Blog Thursday May 16^th 2013

With the summer solstice fast approaching and darkness getting more and more scarce at 52 deg north it is time to adopt my summer observing program, namely early to bed up around midnight for a couple of hours observing and then back to bed, back up at 6am for work.

When I arose at 00.15am local time, it was partially clear; I made my tea, turning this into a ‘brew & slew’ session. Once into the observatory I consulted the Kanipe & Webb Arp atlas for a target, deciding to keep low I picked Arp 254 down in Libra. A slewed the scope and centred and synchronised on Saturn. I sat there watching it on the monitor for 15 minutes or so as cloud dimmed it right down, eventually the cloud from the west passed  and I bright star hopped to my target, centring on a mag 10 star close to the 3 galaxies marked. I sketched the star field and let the video run a refresh, building up the galaxies bit by bit adding detail when ‘extra’ showed on those clearer frames, rather as I would when planetary or lunar sketching when moments of steady seeing let you grab that extra detail.

An interesting thing happened whilst I was intently focussed on the Arp on the monitor of the course of 1-1.5 hrs of study no less than 5 steady satellites passed W-E through the 11’ field, taking around 45 secs to pass all the way across, all were within 5’ north or south of 105 Librae, this was a first to me, how unusual in the wider scheme of observing I have no idea?

Here is the sketch:

Arp 254

The northern most galaxy showing arm structure in my sketch is NGC 5917, mag 14.5, directly south and to the east of mag 9.96 star 105 Librae and extending N-S is MGC-1-39-3, aka PGC 54817 at mag 14.7, large professional scopes show the upper arm extending up to NGC 5917 forming a bridge. The tiny galaxy to the eastern edge of the fov is unknown at the time of posting.

With the sketch completed, I stood out in the observatory letting my eyes become fully dark adapted, the Sky Quality meter reading showed a steady 20.75 across the sky, which these days I would say is a good reading for my location. With the Key Stone asterism of Hercules high over head, I used the southern wall to shield the brighter southern horizon and I stared up trying to catch M13 naked eye, just on 2 occasions with averted vision I felt I got a quick flash of it, fun to try and pleasing just to get what I must note as a possible sighting. With Cygnus well up to the east, the Milky Way looked wonderful flowing southwards.

And so to bed, just past 2am local time. Dale

Blog Wed 1^st May 2013

Straight in here and back on the trail of the Arp peculiars!

My first of two for the evening Arp 248, also known as ‘Wild’s Triplet’ turned out to be a tough group, way down in lower Virgo. The upper galaxy in the sketch below (NNW of the field) is MGC 1-30-34 mag 15.9. With the more obvious main pair located centrally on the left is MGC 1-30-33 mag 14.1, to the right (W) is MGC 1-30-32 at mag 15.3. The tiny & faint galaxy, barely visible just below is known as “Apmusks galaxy” at mag 18. I Googled this strangely named body at the time of writing and came up blank, it really is just a tiny fleck close below MGC-1-30-32 which is the right of the 2 main galaxies.  The Sketch was made with everything turned to max on the camera! SQM was a poor 19.3.

Arp 248 'Wild's Triplet'

Being low already I stayed low and next for my studies was Arp 22 (NGC 4627) a lovely looking single armed spiral Located in Corvus Arp 22 has a companion NGC 4027a to the south. To my mind 22 should have been relatively easy to see at mag 11.7 but it wasn’t, being so low in the southern murk is likely why! A very interesting object nonetheless and one I dubbed ‘the Pretzel’ perhaps it should be Nelson’s Pretzel having just one arm!

Arp 22 "Nelson's Pretzel"

Again the sketch was made with everything turned to max on the Watec Video cam!

That’s it for tonight, before I go I have to say I’m loving chasing the Arp’s

Blog Tuesday 30^th April 2013

I grabbed just one observation last night, I considered comet PanSTARRS as inspired by Andrew Robertson’s dramatic observational drawing from the previous night showing fan like anti tail!

Andrew's PanSTARRS sketch

 But with it still out of pointing range of the main observatories scopes I found myself again working from the Arp atlas. I picked one out that was well placed in Virgo up against the Leo border, Arp 161 aka UGC6665 turned out to be a real challenge! It was not only the location that caught my eye, but the ‘emanating jet’ nature of this galaxy that excited me, yes another one after Arp 138 from the previous evening!

I got the galaxy easily with my usual star hoping to negate the goto inaccuracies. Initially the jet & plume were pretty obvious, but as frames refreshed and I tweaked the camera control box, for gain, exposure etc both jet and the even more elusive plume disappeared, monitor setting for brightness and contrast were also adjusted, these in combination with the video camera controls as you can imagine have an infinite combo of setting potentials. With practice over what must be 7-8 years now I have a pretty good knack of getting the best image before ‘marking the paper’.

However you can’t adjust out bad seeing, the analogue video camera has eyepiece realism with faint objects and stars coming and going at every ‘refresh’.

The jet and extended plume that I had almost nonchalantly expected to see and sketch leisurely were proving much tougher than I had anticipated. At the time of writing I have no idea of their comparative brightness. The conclusion was that I sat there for nearly an hour before I made my rendition on paper, for something that will look so simple to you, it was very difficult to capture, or rather to try to capture as it appeared. Features such as the couple of very faint stars close into the extended halo of the galaxy appearing only fleetingly and on most apparitions looked rather like a jet themselves, tricky.

Arp 161 complete with Jet & Plume

Anyhow here you have my sketch of what is when you consider it a mind blowing object seeding out into the vast universe. The excellent book ‘The Arp Atlas of peculiar galaxies, Kanipe & Webb’ states it has been seen, the jet and plume that is with a 20″ under what I can only assume are pristine sky conditions, another observation with a 25″ just describes the galaxy with no extensional activity, a challenge for my pals off to Tenerife to explore the deep heavens with Rod’s 25” on mount Teide perhaps?

Best, Dale

Blog Monday 29^th April 2013

After a busy very garden weekend both at home and on the allotment, Saturday night out under the stars, a flying visit to Aldershot and back on Sunday and finishing the weekend off with a late night out at the Folk club, I was flagging when Monday evening offered a clear sky! But with the ongoing run of cloud wrap the UK has had, no opportunity should be missed for starlight! So just one sketch I told myself.

Ok so e start off with Arp 138 aka NGC 4015 located in Coma Berenices right onto the border with Leo, a very interesting galaxy with what I believe is a jet emanating from its western side and extending SW-NE. Other galaxies in the sketch are NGC 4021 top left, NGC 4011 to right, NGC 4023 bottom left. To be able to witness such massive forces in action far out across the universe is a privilege of very few people on earth and that is just how I feel, privileged.

Arp 138, would you look at the jet from that!

OK with this Arp and neighbours safely to paper I scouted the local vicinity for anything else of interest whilst I was there, so much for just the one sketch! There were no shortage of galaxies very close, one group caught my eye and I moved the scope to encompass as many as I could in the small field of view what I got was fantastic group of diverse galaxies just into Leo and just to the west of Arp 138. In a clockwise direction from top right in my sketch below we have NGC 3993 at mag 11.83, showing nice spiral structure, next  there is  tiny NGC 3989 with a tiny hook like feature of detail observed, mag 14.9, to the west, an amazing edge on with stunning dust lane, NGC 3987 at mag 13.1. Last but not least to the SE next to a bright mag 8.2 star, is a faint, very thin, very straight edge on, N-S orientation, this is NGC 4000 a mag 14.5 absolute beauty

NGC 3933 and neighbours a good looking bunch.

Right it’s time for bed, one more sketch in the bag than I had intended so not bad, but with the need to be up for work by 05.30am I closed up.

Blog Saturday 27^th April 2013

With my Hickson quest rather stalled by either the remainder being inaccessible from my location/observatory or the ones I require not currently being in the sky I needed some new interesting targets to get on with. Now my good friend and observing pal in Chicago, USA, Frank MaCabe had already arrived at a solution for me, providing the excellent ‘Atlas of Arp Peculiar Galaxies’ by , Kanipe & Webb as my follow on challenge for when the Hickson’s were conquered!

With well in excess of 300 targets in this list I had better get going! Tonight was a lovely evening but the Moon just a couple of days past full would be rising relatively soon after dark, so no hanging about.

 First to fall to the 20” optics and video camera was Arp 105 in Ursa Major made up of NGCs 3561 at mag 14.7 and NGC 3561A at mag 14.3.  This is a very nice area to get lost in for a few hours as it is packed with small galaxies. These two galaxies are on the eastern side of Abell 1185, a cluster of 52 galaxies so a very interesting field. Dr. Arp thought enough of this object and its immediate environs that he used it for the back cover of his book, “Seeing Red”  

Arp 105

No time to waste with the sky brightening continually and onto Arp 270 in Leo Minor this is a visually exciting pair of interacting NGC galaxies, 3395 & 3396, both being mag 12.1. Perhaps I was now rushing a little too much and could have produced a better sketch, I certainly wasn’t too happy with the roundness of my stars when I scanned in the evenings drawings!

Arp 270 an interacting pair

Really I should have called it a night as the moon was now up and washing out the sky, but I had been caught by the lure of a rather nice face on spiral NGC galaxy close by, something of a M101 look alike! NGC 3938 is a very attractive face on spiral galaxy back into in Ursa Major. It was discovered on 6 February 1788 by William Herschel and is one of the brightest spiral galaxies at mag 10.9 in the constellation. Interestingly a SN was discovered in the galaxy in 2005 at mag 15.6.

NGC 3938 is quite a looker!

I’m sure I could have got more detail without the moon in the way but it still made for a nice spectacle.

And so to bed, Dale

Blog for Friday 19^th and Saturday 20^th April 2013

With the Moon now approaching 70% it is dominating the evening sky making Deep Sky observing less practical, not that the Watec video camera won’t deliver under strong moon glow, but some wash out is inevitable so it is quite pointless making sketches that don’t deliver the most detail possible, otherwise this will only raise the question “what would it have looked like under a dark sky” prompting a subsequent return to check.

So I started Friday with a sketch of the Lunar region centering on Arzachel, because it caught my eye as I ‘cruised’ the lunar surface with my spaceship view J Arzachel at 96Km diameter and 3.6Km depth is a relatively young lunar impact crater located in the highlands in the south-central part of the visible Moon, close to the zero meridian (the visible center of the Moon). It lies to the south of the crater Alphonsus, and together with Ptolemaeus further north the three form a prominent line of craters to the east of Mare Nubium. The smaller Alpetragius lies to the northwest, and Thebit is to the southwest along the edge of the mare. Sketch made 20.30ut working at low power with the Watec 120N+ video camera using the 505mm mirror, Conte hard pastels on black art paper were used to create this sketch.

Arzachel and environs

So with some useful result for the evening secured and a sketch in the bag, these days having something tangible after every observing session is of paramount importance to me, otherwise I just don’t feel like I have achieved anything, more and more my life appears to me that it should be dedicated to creating things!

Enough of the philosophy, up into Sextan’s and after the ‘Spindle galaxy’ that I had been thwarted from sketching a week or so previously by cloud. A beautiful sight on the monitor, if relatively simple to sketch, at mag 9.9 NGC 3115 is also called the Spindle Galaxy or Caldwell 53, it is a lenticular (S0) galaxy. It was discovered by the great William Herschel on February 22, 1787. Distance is about 32 million light-years away from us it is several times bigger than our Milky Way. It is a lenticular (S0) galaxy because it contains a disc and a central bulge of stars, but without a detectable spiral pattern (the nucleus of which appeared somewhat square to me). Seen almost exactly edge-on it has occasionally mis-classified as elliptical. According to the internet there is some speculation that NGC 3115, in its youth, was a quasar.

The 'Spindle Galaxy'

With this concluded I looked up in the Spring/Summer volume of NSOG for another local target, the Sextan’s section isn’t extensive being a small constellation, I noted another edge on and settled for that. My target NGC 3044 also in Sextan’s turned out to an attractive mag 12 sbc edge on spiral. There is a slight fanning of the western region shown in my sketch, no nucleus noted.

Slender NGC 3044 in Sextans

That was it for the night it was now early hours and I had some gardening work for a customer to get on with first thing in the morning, so to bed.

Saturday 20^th, another sunny day and a totally cloud free sky, the moon high to the SE very eye catching, to me anyhow from early afternoon was to be visited again by my virtual spaceship of Mirror, Watec video cam and monitor. This evening it was to be an intriguing complex of mountains to which I was going to lavish my attention and my pastels and pencils!

Montes Riphaeus are an irregular range of lunar mountains that lie along the west-northwestern edge of Mare Cognitum, on the southeastern edge of Oceanus Procellarum. The range trends generally from north-northeast to south-southwest. It includes a number of slender ridge lines with valleys flooded by intruding flows of lava.

This range is located at selenographic coordinates 7.7° S, 28.1° W. It has a diameter of 189 km, although it is typically only about 30–50 km wide. The nearest feature of note is Euclides, a small but prominent crater to the west. About 100 km to the north is the crater Lansberg.

Montes Riphaeus

Well I took my time with this sketch using white acrylic paint to highlight the numerous peaks and high ridges. Tired after my late night on Friday, early start and busy day, I was ready for bed

Dale

Blog Wednesday 17th April 2013

I enjoyed  making my inpromptu sketch of the cres moon behind cloud so much on Tuesday night, I thought I would have another go, this time a little earlier at 8.30pm (local time) so the sky was still semi light and rich in the colours of dusk, wind was high, gusts approaching gale force on occassions, making for a dramatic and very fast changing scene. I tried to capture the magic again, spending 3 times longer than the previous night and working at a larger A4 scale with coloured hard Conte pastels, so what you think?

The 7 day moon through scudding cloud at dusk

Dale

There is something very mysterious and magical about the moon showing through a cloudy night time sky, especially when the clouds are fast moving wind driven ones. I have long wanted to try and capture that magic, I need to keep trying I know, but at least I have made a start here ;¬)

Naked eye sketch made on April 16th 2013 of a 6 day old waxing crescent moon

Blog Kelling Heath Spring Star Party Thursday April 11^th to Sunday April 14^th

I’m not going to write War & Peace on this, just summarise. It was a Star Party without stars, totally without any night observing for the 3 nights we were there in North Norfolk in our aging Caravan, we being Es Reid, Aubrey my youngest son and me. We did get some great if fleeting Solar views through friends Sally Russell & John Adair’s solar set ups.

The weather threw wind, rain, fog, bitter temperatures and warm sunshine at us over the 4 days of our stay, but that aside along with the lack of observing we had a fantastic time, it was sociable and very relaxing. Yes there was plenty of astro banter, and kit to look at across the site, trade selling on the Saturday but there were few long faces at the event, would I have still gone if I had known there would be no observing? You bet

Here is a link to a new file on the web site with a few pictures that were taken; I hope they paint a reasonable picture.

Roll on the first week in October when we head back there again!

Clear skies, Dale

Blog  Saturday 6^th April 2013

Within my circle of Astronomer friends ran something of a buzz as the anticipation of a fine clear weekend sky became apparent! With Andrew Robertson, Rod Greening and Mark Turner at Hinton in Suffolk for the Breckland AS star party, David Reynolds using his 24” from his dark home site and Es Reid former optical boffin ever increasingly getting his hands dirty with late night observing, we were all poised to grab the opportunity with both… er?…eyes, I guess.

My personal priority was to sketch the SuperNova in M65 (SN 2013am). This I caught quickly as dark fell, the large galaxy just fitted into my circa 12’ x 12’ fov, the SN was quickly evident, I confirmed this by checking against the photograph in Stoyan’s Messier atlas. The Watec camera pulled out very impressive dust lane detail, so all in a very pleasing observation. Magnitudes for the SN are posted from high 13’s to 15.

Messier 65 and new face SN 2013am

I next went for another Hickson compact group that was within my  grasp, high overhead in Ursa Major, the north side of the plough handle or shaft, my telescope performed impeccably in getting there, I was expecting a graunching and grinding at any moment, but thankfully none came J HCG 66 turned out to be 4 tiny members, their outlines differing enough to make each member appear different from its neighbour, they were arranged in a short string, member (b) PGC 48231starts the chain  to the east, dipping towards the south as you move West running b, a, c, d in that order, with a galaxy I have not identified off to the SW, to the upper right NW in the fov you can see PGC 48198 which actually appears, larger and stands out a little better than any of the Hickson group members, yet it is only listed as mag 16.2.

Hickson Compact Group 66

I’m now looking around for something close to draw, I note on my software that M102 is pretty close, I take a look in my Messier sketch file and there is a gap where 102 should be, right I will fix that I thought!. Now if anyone asked me to give a description of M102 I would have had to guess if it was a galaxy or an open cluster off the top of my head! It turned out to be something of a galaxy gem! Looking like a sherbert flying saucer and sporting a subtle but distinct dust lane it should be better know, by me and by others I might suggest.

Messier 102, quite a looker

Well past midnight now, I scratched my head for my next object, Andrew Robertson often observer ‘The Hockey Stick’ NGC’s 4656 & 4657 an interesting and gravitationally distorted pair of galaxies close to the larger ‘Whale’ galaxy NGC 4631 in Canes Venatici, it had certainly been a little while since I had caught up with this very interesting object, and longer since I had sketched it, I certainly hadn’t sketched it using the 20”

2 NGC galaxies make up the unusual 'The Hockey Stick'

Well that was me completed for the night, it had be exciting and ground breaking for me insofar that I had sketched a newish SN and added another precious Hickson to my files. And so to bed.