Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Red Necked Emu
On Saturday July the 15th, Leo and I finally had a good evening of observing together. We enjoyed hunting some deep-sky objects, he with the 4-inch Takahashi and I with my 15x80 Binoculars mounted on the SkyWindow. We started of with two very large clusters near the Serpens Cauda / Ophiuchus border, NGC 6633 and IC 4756. These two contrasting clusters are also included in O'Meara's "Hidden Treasures", under the numbers HT 92 / HT 93. With my 15x80 binocular (field of view 3.5 degrees) I could not see both clusters together. I had to turn the SkyWindow from left to right and back again to compare both clusters, but I noticed immediately how different these two open clusters are. I estimated IC 4756 about 45' or 50' in diameter. In a trapezium of 4 bright stars I count at least 50 weaker stars. NGC 6633 looks much more compact, about half the size of IC 4756. However, the individual stars are brighter, and are grouped in a kind of small elongated circle, and a few long straight streamers of stars. These two clusters are wonderful objects for binoculars. Our next stop was Phil Harrington's STAR 26 ( STAR=Small Telescope Asterism Roster), the Red Necked Emu in Cygnus, The Swan. I had seen it once before in my 4-inch refractor a few years ago, so I knew what I was looking for. The Red Necked Emu looks like a giant propeller with three blades, about 1 degree in diameter. Just start at Gamma Cygni, the orange star at the heart of Cygnus, and move towards Albireo along the neck of the Swan for 2.5 degrees to 34 Cygnus. From there move about 1.5 degrees in the same direction to arrive at 29 Cygnus. This star marks the tip of the Emu's tail. On the image below you can see how the Emu is oriented in the sky. Through my 15x80 it was very simple to find. I think this object is best in 80 to 100 mm instruments, with a large field of view. This strange bird is called Red-Necked Emu because all the stars he consists of are white-bluish, except one orange-reddish star in its neck. This is very easy to see.
Click to enlarge
After this I first freewheeled a little through the Milky Way in Cygnus, a wonderful experience with binoculars. M 29, Albireo, Omicron 1 and 2, are just a few of the stops I made. After that I also made a little tour through Vulpecula: The Coathanger (Collinder 399) The Dumbbell (M 27), and the wonderful open cluster NGC 6940. Although not very well resolved, NGC 6940 stood out well from its surroundings, however I like this object more in my 300mm Newtonian. From Vulpecula I turned back again into the Swan, passing M 39 and on to Mu Cepheus, the Garnet star. In this area we looked at a few open clusters, but because we had some problems identifying them, we will have to revisit this area.
Posted by Math on 08/07 at 11:08 AM |
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Saturday, July 14, 2007
Observing hidden treasures.........
Last night it was clear between 11 and 1 o clock (local time) and I had a quick look at some deep-sky objects with just to test my new eyepiece, the 21mm Denkmeier. In my dob, the 65-degree eyepiece gives a magnification of 76x and a true field of view of 51'. I pointed the eyepiece at M 27 and although it wasn't really dark (grey nights during the May-July period), it was quite an impressive sight. M 27 is really big, even at low powers, and with the UHC filter the Dumbbell shape is very obvious at first sight. The 21mm Denkmeier seems to be very "transparent", letting through much more light than the 20mm and/or 25mm Vixen Lanthanum. The stars where sharp right to the edges although I think that there is a little pincushion distortion along the edges. What I really love about this eyepiece is the generous 20mm eye-relief. Even with my glasses on, I can take in the whole field of view at once.
this planetary takes high magnifications well, and is at its best 150x or more. 
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Hidden Treasures
A few weeks ago I got a new book from Steven James O-Meara: “Hidden Treasures”. This is his third Deep-Sky Companion he wrote and it is definitely my favorite read at the moment. After the well known “Messier Objects” and “Caldwell Objects” this new book, Hidden Treasures, is again about 109 deep-sky objects, but this time about objects which are not included in the Messier or Caldwell catalogs. Some of them are well known, but there are a lot of objects which were more or less new to me. Again the whole range of deep-sky objects is included, Galaxies, Planetary Nebulae, Star Clusters (open and globular), Asterisms, Bright Nebulae, Dark Nebulae and even a High-proper motion star. Steven James O’Meara is getting better and better. I like the way he writes his deep-sky companions. There’s always a lot of information about each individual object (history, observing the object, how to find it, and up to date scientific information), and for every object a finder-chart, black and white image and a sketch. The information you get in this book is also fully consistent with the two other books in this collection.
I can highly recommend all three of them. In the English language, they are by far the best observing guides around at the moment, and Hidden Treasures is with almost 600 pages packed with information on 109 deep-sky objects the crown on this wonderful series (until now).
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Watery Moon
During the last few weeks the weather hasn’t been very kind on the observing front, so I cannot bring you much news about deepsky, solar or lunar observing. Most of the time it has been cloudy or completely overcast. Monday night however the clouds opened up for an hour, and I got a quick glimpse of the Moon with my binoculars. This image of the Moon was taken just a mile from where I live near the water tower. 
Click to enlarge
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Mount Doom....
Last week we were walking through the fields in our hometown. As you can see on the image below, about an hour before sunset we were treated on a very special sight, the Sun “touching” the top of a big cloud. The view instantly reminded us of Mount Doom, the big volcano in Mordor (from The Lord of the Rings). Hmmmm….. maybe finally something happening in Landgraaf, Netherlands 
Click to enlarge
Monday, June 18, 2007
Venus disappearing behind the Moon
Today has been overcast for most of the day, but around 4 o'clock it started to clear a little, and I could witness Venus disappearing behind the Moon. It was a wonderful sight to see this amazingly bright little sphere of light vanish behind something that is almost invisible, the darker part of the crescent Moon. I used my 85mm Zeiss spotting scope, equipped with the zoom eyepiece for visual observation. I also shot some images right before Venus disappeared with the Coolpix 4500. Enjoy the views, and I hope it will still be clear when Venus reappears!
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Caldwell images on stamps
The Royal Mail (UK) celebrates 50 years of the BBC's Sky at Night television programme with the issue of 6 stamps that show 6 different Caldwell Objects. On the stamps you see 6 wonderful colour images of 4 planetary nebulae, a galaxy and an emission / reflection nebula. Data on the different stamps / images:
1. 1st Class : Caldwell 55, the Saturn Nebula, planetary nebula in Aquarius
2. 1st Class : Caldwell 39, the Eskimo Nebula, planetary nebula in Gemini
3. 50 pence : Caldwell 6, the Cats Eye Nebula, planetary nebula in Draco
4. 50 pence : Caldwell 63, the Helix Nebula, planetary nebula in Aquarius
5. 72 pence : Caldwell 31, the Flaming Star Nebula, an emission / reflection nebula in Auriga (image by Robert Gendler)
6. 72 pence : Caldwell 53, the Spindle, a lenticular galaxy in Sextans
So if you are an amateur astronomer and stamp collector, this set of six celestial gems might be of interest to you! For more information and ordering the set of stamps, follow this link to the website of The Royal Mail.
Click on image to enlarge
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Two sunsets and the Moon
The last few weeks the weather has been very good, and every night an hour before sunset, we took a long walk through the fields just down the road where we live. It's amazing what you sometimes can see when taking your time. Every evening we noticed not only different animals and plants, but also different celestial sights. Most of the time we carry a small digital camera with us, to record some of the things we encounter on our daily walk. Here are a few images we shot last week, two of a sunset and one of the Moon which is visible through the branches of a huge tree. Hope you enjoy the pics. Please click on the images to enlarge!
