking planetary, maybe ever better. It completely disappears with direct vision. I didn’t use the filter for this one. I’ll definitely be checking this one out again on a better night and I’ll try it with the filter.
NGC6765 – PN, Lyre, mag.13.1, dia 40”. I was surprised to see this also. Just barley make it out with averted vision. Kind of odd shape for a PN. Looked more like a galaxy. Long and flat on top with an oval shaped bottom. I’ll have to take another look at this guy also.
NGC6951 – Gal,Ceph, mag.11.1, dia 3.0’. Again, I could just about make this out as a smudge.
With the sky conditions what they were and after looking for about 15 items I couldn’t see and the ones I could see were not impressive, I packed it in, called it a night, shows over, time to go, better luck next time, see you later, forget this, I’ve had it, where’s the door, I’m finished.
That’s it;
BOB SAL
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