Telescope Reviews: NGC 6723, the Chandelier Cluster

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

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Mr. Wizard

Walking on a Dob: http://darkskyobserving.com/MtGraham.html

Elements in Harmony I, an 8"f6 German Equatorial - Stellafane Winner,
II a 20"f4.2 Newt-Dob - Astrofest Winner,
III a 6"f3.5 Finder/Newt-Dob, and
IV a 36"f4.5 Newt-Dob - "If it's up there, it's in here."
Apache-Sitgreaves Center for Astrophysics
www.DarkSkyObserving.com

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