Small Cassiopeia clusters, TV76, 11/14/2004

Date: Sunday evening, 14-Nov-2004
Location: Open desert east of Indio, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

Stargazing south of the I-10 near the Mecca road exit. Not a bad spot
however freeway is visible in each direction. Arrived just as the sun
was setting. This was followed by a pretty crescent moon. Bit of a
breeze so set up the TV76 behind the CR-V.

I spent most of the evening tracking down clusters detailed in the
"Deep-Sky Wonders" column from December's Sky & Telescope magazine.
Working north-westward from beta Cassiopeia are the following string
of open clusters...

Berk 58 - Faint but visible as a nebulous patch.

NGC 7790 and 7788 - 7788 is coarser and sort of squarish.

Frolov 1 - A bit off to the side. A little right angle of stars.

Harvard 21 - Very faint. Barely visible. Looks like a small neb.

King 12 - At the end of the string. In all an interesting string of
small clusters. Only the two NGC objects are very obvious.

Also revisited that pretty little cascade of stars trailing southward
from beta Cass.

M52, OC, Cass - Compared to the other clusters this is quite a change!
Nice powdered sugar look. Reminds me of M11 in Scutum.

NGC 7510, OC, Cepheus - Interesting. Elongated. Seems to be two
parallel strings of stars. Quite small. This image by David Segelstein
is very much how the cluster looks through the TV76...
http://home.att.net/~dsegelstein/Astrophotos/ngc7510.html

Bergeron 1, OC with neb, Cepheus - Can see the cluster, barely. Unable
to see any neb.

Stock 12, OC, Cass - Very nice. 4 or 5 little strings of stars
together give the cluster a sort of spiral form.

NGC 7789, OC, Cass - Beautiful cluster. Lots of stars. Nicely centered
between rho and sigma Cass. A very impressive image of the cluster is
here... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990709.html

NGC 752, OC, Andromeda - While trying to see if M33 was visible with
naked eye i at first thought this cluster was the galaxy. The cluster
was quite easy naked eye object. However i could not see M33.

The Merope neb visible both with TV76 and 10x42 binoculars.

By 8pm a steady breeze was making it hard to get stable views so after
watching the Orion nebula rise i packed up and headed home.


-Florian
Stargazing.com

Florian wrote:
Date: Sunday evening, 14-Nov-2004
Location: Open desert east of Indio, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

--
I spent most of the evening tracking down clusters detailed in the
"Deep-Sky Wonders" column from December's Sky & Telescope magazine.
Working north-westward from beta Cassiopeia are the following string
of open clusters...

Hi Florian,

Thanks a lot for sharing your report. I was wondering what your LVM
was like at this site?

I've been wanting to try a few of those objects in December's S&T,
but we've not had even a half decent clear night here since it
arrived... :-\

Clear skies,

Steve


--
Steve Maddison
Den Haag, The Netherlands
http://www.cosam.org/

Thanks a lot for sharing your report. I was wondering what your LVM=20
was like at this site?


Hi Steve,

I didn't actually check. I would say somewhere between 5.5 and 6.

-Florian

In article , Florian
wrote:

Bergeron 1, OC with neb, Cepheus - Can see the cluster, barely. Unable
to see any neb.

Hey, don't belittle my cluster! It can't help it if you're using a
dinky little telescope to see it.

--
Joe Bergeron

http://www.joebergeron.com

Hey, don't belittle my cluster! It can't help it if you're using a
dinky little telescope to see it.


I wasn't belittling it in the least. Just stating that i could not see
the neb. I did see the cluster... barely. (It's dinky.) Are you really=20
THE Joe Bergeron? I feel honored that you posted a reply. ;-)

-Florian -- really THE Florian

In article , Florian
wrote:

I wasn't belittling it in the least. Just stating that i could not see
the neb. I did see the cluster... barely. (It's dinky.) Are you really
THE Joe Bergeron? I feel honored that you posted a reply. ;-)

Yes, it is I. I came to Earth from my cluster just to bring it to the
attention of amateur astronomers.

Seriously... I barely noticed the nebula myself when I "discovered" it
with my 6".

--
Joe Bergeron

http://www.joebergeron.com

Its neat to visit this area. I also did, last weekend, and once started
just could not stop - using an old 6" f.15 refractor with a superb
achromat. Finally Saturn was up so I finished, but kept looking back
over my shoulder to revisit soon. Good show Florian.
Mark




Florian wrote:

Date: Sunday evening, 14-Nov-2004
Location: Open desert east of Indio, California
Equipment: Tele Vue 76 (3" f/6.3) refractor

Stargazing south of the I-10 near the Mecca road exit. Not a bad spot
however freeway is visible in each direction. Arrived just as the sun
was setting. This was followed by a pretty crescent moon. Bit of a
breeze so set up the TV76 behind the CR-V.

I spent most of the evening tracking down clusters detailed in the
"Deep-Sky Wonders" column from December's Sky & Telescope magazine.
Working north-westward from beta Cassiopeia are the following string
of open clusters...

Berk 58 - Faint but visible as a nebulous patch.

NGC 7790 and 7788 - 7788 is coarser and sort of squarish.

Frolov 1 - A bit off to the side. A little right angle of stars.

Harvard 21 - Very faint. Barely visible. Looks like a small neb.

King 12 - At the end of the string. In all an interesting string of
small clusters. Only the two NGC objects are very obvious.

Also revisited that pretty little cascade of stars trailing southward
from beta Cass.

M52, OC, Cass - Compared to the other clusters this is quite a change!
Nice powdered sugar look. Reminds me of M11 in Scutum.

NGC 7510, OC, Cepheus - Interesting. Elongated. Seems to be two
parallel strings of stars. Quite small. This image by David Segelstein
is very much how the cluster looks through the TV76...
http://home.att.net/~dsegelstein/Astrophotos/ngc7510.html

Bergeron 1, OC with neb, Cepheus - Can see the cluster, barely. Unable
to see any neb.

Stock 12, OC, Cass - Very nice. 4 or 5 little strings of stars
together give the cluster a sort of spiral form.

NGC 7789, OC, Cass - Beautiful cluster. Lots of stars. Nicely centered
between rho and sigma Cass. A very impressive image of the cluster is
here... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990709.html

NGC 752, OC, Andromeda - While trying to see if M33 was visible with
naked eye i at first thought this cluster was the galaxy. The cluster
was quite easy naked eye object. However i could not see M33.

The Merope neb visible both with TV76 and 10x42 binoculars.

By 8pm a steady breeze was making it hard to get stable views so after
watching the Orion nebula rise i packed up and headed home.

-Florian
Stargazing.com

Florian wrote:

I didn't actually check. I would say somewhere between 5.5 and 6.


Thanks - just trying to get a rough idea of what I could expect in a
small scope under my 4.something skies.

--Steve