Observing Barnard's Galaxy (NGC6822)

Anybody have any reports/tips on observing Barnard's Galaxy? Last night a
friend and I looked at the planetary nebula ngc6818, and thought it would be
easy to include this galaxy. Surprisingly, neither of us could find it in a
10" f/6 dob and 20x80 binos. I now read that this is a famous object, and
that it can be challenging to observe because of it's low surface
brightness. Maybe with what I have read this morning we could now locate
it, but we sure couldn't last night. I am definitely going to try again the
next chance I get.

Dennis

I had almost exactly the same experience around 01:00 CST (06:00 GMT) last
night. I didn't take out a star chart, but my Go-To's were spot on last
night, so I am fairly confident I had the correct location. I dialed in
6822 and nothing. Just stars. I was wondering if the coordinates in my
Celestron hand controller were off or the advertised magnitue (9) was in
error. Seeing and darkness at my site were excellent all night long. I
even acquired Pluto, which is around mag 14.

-John

"Dennis Woos" wrote in message
...
Anybody have any reports/tips on observing Barnard's Galaxy? Last night a
friend and I looked at the planetary nebula ngc6818, and thought it would
be easy to include this galaxy. Surprisingly, neither of us could find it
in a 10" f/6 dob and 20x80 binos. I now read that this is a famous
object, and that it can be challenging to observe because of it's low
surface brightness. Maybe with what I have read this morning we could now
locate it, but we sure couldn't last night. I am definitely going to try
again the next chance I get.

Dennis

Dennis Woos wrote:

Anybody have any reports/tips on observing Barnard's Galaxy? ...
I now read that this is a famous object, and that it can be challenging
to observe because of it's low surface brightness.

What you said -- it can be challenging to observe because of its low
surface brightness. The fact that it's pretty low in the sky as seen
from
most of the U.S. doesn't help either. Don't even *think* about
observing
it from the suburbs. It's possible under semirural skies (mag 21.0 per
square arcsec on the Sky Quality Meter) but *much* easier under truly
dark skies, where it stands out surprisingly well in an 8-inch scope.
Some people have reported seeing it in binoculars, but I've never
succeeded with anything smaller than 4" aperture.

As for the object itself, it's large (about 15'), amorphous, and
utterly
lacking any bright concentration. Stands out best at around 100X,
in my experience.

- Tony Flanders

"Dennis Woos" wrote:

Anybody have any reports/tips on observing Barnard's Galaxy? Last night a
friend and I looked at the planetary nebula ngc6818, and thought it would be
easy to include this galaxy. Surprisingly, neither of us could find it in a
10" f/6 dob and 20x80 binos. I now read that this is a famous object, and
that it can be challenging to observe because of it's low surface
brightness. Maybe with what I have read this morning we could now locate
it, but we sure couldn't last night. I am definitely going to try again the
next chance I get.

Hi Dennis (and the rest of saa!),

I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that the collective
participants of saa place Barnard's Galaxy, NGC 6822 (RA 19h 44.9' Dec
-14 48') on their "official saa observing list". Those up to the
task are asked to observe (or attempt to observe) this object with
whatever instrument they choose to use, and post an observing report
specifying instrument, sky conditions, object description, etc.
Negative as well as positive reports are encouraged.

IMHO it would be great for saa to do the same with a different object
every week or so. By so doing we'll get to know each other better as
observers -- including a little about individual equipment and sky
conditions. This will also be a great way of adding on-topic postings
to our beloved newsgroup! Keep in mind when selecting new objects
that not everyone has dark skies or large telescopes. Planetary,
lunar, double star, and solar features, etc. are fair game as well.

If someone prefers to omit certain equipment details or other
information, that's OK. Participation is the greater goal.

If I get a suitable observing window I'll see what I can do with
Barnard's Galaxy. Yesterday evening I had a scope set up and ready to
go; but clouds came along with a trace of rain, some thunder, and
lightning (spelled correctly this time!)

Willie R. Meghar

I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that the collective
participants of saa place Barnard's Galaxy, NGC 6822 (RA 19h 44.9' Dec
-14 48') on their "official saa observing list". Those up to the
task are asked to observe (or attempt to observe) this object with
whatever instrument they choose to use, and post an observing report
specifying instrument, sky conditions, object description, etc.
Negative as well as positive reports are encouraged.

IMHO it would be great for saa to do the same with a different object
every week or so. By so doing we'll get to know each other better as
observers -- including a little about individual equipment and sky
conditions. This will also be a great way of adding on-topic postings
to our beloved newsgroup! Keep in mind when selecting new objects
that not everyone has dark skies or large telescopes. Planetary,
lunar, double star, and solar features, etc. are fair game as well.

If someone prefers to omit certain equipment details or other
information, that's OK. Participation is the greater goal.

If I get a suitable observing window I'll see what I can do with
Barnard's Galaxy. Yesterday evening I had a scope set up and ready to
go; but clouds came along with a trace of rain, some thunder, and
lightning (spelled correctly this time!)

Willie R. Meghar

I am all for this idea. Things have been pretty bad here lately with all of
the off-topic junk, and I bet that I am not the only one who has wondered
whether it is not time to find another venue. Maybe an observing
list/challenge will help to move these discussions in a more
positive/interesting direction. I hope some folks add some exciting objects
to the list for this week - maybe I can observe some of them at Stellafane!
How about a dark nebula? BTW, we are not taking any optics to Stellafane
this year, as we are going to spend as much time as we can looking through
other people's stuff. This is not something we have done before.

Dennis

Dennis Woos wrote:
I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that the collective
participants of saa place Barnard's Galaxy, NGC 6822 (RA 19h 44.9' Dec
-14 48') on their "official saa observing list". Those up to the
task are asked to observe (or attempt to observe) this object with
whatever instrument they choose to use, and post an observing report
specifying instrument, sky conditions, object description, etc.
Negative as well as positive reports are encouraged.

IMHO it would be great for saa to do the same with a different object
every week or so. By so doing we'll get to know each other better as
observers -- including a little about individual equipment and sky
conditions. This will also be a great way of adding on-topic postings
to our beloved newsgroup! Keep in mind when selecting new objects
that not everyone has dark skies or large telescopes. Planetary,
lunar, double star, and solar features, etc. are fair game as well.

If someone prefers to omit certain equipment details or other
information, that's OK. Participation is the greater goal.

If I get a suitable observing window I'll see what I can do with
Barnard's Galaxy. Yesterday evening I had a scope set up and ready to
go; but clouds came along with a trace of rain, some thunder, and
lightning (spelled correctly this time!)

Willie R. Meghar

I am all for this idea. Things have been pretty bad here lately with all of
the off-topic junk, and I bet that I am not the only one who has wondered
whether it is not time to find another venue. Maybe an observing
list/challenge will help to move these discussions in a more
positive/interesting direction. I hope some folks add some exciting objects
to the list for this week - maybe I can observe some of them at Stellafane!
How about a dark nebula? BTW, we are not taking any optics to Stellafane
this year, as we are going to spend as much time as we can looking through
other people's stuff. This is not something we have done before.

Dennis

Here is a dark nebula picture taken by Hubble -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ead-Hubble.jpg

Astronomy is a bit more than the satisfaction of locating a celestial
object,if it were that alone there would be no need of
Ptolemy,Copernicus or Kepler.

These great men could form a picture of planetary motion and rework it
in their heads to come up with satisfying solutions.You have time
lapse footage to do it for you and you still cannot arrive at the right
conclusions or adopt the awful mutations of the empiricists.

Do you think your pathetic appeal for astrophotography gives you the
right to call yourself an astronomer.Create a group called
astrophotography and discuss optics to your heart's content but what
you do now is not and never was astronomy proper.

I saw Barnard's Galaxy at OSP last year.

The observer in the camp site next to mine was trying to confirm that he had
found it and wanted me to take a look through his 18" dob. To say that the
surface brightness was low is a bit of an understatement. OSP's skies are
pretty dark, and this object was visible only as a large, subtle area where
the background wasn't quite as dark. It was completely featureless, except
for its general shape. We spent a few minutes discussing where we thought
it was in relation to the star field before we were convinced that we were
both seeing the same object (or even that were seeing an object at all.)

I also looked at it through my 14" scope and it was similarly hard to
detect. I've read that it can be seen in small instruments or even
binoculars, but I don't think that my eyes could do it. I'm going to OSP
again next month and I'll give it a try.

-Wade

wrote in message
ups.com...
Dennis Woos wrote:

Anybody have any reports/tips on observing Barnard's Galaxy? ...
I now read that this is a famous object, and that it can be challenging
to observe because of it's low surface brightness.

What you said -- it can be challenging to observe because of its low
surface brightness. The fact that it's pretty low in the sky as seen
from
most of the U.S. doesn't help either. Don't even *think* about
observing
it from the suburbs. It's possible under semirural skies (mag 21.0 per
square arcsec on the Sky Quality Meter) but *much* easier under truly
dark skies, where it stands out surprisingly well in an 8-inch scope.
Some people have reported seeing it in binoculars, but I've never
succeeded with anything smaller than 4" aperture.

As for the object itself, it's large (about 15'), amorphous, and
utterly
lacking any bright concentration. Stands out best at around 100X,
in my experience.

- Tony Flanders

CNJ999 wrote:
Indeed, Barnard's galaxy is an object suited mainly for those observing
under (what today has to be regarded as) very dark skies. Even a small
degree of light pollution illuminating the sky in this object's
direction will hide it completely.

That said, several decades ago, when my skies were still pristine, I
could detect the galaxy without any great difficulty using handheld
20x80 binoculars. Likewise, during my lomg ago comet hunting sessions
it was picked up regularly in sweeping with my 20x120 binoculars. Yet,
wityh my 32-cmL it was all but invisible.

The galaxy is far larger looking than most observers anticipate and in
a moderate to large telescope, can easily fail to have sufficient
surrounding dark sky in the same field to contast with, making the
object all but impossible to see.

If you wish to attempt this challenging object, be sure you have very
dark, pure skies (that rules out urban and suburban locations
completely) and an instrument better suited to looking at comets rather
than the typical run of deep sky objects.

JBortle

If you wish to attempt this challenging object go to Hubble images -

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/ast...c6822_0101.jpg

What a challenge !,perhaps searching for stationary objects in a
celestial sphere taxes the intelligence of photographers in which case
birdwatching is far more challenging.

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006 07:56:20 -0400, "Dennis Woos"
wrote:

Anybody have any reports/tips on observing Barnard's Galaxy? Last night a
friend and I looked at the planetary nebula ngc6818, and thought it would be
easy to include this galaxy. Surprisingly, neither of us could find it in a
10" f/6 dob and 20x80 binos. I now read that this is a famous object, and
that it can be challenging to observe because of it's low surface
brightness. Maybe with what I have read this morning we could now locate
it, but we sure couldn't last night. I am definitely going to try again the
next chance I get.

Dennis

Ok: here's an observation "hot off the press" -- and I do mean HOT! My
wife was too pooped out from the 100 d+ temperatures in the Santa
Clara valley to join me last night/this morning but I had seen the
post about the gx and made a point of observing it, on private
property in the mountains between San Jose and Santa Cruz. I haven't
looked at it in at least 6 years. (I must say that it is
disconcerting to be observing on top of a mountain without my usual
wintry clothes, even in summer. The temperature all night long never
dropped below about 80, and it was close to 90 while I was looking at
the gx.)

Using a C-11 in superb, steady seeing after midnight, local time, the
gx was distinctly visible when the field was acquired. Naked eye
magnitude in the Sagittarius region was about 6, there being a bit of
fog at lower elevations and pouring inland from the Pacific, cutting
off some of the light from Hollister, Gilroy, and Santa Cruz. I have
seen the gx much better at this site, but not since about 1990.

Without any filter, the apparent diameter -- in an eyepiece that
yields a measured FOV of 27 arcminutes -- was about 5-6 mins. Adding
a SkyGlow general LPR filter improved that considerably. My guess is
that I could trace it out for a diagonal of about 8-9 mins, -- but
just barely, the edges blending absolutely continuously into the
background. The visual diameter is considerably less that its
official measurement or the way it looks in a photo. I have seen it
"to the edge" in a pitch black sky with no light pollution, using a
Celestron Comet-Catcher f3.3 five inch aperture telescope; in the C-11
(not an ideal instrument for it) the gx was still pretty pale and
indistinct: not an object that you'd really notice if you moved across
the field without expecting it. Because I was *exactly* on the
coordinates, and had a HGS plot with me, I could verify after a while
that I was seeing it, which took me at least a minute or so to become
absolutely certain: my estimation of its surface brightness during
this particular (mediocre) observation was that the Calif. Nebula
looks much more distinct than this, in my 3" refractor in a dark sky.
Yet, there was enough light from it to tell that there was a sort of
mottled, rough surface, at least in the somewhat brighter center: a
bit less smooth, and choppier, than (say) a vague, bluish reflection
nebula such as the light halo around the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023).

As somebody said, there is no WAY you could see this in an urban
environment.

Adding more filtration did not yield the H-II regions but I definitely
had a sense that there was a speckling, a stellaring, to the overall
glow at the center for a diameter of about 3 mins. or so.

The object may be a bit vague and indistinct, but all in all, the gx
is much more easily perceived than Leo 1, which I once wrote about
observing here, perhaps 10 years ago or thereabouts.

I tried viewing 6822 at first with a 21 mm Stratus; then went to a 40
mm with filter, and determined that a 25 mm ocular yielded about the
best contrast; nothing shorter than 21 was useful: so my exit pupils
were in the range of 2 to 4 mm. I had no long focal length 2" ocular
beyond 42 mm, so I wished it had been possible to bring my 4" RFT with
me; but perhaps the sky just wasn't dark enough and the extra aperture
was really beneficial. However I think that a good telescope of 4-5
inches aperture will work at low power in a truly dark sky for this
gx. In fact, I do not believe that I had ever seen it with an
aperture greater than 8" until today's observation. You really need
optics that can give you about a degree of field to see the low
contrast of this spread out object effectively. (I seem to have the
feeling that I once saw it -- marginally -- in the lowest power
available in my old Astroscan, in a 3d FOV at 16x.)

At any rate, there is no wonder that it took a guy like Barnard to
discover it, and to be sure he wasn't just seeing general background
milkiness: what he called "luminous ground". I seem to have a dim
memory of coming on Barnard's own announcement of this, which might
have been in the "Astronomisches Nachrichten", in his original
announcement, written in English. Perhaps a historical minded
enthusiast could fill us in; I haven't had time to look up more info
as I am ready for some shut-eye!

Srw

Thanks for the report. I too tried to observe it last night, and a friend
and I thought that we could barely detect it in a 10" f/6 dob with a 35 Pan.
This is a target that we will revisit on great nights, and certainly when we
are observing at darker sites.

Dennis