A new Jupiter impact and a deep sky pair
It's been a while since I posted, and indeed, I haven't been able to observe much lately, mostly due to the weather. I did get out to the West Virginia mountains this past weekend. On Sunday night, I got a good look at Jupiter in my 10-inch with excellent seeing conditions. I hadn't heard about the impact of an object in the south polar region, and that's not an area of the planet I usually scrutinize for detail. I did notice in passing that both temperate/polar areas were exceptionally bland. In fact, the north temperate belt was only a barely perceptible thin dim line in one area, and the STB was totally invisible. Only fine scale detail was visible in both equatorial belts- no major features.
This time, and the last time I was out in May, I observed a nice pair of deep sky objects in Scutum. How often do you find a globular cluster and a planetary nebula in the same field of view? Yes, I know- Pease 1 in M15, but come on- that's not exactly one that jumps out at you! Try going just 2-1/2 degrees SSE from M11, The Wild Duck Cluster, and you'll find 8.1 mag globular cluster NGC 6712. Just 23-1/2 arcminutes away in position angle 110 is planetary nebula IC 1295. The planetary is a large one at 90 arcseconds, and although Jay McNeil's list has it at 15.0 mag, it's clearly a lot brighter. It's easily visible without a filter in my 10-inch. A narrow band filter shows a little bit of annularity to it. The globular partially resolves in my scope, making this an interesting pair for observation even if they weren't so close to each other. I didn't find many images of this pair on the web, so it would make a nice target for astro-imagers.
If you've got at least an 8-inch scope and are up for a challenge, there is also a very small 14.2 mag planetary only about 5 arcminutes from IC 1295. This is Kohoutek 4-8 (plotted on my software as PLN 25-4.1). It is visible in Chris Schur's image if you click on one of the higher resolution images. Find the little arc of five stars about 1/5 of the way from IC 1295 to NGC 6712. It is the middle star in the arc. Looks like a star, so you can blink it with an O-III filter to be sure. I did not try for it in my 10-inch, though I might next time out as it's pretty bright. You just need to have an image or very detailed chart to guide you to the right one.
This time, and the last time I was out in May, I observed a nice pair of deep sky objects in Scutum. How often do you find a globular cluster and a planetary nebula in the same field of view? Yes, I know- Pease 1 in M15, but come on- that's not exactly one that jumps out at you! Try going just 2-1/2 degrees SSE from M11, The Wild Duck Cluster, and you'll find 8.1 mag globular cluster NGC 6712. Just 23-1/2 arcminutes away in position angle 110 is planetary nebula IC 1295. The planetary is a large one at 90 arcseconds, and although Jay McNeil's list has it at 15.0 mag, it's clearly a lot brighter. It's easily visible without a filter in my 10-inch. A narrow band filter shows a little bit of annularity to it. The globular partially resolves in my scope, making this an interesting pair for observation even if they weren't so close to each other. I didn't find many images of this pair on the web, so it would make a nice target for astro-imagers.
If you've got at least an 8-inch scope and are up for a challenge, there is also a very small 14.2 mag planetary only about 5 arcminutes from IC 1295. This is Kohoutek 4-8 (plotted on my software as PLN 25-4.1). It is visible in Chris Schur's image if you click on one of the higher resolution images. Find the little arc of five stars about 1/5 of the way from IC 1295 to NGC 6712. It is the middle star in the arc. Looks like a star, so you can blink it with an O-III filter to be sure. I did not try for it in my 10-inch, though I might next time out as it's pretty bright. You just need to have an image or very detailed chart to guide you to the right one.
posted by Eric from Astronomerica at
9:11 AM
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