Steven Aggas
(sage)
06/29/09 03:45 PM
Re: NGC 6723, the Chandelier Cluster

Lol, Dave, I named it!

It was a very striking object in the 36" last Memorial Day weekend. Near the meridian, it had incredible clarity and reminded me of the antique hanging glass chandeliers of the 1800's; slightly oval, draping arcs of stars, combined with the orientation in the eyepiece. So, I added an observer's object in TheSky6 at those coordinates and named it The Chandelier Cluster.

Also named that night was a long, thin dust feature, ~25 arc minutes by ~3 arc minutes, that had along one edge a length-wise straight line of nearly uniform brightness stars. That's called 'The Black Knife' in my book. I'll dig up the coord's and post them, but that one is a tough one. I was scanning around this one and every time it crossed the 32' fov I was facinated by such an usual combination that stood out from the background.

Steven



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