Anyway on the whole I covered a lot of the same targets I seen the previous night with me once again enjoying the views of objects such as the Double Cluster (C14), the Owl Cluster (C13), Eta Cassiopeiae, Albiero, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) & its satellite (M32). I also enjoyed looking at my old favourites the Cigar Galaxy (M82) & Bode’s Galaxy (M81) which fitted wonderfully together in the 32mm Eyepiece and were reasonably visible even though they were sitting in a fair amount of light pollution.
However, I am pleased say that for some other objects I managed to improve on what I had seen previously. The first of these objects was the Ring Nebula (M57) which I had seen the previous night but I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t really make out any darker central region which would have given it a ring shape. However, this time I spent a fair amount of time looking over the nebula in both my 32mm and 25mm Eyepieces and actually managed to see a darker centre which resulted in the famous ring like shape being visible. I still think a UHC filter might enhance the view a bit more but I think that can wait until next Summer’s buying spree!
The next object that I managed to improve on was Iota Cassiopeiae which is a multiple star system that I only managed to spot 3 out of 4 components when I last looked at it. This time however I sat staring at this little point of light for ages in the 8mm Eyepiece and at this magnification I managed to finally spot the B component which has about 2.8” of separation from the A component. It was a struggle to see initially but once I located it sitting within the primary’s glare I then managed to find a viewing angle that clearly showed it. I can now happily say that I have seen all 4 components of the Iota Cassiopeiae system. An interesting titbit to mention here is that 2.8” was the lowest separation I had actually managed to split at that point although I was about to beat it later on that night.
So after this success I decided to try and look at a few other items in the night sky that I hadn’t seen before which I have detailed in the image below:
Messier 29 / The Cooling Tower
RA: 20 24 Dec: +38 31
Type: Open Cluster
Magnitude: 7.1
Messier 29 is an open cluster in the Cygnus constellation that I had actually tried to find it previously but had failed in the attempt. Basically, at the time my alignment wasn’t good enough and that part of the sky is so crowded that I struggled to confirm its location. This time however I had some good alignment and I had looked up the area of Stellarium to make sure I knew where to adjust the telescope if I was out by a little bit.
The name of the cluster is derived by the fact that the brightest stars form a shape which resembles a hyperboloid-shaped cooling tower. This shape was actually pretty clear to me and I do wonder how I managed to miss it last time. As with nearly all open clusters that I look at from my back garden I didn’t really notice any background light from other stars in the cluster and it was only really the bright stars that I saw.
Epsilon Lyrae / The Double Double / STF 2382 + 2383 (HIP 91919 / SAO 67310)
RA: 18 44 Dec: +39 40
Magnitudes: 5.15, 6.1, 5.25, 5.38
Separation: 2.3”, 207.9”, 208.7”
Position Angle: 346, 171, 172
So I had previously heard about The Double Double but had never actually seen it so I decided that tonight would be the night. The system itself was pretty obvious to locate as the AB & CD elements were nice and clear in the finderscope and had a good deal of separation between them. The real challenge though was in trying to separate A from B and C from D and as the distances were 2.3” and 2.4” respectively which was closer than anything else I had managed previously.
I therefore pulled out the trusty 8mm Eyepiece which gives me about 188x magnification and sat staring at these two bright points of light for a fair amount of time. I could feel my eyes watering as I sat staring through the eyepiece but in amongst the glare I managed to split both the AB and CD components. The fact it was a double double actually made it easier to do as I could concentrate on the space between the two doubles and let averted vision do the rest. I didn’t see any colour in the stars but that didn’t matter as it was still a brilliant sight to see and I felt pretty chuffed I had managed to split stars that had separation as low as 2.3”.
Messier 56
RA: 19 17 Dec: +30 11
Type: Globular Cluster
Magnitude: 8.3
Messier 56 is a globular cluster in the constellation Lyra and is about 32,900 light years from Earth with a width of approx. 84 light years. With the brightest stars in the cluster only being of 13th Magnitude it was no surprise to me that I really struggled to see it. With my telescope in my back garden it was a very faint fuzzy patch that I had to employ averted vision to see consistently. It was actually a bit disappointing when I compare it to the much brighter Messier 3 globular cluster in the constellation of Canes Venatici.
Messier 13 / The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
RA: 16 42 Dec: +36 28
Type: Globular Cluster
Magnitude: 5.8
So after the disappointment of Messier 56 I decided that I would try and find a more impressive Globular Cluster and as Messier 13 is called The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules I was sure that it would fit the bill.
Messier 13 is about 145 light-years in diameter and is approximately 25,100 light-years away from Earth and when I looked at it through my telescope it appeared exactly as I expected it to. I saw a lovely bright patch of light that was clearly a circular shaped cluster of stars. I didn’t managed to resolve any individual stars as I looked at the cluster but I wasn’t expecting to as I have gotten used to that from looking at other Globular Clusters.
Messier 34 / The Spiral Cluster
RA: 02 42 Dec: +42 46
Type: Open Cluster
Magnitude: 5.5
My final target of the night was Messier 34 which is an open cluster in the constellation Perseus.and is sometimes known as the Spiral Cluster due to stellar arcs visible under low power. Personally, I couldn’t really see the reasoning for the name but I may as well mention it.
Anyway, the cluster is located approximately 1,500 light years away, contains an estimated 400 stars and is 7 light years wide. To be honest, for it containing so many stars I can’t see I saw that many more than some of the clusters than contain only 100 or so stars. Then again, I am becoming a bit wary about the “facts” I dredge up about these various cluster as many of them have disagreeing comments in regards to aspects like the distance from Earth or the quantity of stars that are members. Despite all this, what I did see was actually quite an attractive cluster. Most of the bright stars in the cluster almost appeared to be paired off so it looks like a collection of double stars. For someone that enjoys hunting double stars it was really nice to see and it is possible that some of them really were doubles, I just need to do some more research into it.
As a final note, I am hoping to get a T ring in the next day or so which will enable me to borrow a friend’s DSLR and attach it to my telescope. This Cluster is going to be my target mainly because it is currently low down in the East, reasonably bright and should hopefully fit in the image frame. This means I may have at least a small chance of getting an okay image out of my Azimuth Mount. So hopefully in a few weeks or so I might be able to show my first DSO astroimaging attempt even if I am not using the best equipment for the job.
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