6/18/2022
Location: Anza desert site,
Bortle 3.5.
Equipment: Celestron 9.25” Edge HD
SCT and Celestron 150ST
achro on
SW SkyTee 2 manual AltAz mount. Pentax XW/ TV Panoptic EPs.
On Saturday there were about two and half hours between astronomical darkness onset and moonrise. Enough to do some galaxy hunting. The desert is beautiful any time of year.
While the major bloom comes in spring, you can always find some flowers even in the summer heat. Like this little guy.
This weekend the desert weather was fall-like, with cold west wind and temperature after sunset dropping to 40s F (below 10 C). I kept adding layers as the session went. But because of that cool windy weather the transparency was above average and the Milky Way was magnificent.
Since I am after faint galaxies now days, I try to observe them at the best position. This evening Ursa Major was high in the sky, and I spent the session there.
Ursa Major Galaxies (all observed with 9.25” Edge)
NGC 3713 – faint narrow oval (168x).
NGC 3714 – very faint round spot with AV (118x, 168x).
NGC 3725 – round disk with brighter central area (118x).
NGC 3762 – narrow elongated oval (118x).
NGC 3733 – I knew this galaxy would be a challenge with relatively large size and low SB of 14.8 arcmin. I spent a few minutes going up and down in power with my widefield set of Pentax XW/TV Panoptic. Not a slight sight. I was about to move on, but then remembered: if all fails try low glass count EPs. I put in BCO 18mm (131x) and after a few seconds of soaking photons detected with AV small round core. I have switched to TV Plossl 17mm (138x) and detected with AV fainter small narrow lens around the core. I had on occasion Pentax XW 10mm outperforming BCO 10mm on very faint targets. This time however Pentax XW 14mm and 20mm failed to deliver. It could be not just the high transmission but also exit pupil of TV Plossl 17mm (right in between 14mm and 20mm EPs) which made the deference.
NGC 3737 – small round disk at 168x, at 235x compact core resolved.
NGC 3759A – faint AV oval (168x).
NGC 3740 – extremely faint small spot detected with AV by moving
EP (235x).
NGC 3770 – small faint narrow oval (168x).
NGC 3809 – small wide oval with brighter central area (168x).
NGC 3796 – small faint oval (168x).
NGC 3835 – narrow elongated oval (118x).
NGC 3757 – small narrow oval with AV (118x).
NGC 3795A – extremely faint relatively large round glow just a tad brighter than background, detected with AV by moving
EP (168x).
NGC 3795B – small faint oval with brighter core (168x).
NGC 3795 – extremely faint spot detected with AV by moving
EP (168x, 235x).
NGC 3782 – faint AV oval (118x).
NGC 3811 – faint round disk (118x).
NGC 3824 and
NGC 3829 – two extremely faint small AV spots in the same
FOV (168x, 235x).
