Blog for Friday 11^th and Saturday 12^th of May 2012

To say that we had endured something of a dearth of observing opportunities in the UK during April and the first 2 weeks of May is an understatement. That fact made these clear Friday and Saturday nights all the sweeter.

I had encountered a few technical issues with the mount and software during my last observing opportunities that Es Reid had supported me with. Since then I had acquired a new lap top and at setting this up found that there was a faulty cable that connected the lap top to the AWR intelligent handset, this was replaced at the cost of £23 from Alan Buckman of AWR.

On firing the scope up on Friday night I found that the Dec drive on the mount was working the wrong way, in other words, sending the scope up, actually resulted in it going down!

I called Andrew Robertson in Norfolk who is something of an expert with the AWR set up’s, I’m certainly not! Thankfully he talked me through getting into the factory settings and re-setting so all was well and I was able to continue.

For some reason & I can’t recall why? Rather than getting straight back on with my obsessive hunt for Hickson Compact galaxy groups I went for M60 in Virgo and its close and rather more interesting neighbour NGC 4647. M60 is bright and large but rather featureless whereas NGC 4647 although smaller and considerably fainter offer glimpses of spiral arms. See my sketch of the duo here

Keeping things bright, I went for a ‘black eye’ with M64 this gem needs no introduction and on my b&w monitor it looked just sensational, I sat there for a while wowing to myself and taking in the dramatic detail before I started to sketch this

After a couple of blasts of bright photons, I reverted back to the dim, distant and difficult, Hickson groups. First I reeled in HCG 70 a collection of 7 tiny smudges to the west of the Bootes kite, 2 appear as tiny flying saucer shapes, the (f) member is most challenging even for my set up being so small and faint at past 17^th mag! See what I sketched here

Swapping to the eastern side of Bootes my next catch was HCG 72 once again, made up of tiny and faint members, this time 6 in a close tumbling cascade running from UGC 9532(a) to the north down to UGC 9532(f) at the southern tip of the cascade, see my sketch here

Well that is where I called it a night at around 2am local time. I Picked things up the following night around midnight by catching up with HCG 73 to the north of HCG 72. Visually this was a little more interesting, the brightest member being a rather attractive face on spiral galaxy NGC 5829 (mag 13.1), the other members are scattered to the north and east and were little more than smudges some exhibiting elongation and brighter centres the faintest (e) member was tough at mag 17.6! See my sketch of HCG 73 here

 This took my tally to 53 and on reflection remarkably I have so far been able to detect every member of each of the 53 groups! I wonder if I can take this success right through to number 100?

Dale

I have endured a run of frustrations resulting in losing at least 3 nights of deep sky observing!

It started with what I thought was a malfunction with the no 1 Watec camera, I swapped to the no 2 older unit but the image was poor and although I located Hickson 71 in Bootes, the view was poor, grainy and showed too many hot pixels so I didn’t sketch.

The following day my friend and technical support for the observatories, Es Reid came over and we changed BNC leads, the ends break up and lose connection very quickly and power supplies. I wish I could get profession good fitting examples of both!

Es pronounced all was good after daylight testing. The evening was clear so I got going; it became immediately apparent that we hadn’t cured the issue with number 1 camera, this manifest itself as a ‘star bleed’ on the monitor whereby the star ‘flared’ out in one direction. After talking this through on the phone to Es, testing connections, it turned out to be a faulty monitor! Having 3 more it wasn’t an issue so I swapped the BNC lead into the back of one of the others and al was well.

No sooner had I ended the call to Es than the AWR control software developed an issue saying objects high in the sky were below the horizon! This isn’t that uncommon so I re-booted the lap-top and switched the mount off and back on again, this invariably cures the issue. On this occasion it didn’t! Now I’m pretty IT thick! Some say thick in other areas too!  The result was that it terminated another session without a pencil having even been poised.

Es kindly returned to Chipping the following night (17^th April) on his way to an imaging group meeting and investigated the software settings which involved going in the ‘the factory’ settings to tell the software were it was working. Once this had been done everything was back to normal…woohoo

Better still the evening remained clear allowing me to back on the Hickson trail. Shortly before midnight I caught up with HCG 71 in Bootes, a lovely 4 galaxy group, dominated by a wonderful central spiral NGC 5008 of mag 12.4, structure readily visible on my monitor, to the 11 o’clock position was an attractive edge on with prominent central bulge orientated N-S, IC 4382 is designated as the b member and glows at mag 14.8. To the NW of the field is a faint PGC galaxy not associated with the group. See my sketch here

After Midnight I caught up with the 2^nd Bootes  Hickson, HCG 69, this was my 50^th observation and sketch of the groups, halfway house. Not as attractive as 71 consisting of 4 faint members centre field in my sketch magnitudes are all high 15^th to mid 16^th mag. (a) & (d) members are a pair of almost touching edge on galaxies, (b) is the largest member and looks to be a face on spiral. A pair of unassociated PGC galaxies sits off to the west, this is a busy region of the sky when working with a large aperture. See my skech of Hickson 69 here

Pleased to be back on track again after frustrations that really gets me down! Here’s to the next 50  Dale

Blog Monday March 26th & Tuesday 27th 2012

Mon

I’m going to keep these brief as I’m chasing my tail at the moment! This spell of super fine weather continues so I got out on the Hickson trail again tonight. My aim was 2 groups in Virgo that will conclude that constellation. Fairly low in the east, I should have left it rise a bit as I wasn’t working with full aperture, resulting in the views not as detailed as they might have been, having said that, images out there don’t show either to be too exciting.

HCG 64 a nice group in Virgo, plenty of interaction going on, I wish now I had left it until better placed as I only had partial aperture on it as it was low in the East. See my sketch of HCG 64 here

HCG 67 another nice group of 4 in Virgo the central primary galaxy (a) NGC 5306 shows a hint of spiral structure even though I should have waited till it was better placed, mags range from 12.2 for (a) to 15.7 for (d) PGC49036 so a relatively bright HCG. See my sketch of HCG 67 here

Tuesday

Clear again working in Ursa & CVN tonight, took 15 hops on bright stars with re-sync’s between to get into Ursa Maj,that took 1 Hr!

HCG 60 a very nice group in Ursa major, made up of contrasting shaped and sized members, all around 16th magnitude, the large galaxy to the NNE isn’t a member of the group. This area of sky is rich in distant galaxies. See my sketch of HCG 60 here

HCG 68 an absolutely stunning group in Canes Venatici. (a) member is NGC 5353 which resembles a grain of barley, mag 11.1 but for me the belle of the ball is the lovely spiral to the west NGC 5350 which comes in as (c) member.

See my sketch of HCG 68 here.

Total now 48!!!!

And so to bed 01.30am BST, Dale

Blog Sat 24^th March 2012

The run of exceptional warm and sunny spring weather had failed to deliver clear night skies, yes brighter stars and the 4 planets visible to the naked eye were there OK and impressive but a heavy and persistent haze prevented serious deep sky study over this new moon period. Today the day sky looked a little clearer a little bluer and certainly cloud free. I had worked all day with my youngest son Aubrey on a number of gardening projects, both for others and for ourselves. During the course of the day we had decided to use the historic HST Calver reflector early evening as dusk fell to study, Venus, Jupiter, the fine crescent moon close by and then Mars.

As the sun dropped we opened the Fry observatory and uncovered the massive Calver reflector, after dinner we ran out an electrical lead from the house to power the drive motor and started with our observations, searing Venus showed a dichotomous phase that Aubrey said looked like a segment of lemon! Jupiter was low and murky, showing 3 moons and clear banding, not worth pushing up the power at that elevation! The crescent moon, a stunning hooked blade was incredible when viewed with a wide field 19mm eyepiece it completely filled the field of view.

Now onto the main course, ruddy Mars higher to the SE under the belly of the Lion. We set up the binoviewers with a few shouts from me to remind Aubrey of the value of this piece of kit and how it didn’t bounce too well!

I must fit a red dot zero unit finder onto this scope getting Mars into the fov took a little while and when I did get it the view was disappointing, I didn’t have enough experience with this scope yet to know the difference between, tube currents with which I know it is plagued and poor seeing, I suspected the former but blamed the later, this was later confirmed by a text from Simon Kidd who described excellent seeing on Mars! Were persevered for quite a while, I got occasional very quick flashes of clarity but Aubrey didn’t and with not being an astronomer just a lover of the historical aspect of the telescope he soon grew bored and restless. I kept him engaged for best part of an hour before agreeing to close down. It took a while to close up in the dark the roof frequently derails and needs fiddling and encouraging back into place.

With all closed down we retired to the house where I had promised Aubrey I would watch the classic spaghetti western a fist full of dollars with him. We viewed half before it was his time to shower for bed allowing me to escape to the other observatory for deep sky exploration and Hickson chasing!

I went for HCG 42 in Hydra which is low for me and I needed to drop the southern observatory flap to get this group. The sky in that location is poor at the best of times but tonight it was exacerbated by the sky haze. I still managed to pull in HCG 42 with its 4 members although with the conditions apart from its great distance from Earth there is little for me to wax lyrical about. See my modest sketch here.

My next target HCG 48 again in Hydra but this time considerably lower almost to the border with Antila the Air Pump, a constellation I don’t equate UK observing with. So to get an object from my observatory down at -19.24’ dec I find totally amazing especially when it consists of 4 small faint smudges the brightest at mag 12 the faintest at mag 16.4, so this group which looks to be the fifth lowest of all the 100 HCG’s really gave me a sense of achievement, and a hint of hope that I may, just be able to get all 100 from my humble garden observatory. See my sketch here.

Next I wasted my time, already late a night my actions next reminded me that planning and recording ones observations is critical! I observe quite a bit, my observatory is untidy and whilst I try to file my sketches and mark my observing aids with what has been viewed and when, I don’t always get it right! On this occasion I went for HCG 62 in Virgo, by now the sky was very poor, the SQM registering 18.44 in that region, I made my sketch, not realising until the next morning when I went to put a pin in my new observations on my wall chart that I had already observed this group, I was annoyed with myself for such a stupid error, plus my sketch which you can see here wasn’t a patch on the first I had made of this group under more favourable conditions! See that sketch here.

So to bed at 2am or taking into account the start of BST clock change actually 3am.

Blog Tuesday 20^th March 2012

Well here I am writing up the 3^rd night of observations on the trot, a rare thing for me. I knew I wanted Hickson 61 in Coma Berenicies aka ‘The Box’ which I had viewed a week or so back but not sketched due to ‘The Fog’.

I got out early so Leo was still well round to the SE and not in a good position for me to observe, I also wanted to get a crack at something lower down too. Transparency varied from murky to good, and it was changing rapidly and locally across the sky, the best reading I got for the night with the Sky Quality Meter (SQM) was 20.85.

Whilst I waited for the sky to come to me, I filed a back log of sketches, researched group members for helping with computer/mount goto id and then I collected my young Son Aubrey from Army Cadets. By 22.00 I was ready to go.

HCG 43

This is the only group in the diminutive constellation of Sextans, with 6 members all being faint and small this isn’t one of the most notable HCG’s (f) member PGC 29673 was tiny & tough even with my set up, it looked fainter than the given mag 18.2 must have been the low elevation. See my sketch here.

HCG 53

Next I was off higher and onto the flank of Leo to pick up on Hickson 53 that I required to clear that particular pocket up. Slightly easier than 43 with (a) member PGC 35183 relatively bright at mag 14.3 and of a decent size, extended arms evident and located centrally in the group. There are just 4 members, surprising as very close is another galaxy PGC 35184 of mag 16.8 which is brighter and larger  than at least the (c) & (d) members. See my sketch here.

HCG 61 (The Box)

I saved the best for last, the only HCG in Coma Berenices is certainly different, 4 galaxies with dramatic profiles that collectively form a notable rectangular outline. The universe doesn’t usually do straight edges so that is what makes this a little different.

I was very please to get just a hint of a dust lane in (c) member NGC 4175 which is the galaxy that projects out a little to the S-E, all 4 members are NGC designated, are  the 2 bright stars 1 to the N-E and 1 to the S-W of the box.

Can you spot the faint companion PGC 213947 right at the field edge to the SS-W, below the box?

See my sketch here.

It was 00.30 before I had scanned the sketches and closed the roof; it would feel like the alarm would be going for 05.45 before my head hit the pillow!

Dale

Blog for Tuesday 19^th March 2012

The thing with being an astronomer in England is that clear nights are rather like buses, you wait ages for one then 3 arrive together! This results in one gorging on photons, night after night, rather than pacing one’s self as you would if you were pretty sure of clear nights on a regular basis.

So I was having something of a stellar gorge! I had observed until 1.30am on Monday night then got up for work at 6am, Ok I got away with this, felt a little jaded by the evening. The sky looked likely to remain cloudy, or so I thought, but by 10ish I was told by Tracey my wife that it was clear outside!

Well I did it, out I went and there I stayed until 12.30 when common sense said to me “bed boy” anyhow here are outlines of my observations, all interesting, worthwhile  so I was pleased I had pushed through the tiredness and got out there (despite feeling awful midday Wed at the time of writing)

I took a call from Big Andrew just before midnight, he had sworn not to observe another night, ha, there he was out there, and we are as bad as each other J

HCG 39

A faint tumbling string of tiny galaxies in Hydra, the most northerly 4 of which form Hickson 39 a larger elongated galaxy is to be below to the SSE but visually forms part of the chain. The members range in magnitude from 14.11 to 17.7 See my sketch here

HCG 40

A most attractive group of 5 galaxies in Hydra all of differing shapes and sizes in very close proximity to each other but at juxtapositions making this the most beautiful of the 38 Hickson groups that I have observed to date. The magnitudes range from 14.9 to 17.4 and a relatively low declination have likely prevented this group from being far better known. See my sketch here

SN 2012A in NGC 3239 ARP 263 in Leo

Observation of a super nova discovered on the 7^th Jan 2012 by B. Moore, Jack Newton & Tim Puckett. I don’t quite know how I ended up observing and sketching this as I was actually after a more recent SN close to M95 in Leo but clearly write down the wrong information, not to worry this was an exciting and worthwhile observation in its own right. See my sketch here

Blog for Sunday March 18th 2012

A relatively miserable weekend gave way to a fine late Sunday afternoon and a very nice clear evening sky (well it wouldn’t being nearly time to return to work!), as soon as weekend family matters curtailed I was out there ‘rabid’ for more Hickson’s for my list

I was in the process of star hoping up towards Ursa when my great pal Andrew Robertson called from Darkest Norfolk, “can you take a look at NGC 2623 in Cancer? I picked it out in Burnhams handbook and it looks a bit different, I think you will like it!” I had a bit of a gentle protest as I was focused on getting a few more HCG’s on my score card and didn’t particularly welcome distractions. Andrew continued his sales pitch and I was soon persuaded, within 5-10 mins of ending our conversation I had retraced my steps and had NGC 2623 aka ARP 243 on the monitor, Andrew was right, it was interesting, but it was faint and small, that surprised me. Se my sketch here

 Clearly a pair of galaxies in the process of ‘mugging’ each other, each projecting a desperate arm looping out in an arc giving it somewhat of an antennae galaxy appearance. I of course sketched it and in the course of doing so began to see it as the winged seed of an Acer tree.

I went onto grab a couple more Hickson’s (click on the links to view my sketches) HCG35 in Lynx and HCG41 in Ursa Major taking my tally to 36. These faint fuzzy groups have really got their claws into me.

Anyhow I hope you find these 3 little drawings interesting? I hope to get more out to you pretty soon over New Moon.

Warm wishes, Dale

Blog Wednesday 14th of March 2012

After leaving work early to give a most enjoyable astronomy talk to 80 year 5, 9 year old students at Ralph Sadlier School, Puckeridge, Herts for National Science and Engineering week. This was my 6th annual visit to do this for the children and I think this talk went the best so far. The staff also appeared to be excited by what they heard and saw during the hour I was presenting.

I left the school and droppedmy props, namely giant binoculars, PST solar scope and a few other bits back home and then headed off to do the weekly family shopping.

So by the time I returned home it was dark and I was pretty ‘bushed’ but a clear sky must be obeyed if at all possible so I motivated myself after 40 minutes or so harmonica practice to get the observatory open.

I was intent to bag a few more of the availible Hickson groups in the Leo region revisited one HCG that I had previously sketched using the old 14” this was HCG57 better known as the delightful Copelands Septet, I was delighted with the extra detail I was able to pull out in member galaxies (a) NGC 3753 appears split almost as if 2 galaxies, (b) NGC 3746 also showed quite considerable structure. A very exciting group see my sketch here.

I then caught 51 in Leo which is a tricky one with 6 faint members and I was getting a little confused identifying them. That takes my sketched tally to 34 she my sketch here.

I then moved on to HCG 61 the box in Coma, the view was poor as heavy fog was descending, I could have sketched all the components were there but I decided it was worth it I would rather go back and get extra detail. By the time I had scanned my sketches it was heading for 2am! I was going to pay the price the next day!

And so to bed

Blog Sunday March 11th 2012

Blog Sat 18^th of Feb 2012

Recently Owen Brazell a well know figure in UK amateur Deep Sky Astronomy has been vocal in his doubts around others deep sky observation, one of those on the receiving end of Owen’s scepticism is my good friend Andrew Robertson. He had written an observation report and shared it with a small circle of enthusiasts saying that whilst observing planetary nebula Abell 12 in Orion that he had noted a “hole” in the nebula. To cut a long story short Owen pretty much rubbished this so I intended to make a follow up observation to see what my highly sensitive set up would show. Now Abell 12 sits right on bright star Mu Orionis which makes it very difficult to observe due to the contrast factor in smaller scopes. I’m pleased to say that my Watec video camera and 505mm mirror detected the nebula with ease and indeed did show up a darker thinning or hole in the nebulosity. See my sketch here, well done Andrew!

Pushing on into Cancer I picked up 3 more of the Hickson groups, the first was HCG 37 a compact quintet with 2 dominant members (a) NGC 2783 a face on spiral and (b) UGC 4856 and attractive edge on orientated E-W, see my sketch here

HCG36 a group listed as having 4 members was a more subtle ‘flea like’ affair close to a star bright enough to give diffraction spikes with my set up, (a) member the only member with any size has a designation of IC528, see my rendition here

The closing observation of HCG 38 just into Leo came just after midnight, a more spectacular group with structure being obvious in an interacting pair (b) UGC5044a & (c) UGC5044b, (a) member PGC2683 shows considerable N-S elongation with a strong hallo and even the faintest member (d) PGC2630 mag 17.1 shows a bright core in my set up. A very interesting group, especially by the standards of Hickson’s that I have observed to date. See my sketch here

Well that concluded a very pleasing and productive session, time for bed, Dale