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Observing >> Deep Sky Observing

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nytecam
Postmaster

Reged: 08/20/05
Posts: 5760
Loc: London UK

summer clusters
#3224627 - 07/18/09 05:04 AM

Hi - my poor skies, scope and eyesight preclude meaningful visual observation so I resort to other means for my viewing at ETX-70 web page with the following recent summer objects - Pal7/ M8/11/13/71/92/ NGC 5634/6229/6539/6712/6604 - mostly globular clusters and a couple of emission nebs too - hope they are of interest and I'd like to know what you make of them through your scope

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Nytecam 51N 0.1W
Meade 30cm LX200+ETX-70+e-finder+C8+Ha+CaK PSTs SBIG SGS+homebuilt spectrographs
Starlight SXVF_M9+Lodestar CCDs/Canon 300D DSLR/Fuji E550
My observatory build-ETX-70 imaging-my videos

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GeorgeNC
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 03/26/07
Posts: 1123
Loc: Land of the Sky, North Carolin...

Re: summer clusters new

[Re: nytecam]
#3224850 - 07/18/09 09:22 AM

Quote:

my poor skies, scope and eyesight preclude meaningful visual observation so I resort to other means for my viewing

Pretty much my story too.

BTW, really nice images with your etx. Thanks for sharing them.

No way I could pick M71 out of this star field through the eyepiece (much less Harvard 20!), so I took up astroimaging more to see what was in the heavens than to make nice pictures. Here's my M71 from last month through my 110mm refractor.

M71

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Celestron C11 on CGE Mount
Stellarvue 80mm Nighthawk II
W.O. Flt110 on CGEM
Canon 40D (Hap Griffin modified)
Orion StarShoot Autoguider

Edited by GeorgeNC (07/19/09 09:41 AM)

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nytecam
Postmaster

Reged: 08/20/05
Posts: 5760
Loc: London UK

Re: summer clusters new

[Re: GeorgeNC]
#3226146 - 07/19/09 03:11 AM

Thanks GeorgeNC - nice shot

Last night's brief session on some DSOs in Vulpecular - these objects targetted last week by via 2m Faulkes Telescope on Hawaii during a lunchtime school's session here in SW London so little hope against my tiny ETX-70 at 1/800th the size from suburbia

My version of faint planetary NGC 6842 [mag 13.6p; 48"diam; mag16 cs] an extreme test visually with any scope with field OC NGC 6834 here.

ps: this DSO forum is not renowned for images - I prefer to link from elsewhere

Post Extras:

Jeff Young
Post Laureate

Reged: 08/04/05
Posts: 4122
Loc: Ireland

Re: summer clusters new

[Re: nytecam]
#3227226 - 07/19/09 06:45 PM

Hey Nytecam, nice pictures!

I've got an interesting comparison on M8 in my logbook. First from Ireland:

Quote:

M8 8/1/2005 23:45 UT; Pickering 5, NELM 5
8" SCT, UHC filter

Sadly, not much to look at. It was fairly low on the horizon (9°), and somewhat within Drogheda's light bloom. Required UHC. Not really visible at all without it (at least in these conditions).

... and then from Colorado with a similar scope but without filtration:

Quote:

M8 8/1/2005 22:45 MT; Pickering 5, NELM 7
9.25" SCT

2 areas of nebulosity visible, with a dark lane between pointing to an open cluster. Fairly pretty, but not much variegation visible in the brighter of the two nebulous areas. Did well in both the 32Mk80 and 17T4, but felt a little cramped in the 17T4.

From Ireland I get similar visual results on M71 and NGC6229 to your photos, but it takes a boat-load more aperture:

Quote:

M71 10/12/2006 21:10 UT; Pickering 6, NELM 5.5
16" SCT

More open cluster than globular at 175x, with a cross asterism to the north. Very densely populated neighborhood. Shows more globular traits at 260x; would likely be even better at 375x with better seeing.

Quote:

NGC6229 9/9/2007 23:00 UT; Pickering 5, NELM 5.5
16" SCT

Lovely composition. Nearly equalateral triangle with a smaller (and much dimmer) triangle mirroring across the baseline formed by the non-GC vertices. One star distinctly greenish; the other similar but less-so. Stars resolved across the GC in averted, but over a very milky background. 12T4 resolves a few more stars, but composition suffers.

These were all from before I started sketching, so all I have is verbal descriptions.

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

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Nikon 18x70s / UA Millennium Colorado:
Solarscope SF70 / TV Pronto / AP400QMD Coronado SolarMax40 DS / Bogen 055+3130
APM MC1610 / Tak FC-100 / AP1200GTO Tak Mewlon 250 / AP600EGTO

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nytecam
Postmaster

Reged: 08/20/05
Posts: 5760
Loc: London UK

Re: summer clusters new

[Re: Jeff Young]
#3227859 - 07/20/09 05:34 AM

Thanks Jeff for your most interesting observations and thanks for taking the time to extract them - much appreciated

Done a [unfair] comparison between the 2m Faulkes on Hawaii and by backyard Meade ETX-70 on PNe NGC 6842. Other DSOs include NGC 6820[Em Neb Vul]/ 6940[OC Vul]/ 6934[GC Del] via webpage link topping thread.