Phil Harrington's Cosmic Challenge

Cosmic Challenge: IC 5067 and IC 5070 (Pelican Nebula)

My September 2018 Cosmic Challenge dared you to see the North America Nebula without optical aid. How did you do? If you didn’t see it back then, can you now? If you passed that trial, then pick up your binoculars and see how you do with this month’s test. The North America Nebula is easy to see compared to spotting this month's challenge, the Pelican Nebula by binoculars.

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Cosmic Challenge: IC 4997

This month’s challenge, the planetary nebula IC 4997 lies within the borders of Sagitta, and is surprisingly bright, but extremely small. That combination makes this a great object for everyone, whether you are observing under the veil of light pollution or from a dark, rural location. Its intensity should shine through all but the most extreme situations.

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Cosmic Challenge: Draconian Doubles

The constellation of Draco the Dragon winds its way through our northern August sky, and while most of its stars are fainter than 3rd magnitude, it holds some fun resolution challenges for binoculars. Here are three of my favorites.

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Cosmic Challenge: NGC 6453

NGC 6453 shines at 10th magnitude and measures nearly 8' across. Were it alone in the sky, it would be a fairly routine catch in 8-inch (20-cm) and larger apertures. But NGC 6453 is not isolated by any means; instead, it is immersed in a heavily packed field of stars. Spotting it can be literally like finding a needle in a haystack!

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Cosmic Challenge: Hortensius and Milichius Dome Fields

Thanks to the lunar samples bright back by Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, and the other Apollo astronauts, it is well established that the vast majority of craters are impact craters formed when leftover debris from the formation of the solar system slammed into the Moon. But if we look carefully, scattered among all of those impact scars is direct evidence that the early Moon was also a hotbed of volcanic activity. Some of the most intriguing evidence of that activity is the so-called lunar domes.

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Cosmic Challenge: Palomar 4

When you think of deep-sky objects in Ursa Major, you probably don't think of globular clusters. Galaxies, sure! Planetary nebulae? There's the Owl Nebula. But globular clusters? Probably not.

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Cosmic Challenge: NGC 4361

Corvus, the celestial crow, flies low in the spring sky as viewed from the northern hemisphere. Located between the constellations Virgo and Hydra, it is easily identifiable by its compact shape resembling a perched bird. The crow carries with it but one notable deep-sky object for backyard telescopes. Planetary nebula NGC 4361 is almost perfectly centered within Corvus's trapezoidal body.

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Cosmic Challenge: NGC 2403

Hovering above the northeastern horizon at this time of year is the obscure constellation Camelopardalis the Giraffe. Though the human eye alone reveals little more than a void populated by a scattering of 4th-magnitude and fainter stars, binoculars begin to unleash some of the beast's latent wonders. One of the Giraffe's few hidden treasures that is visible through binoculars is NGC 2403, a spectacular spiral galaxy tilted nearly face-on to our perspective.

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Cosmic Challenge: Abell 12

Deep-sky objects can be challenging for several reasons. Some are especially faint, while others are especially small, and still others are so large that they can't fit into a single eyepiece field. Or the problem might be that a particular target is so close to another, noticeably brighter object that the light from that intruder all but obliterates the quarry. The latter problem plagues planetary nebula Abell 12. It shines at about 14th magnitude, which is not exactly bright, but is also not exceptionally dim for a telescope 10 inches (25 cm) or more in aperture. The problem, however, is that it is located a scant arcminute away from 4th-magnitude Mu (μ) Orionis. That's why it's known by the nickname the Hidden Planetary.

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Cosmic Challenge: NGC 1851

I thought I'd welcome in the new year with a target that is not challenging due to its faintness, but rather due to its southern location far from any bright stars. NGC 1851 is a 7th-magnitude globular cluster in the constellation Columba, the Dove.

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