| Steven Aggas |
| (sage) |
| 06/29/09 02:29 PM |
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NGC 6723, the Chandelier Cluster
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That is an amazing area!!! I got a chance to view this region on June 26th with the 36"f4.5.
Starting from the Globular NGC 6723, the Chandelier Cluster, with its prominent, draping arcs of stars, I moved the 36" scope over to the reflection nebulae pair NGC 6726 and 27. Close by was a fan-shaped nebula, NGC 6729. Over Memorial Day weekend a few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to swing the 36" over to this object since it had a comet shape in his scope. As excited as he was about the prospect of "2009 Comet Lines", I had to break the bad news to him that it's in the NGC Catalog. A nearby close double star resides in IC 4812 which had a fine gauze appearance surrounding them. All of these objects, except The Chandelier, are part of the same nebulous-dust complex whose dust portion is identified as Bernes 157, and it is huge! Several fov's (my lowest power is 152x giving 32 arc minutes) to cover this dust cloud object. Parts were black and starless while others showed swirls of grey with an increasing star count towards the edges.
This was a fun area to explore.
Steven
| Dave Mitsky |
| (Postmaster) |
| 06/29/09 03:20 PM |
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Re: NGC 6723, the Chandelier Cluster
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Wow, another new DSO nickname! What was its origin?
Dave Mitsky
| Steven Aggas |
| (sage) |
| 06/29/09 03:45 PM |
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Re: NGC 6723, the Chandelier Cluster
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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