Wow! Tonight turned into being probably the most transparent night this year. The milky way was exceptionally bright tonight with tight definition and mottling on the southern end. Tonight was definitely at it’s magnitude peak here, 6.3. Overhead the sky was ink black trinkled with hundreds of faint stars embedded in the milky way. The seeing started off so-so but progressed as the night went on. Humidity was pretty wet. It’s at 90% as I type this report according to my Davis weather station. Not to mention that it’s in mid 50s outside! I heard my heat pump turn on! I was almost tempted to put on a pair of gloves after gripping the cold truss poles of my 14.5″ for a while.
Tonight I strictly logged galaxies. It’s been a while since I focused on them. I spent most of my night between Capricornus and Equuleus. I was able to log all NGC galaxies in Equuleus tonight but that’s not necessarily an accomplishment since there’s only 3! I looked at a lot of galaxies with faint magnitudes but they turned out to be pretty bright. The dark black background was most definitely a help! I ended the night after midnight with an excellent view of Jupiter and taking a few photos with my point and shoot camera. Below are my logs from tonight accompanied with DSS photos of each object, for something a little different.
MCG -2-51-4: Very small, very faint, requires averted vision and positioning the 7th magnitude star outside the FOV to see. Elongated with low surface brightness.
NGC 6898: Tiny, faint, round. Brighter in the center. Sits rougly an arc minute from a 12th magnitude star. Could not see 14.6 magnitude galaxy NGC6897 in the same FOV.
NGC 6903: Bright medium sized galaxy with a bright star involved. Surface is high and perfectly round. Significantly brighter in the center.
NGC 6907: Large, beautiful, somewhat irregular galaxy with a faint core. Very bright with strong spiral structure. Surface is oval and brightness variates throughout the galaxy. I’m seeing a bright elongated patch that looks disconnection from the galaxy on the bottom right. ST3 doesn’t list any other galaxy in sight. There is another very faint elongation on the top left of the galaxy that’s only visible with averted vision. I’m seeing a couple bright knots in the galaxy’s spirals that could be HII regions. It’s definitely an odd ball but an eye jewel at the same time!
After reviewing the DSS photo I realized the patches I described were a part of it’s very unusual spiral arm. My view was flipped compared to this image due to the image shift of a reflector telescope and rotation in the sky
IC 1319: Very small but fairly bright considering it’s magnitude. High surface brightness. Seems slightly elongated. Detectable with direct vision. Sits several arc minutes from a 8th magnitude star. While I was observing this galaxy a tumbling satellite whizzed by the FOV.
NGC 6912: Very small, faint. Requires averted vision. Surface brightness is about a magnitude fainter than it is. The nearby 15th magnitude galaxy IC1319 is brighter!
NGC 7015: Quite small, bright, round. Surface is high and slightly brighter in the center. With averted vision I think I see a stellar core. There’s a faint star just off the edge.
NGC 7040: Real small but bright. Elongated, I’m surprised since it’s almost 15th magnitude. It’s surface brightness is about 13-13.5. There seems to be a stellar star involved off center.
IC 1364: Very small, elongated, quite bright. It’s held steady with direct vision…even inside a group of stars between 7th and 9th magnitude.
IC 1365: This galaxy is a small very faint elongated glow underneath an asterism that resembles a keystone. Low surface brightness.
NGC 7046: Small, fairly bright, round. This galaxy has a diffused glow to it. Slightly brighter in the center.
LEDA 162304: Tiny, faint, but held steady 80% of the time surprisenly. Did not expect to see this galaxy at all. I was initially shooting for nearby spiral galaxy PGC 64548, which would of been neat to see since it has a 9th magnitude double star involved. I’m thrilled to log my first LEDA galaxy nonetheless.
-CJ
http://www.avertedvision.net
