Observing report, TV76, 9/6/2004

Date: Monday evening, 6-Sept-2004
Location: Cottonwood Spring, Joshua Tree Nat Park, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

Drove up to Cottonwood in late afternoon arriving a bit before sunset.
Set up my TV76 in site 2B in the upper loop. Had the entire campground
totally to myself! And it was a perfect evening... warm, clear, and
absolutely calm. Couldn't have been nicer.

I started to the south with some casual wanderings around open cluster
M7, the Lagoon M8, Trifid M20 and the M24 star cloud. In M24 the dark
nebulas Barnard 92 and 93 were very obvious as well as a nice dark
rift stretching down from B93. I'd never really noticed this dark arm
across M24 before. Very neat looking! While still facing south i
checked Barnard's Galaxy NGC 6822. The galaxy was harder to find that
i recall but the little planetary NGC 6818 just north of the galaxy
confirmed the location. I think the best views i've had of 6822 are
with my Fujinon 16x70 binoculars.

Turning my attention northward i visited a couple of planetaries i've
been enjoying from home... NGC 6532, the Cat Eye nebula in Draco and
NGC 6826, the Blinking Planetary in Cygnus. I've gotten so i can find
both of these without reference to charts. Tonight i noticed that 6543
is quite a bit brighter than 6826. Not sure why i hadn't noticed that
before. Both are nice through my new Nagler 7mm T6 at 68x. I had
wanted to compare these planetaries to NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball
over in Andromeda, but i totally forgot until i got home.

One of my favorite pairings of objects are open cluster NGC 6939 in
Cepheus and galaxy NGC 6946 just over the border in Cygnus. At 30x
look very similar in shape, size and brightness. However at 68x the
open cluster is obviously made of stars while the galaxy remains a
hazy glow.

Inspired by the photo on page 30-31 of the October Sky & Telescope i
tried tracking down the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, in Cygnus. This is
a difficult area to navigate due to the huge number of faint stars. I
finally located the diamond of stars that's visible in the S&T
photograph but the nebula itself was something else. I think, just
maybe, using the UHC filter that i could detect a bit of nebulosity.
But i'm not really sure. This is a very difficult object for a 3"
scope!

Around 10pm i started packing up to drive home. I plan to return next
weekend and spend the night.


-Florian
Stargazing.com

before. Both are nice through my new Nagler 7mm T6 at 68x. I had
wanted to compare these planetaries to NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball
over in Andromeda, but i totally forgot until i got home.

Have you looked at PN NGC6572 in Ophiucus? A couple of us looked at it
Monday night in a homemade 10" f/5.7 dob at 100x (14mm Radian), and we were
pleasantly surprised at how intensely blue it looked. We too should have
immediately swung over to the Blue Snowball for comparison, but we didn't.
It looked very nice at 100x, and sometime soon I am going to spend more time
observing NGC6572 and a few more of these very blue PNs at different mags,
and comparing their colors.

Dennis

Have you looked at PN NGC6572 in Ophiucus?


Hi Dennis,

I don't believe i have. At least i don't find a long entry for 6572.=20
I'll add it to my to-do list. Thanks!

-Florian

I don't believe i have. At least i don't find a long entry for 6572.
I'll add it to my to-do list. Thanks!

I have done a bit more research, and I find that it has been called the
"Emerald " and the "Blue Raquetball" (from a nearby asterism) nebula, and
that at least some observers have found its color to be intense.

Dennis

Nice report!

Best regards

francesco Verardi http://digilander.libero.it/francesco.verardi/


"Florian" wrote in message ...
Date: Monday evening, 6-Sept-2004
Location: Cottonwood Spring, Joshua Tree Nat Park, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

Drove up to Cottonwood in late afternoon arriving a bit before sunset.
Set up my TV76 in site 2B in the upper loop. Had the entire campground
totally to myself! And it was a perfect evening... warm, clear, and
absolutely calm. Couldn't have been nicer.