19.8.2009 - Humidity and sore ass in Sipoo

Obs. place: Hindsby, Sipoo, Finland
Date: 19./20.8.2009
Bortle class: Class 4 (rural / suburban transition)
NE Lim.mag: 6.6^m (E)
Background sky: 3
Seeing: 2
Transparency: 2
Weather: +9.0°C, humidity ~90%, air pressure 1022 HPa, no wind

Session length: 2 hours (+ 1.5 hours of travel)

Never do squats at the gym before going for a 45 minute (one way) bicycle ride with 25 kg weights in your back. Like my recording from the ride says: "My ass is on fire and legs feel like jelly".

I packed my bags and started cycling towards the observing spot in Hindsby at 22 hrs. I (finally) arrived there 45 minutes later and was covered in sweat. It was quite a workout - carrying the telescope and all the equipment in my trekker backpack and riding my old bicycle (with a nearly flat tire) for 12 kilometers. I unpacked everything and started the session with a heavy sweat and 10 minutes later I was so cold that I was trembling. But let's get to it shall we.

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The first interesting object of the night was Tombaugh 5. Clyde Tombaugh (the dude who nabbed Pluto) discovered 5 open clusters:

Tombaugh 1
R.A.: 07 00 27, Dec: -20 34.2, Size: 6.0', Brightest star: 14.0
Tombaugh 2
R.A.: 07 03 06, Dec: -20 49.1, Size: 3.0', Brightest star: 16.0
Tombaugh 3 (IC 166)
R.A.: 01 52 22, Dec: +61 51.3, Size: 8.0', Brightest star: 17.0
Tombaugh 4
R.A.: 02 29 10, Dec: +61 47 06, Size: 5.3', Brightest star: 16.0
Tombaugh 5
R.A.: 03 47 44, Dec: +59 05.4, Size: 15.0', Brightest star: 14.0

Tombaugh 5 in Camelopardalis is probably the easiest. I spotted the cluster for the first time on 24th of September 2001 at 23.51 with 8" Orion DSE: "Round, not so obvious or bright cluster. Total of 10* resolved. Stars pretty much even brightness at 11th magnitude. Looks rather much like moderately rich cluster. Not much cluster-like object. The glow can be only visualized around the cluster." So I managed to spot only the faint haze of the true cluster and a few 11th magnitude non-members from the glow. Sky conditions were pretty bad so I couldn't do much more.

Few years later on 10./11.10.2004 I was justing the same 8" telescope with slightly better results as can be seen from my "shorthand" description: "30 * mags 11...14, 15', bg haze." which was later translated as "Moderately faint, but very obvious with averted vision. 30 stars resolved against a very faint background glow. Stars mags 11...14. Scattered. Size 15'."

The latest of endeavours with the object was the best. With the 4.7" I described the object as "Ff, bg glow @ 60x + 50* mags 11-15 res, 18', even scatt, V3, VI2" and in plain English: "Fairly faint, background glow with 50 evenly scattered stars mags 11-15 resolved. Size 15'. Visuality 3 (easy with averted vision), Visual Impression 2 (good)".

This is what the sketch looks like when it is fully resolved:


All of Tombaugh's clusters are faint and fairly difficult to spot under less than dark skies. But they are also rich and quite beautiful once you get to see them properly. The first two clusters were discovered in 1938 and the final three in 1941. 3rd object was also previously discovered as IC 166.

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The most rewarding object of the night was IC 342 - a faint, somewhat famous galaxy in Camelopardalis. Wolfgang Steinicke's NGC/IC data lists this galaxy as visual magnitude of 8.4 - yammy! How about surface brightness? It is listed as 14.9 mag which makes it very faint. Compare it to some other galaxies with low surface brightness: M33 (14.0), NGC 6822 (14.4) and IC 1613 (15.1). So it is faint and when you go after it, use very low magnification. Without all of the galactic gas and dust between us and the galaxy, IC 342 would shine whooping 3 magnitudes brighter! It would surely be a rival of M33 in the northern hemisphere.

My first confrontation with the galaxy was back in 2001, on a dark night (~6.6^m in Taurus) in August the 15th. I was observing from the family cabin of my good friend Eero Holmström in Pernaja. With my new 80mm (3") refractor I managed to spot IC 342 @ 32x: "A faint blob, just like described in the book by Skiff and Luginbuhl. Visible also with 40mm. Even brightness, diffuse disk. No nucleus spotted. Totally round. In a rich field. Fainter and more difficult with 8" dobson."

I was in the region again on the 10th of October 2004. I wanted to try if I could spot the galaxy from my suburban backyard with my 8" telescope. The weather was excellent: -0°C, cold breeze from north and naked eye limiting magnitude 5.9 in Perseus. My description was: "Extremely faint. Only the very core is visible, being almost stellar about 1' in size @ 76x. The halo is nearly impossible, 10' gradually fainter, slightly elliptical halo around the nucleus. A line of stars mags 11...12 visible W from the nucleus. 11th magnitude star N from the nucleus. In a rich field. Very challenging."

Tonight I was out with the 4.7". I wrote: "Tasty little galaxy. Spotted @ 23x (2° 13') as a very faint, round glow. 60x displays a nearly stellar nucleus surrounded by a bright, round halo. Galaxy slightly elliptical in E-W direction. Several 11-13 magnitude stars can be spied inside the halo - only the brightest sketched. Details very difficult and annoying. Occasionally some mottling discerned and faint spiral arms suspected.

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I moved on to another galaxy in the region - IC 356. My recorded notes on this are slim. Date of the observation is unknown (early 2000 anyway) but the description is short and simple: "Very faint, elliptical. Small, round nucleus. Size about 3' x 2'.

The new notes cover the galaxy only slightly better with the 4.7": "Bright, non-stellar nucleus surrounded by a NW-SE elongated, very faint halo. Bright 8th magnitude star N from the galaxy.

Objects observed:
NGC 957, NGC 1027, IC 342, IC 356, G1 (Mayall II), VdB 1, Tombaugh 5

15.8.2009 / Perseus and Cassiopeia clusters

Obs. place: Koivukylä, Vantaa, Finland
Date: 15./16.8.2009
Bortle class: Class 5 (suburban sky)
NE Lim.mag: 5.9 (E)
Background sky: 4-5
Seeing: 2
Transparency: 4
Weather: +9.0°C, humidity ~79%, air pressure 1011 HPa, NW wind 3.0 m/s. 27% moon low in Taurus.

Session length: 3.5 hours

The night of 14./15 August was fairly clear as well but with some annoying scattered cloud roaming the skies constantly. I did manage to sketch NGC 281 (that I fondly described as "a puke on a mirror...") Trumpler 1 and NGC 957. The next night was a lot better so I decided to do the three sketches again.

This time I really started with Collinder 463 as it was still twilight. The cluster stands fairly poorly from the background and it can be difficult not to mix it with at least one obvious asterism (HD 11704-Group with a size of 24') in the region. Collinder 463 contains 12 stars brighter than magnitude 10 and roughly 50 stars brighter than 12th magnitude. A good, easy cluster for small apertures that is. The most obvious feature in the cluster I noticed was a long chain of stars to the NE. The 40mm Celestron Omni (2° 23' field) worked wonders on this cluster.


NGC 637 was next. This cluster is easy to find (as are 95% of all deep sky objects) and fairly easy to spot. Seeing it clearly resolved is another matter. Four bright 11th magnitude stars are visible inside a faint glow. I maxed out the magnification (6mm Baader + 2x-barlow) and the brightest star in the center became a double, with a few fainter members around it. Size is also small - roughly 2'. An older observation (11./12.10.2004) of mine shows pretty much the same with an 8" telescope: "Small, 2', faint haze around three 10th magnitude stars. Half a dozen stars resolved".


Swinging back to M103-region of the sky. It was time to re-sketch Trumpler 1. Long ago I named (well not me but the queen bee) the cluster as the Superman cluster due to the S-shaped form I once saw it in. Tr 1 is really once piece of work. It is bright and obvious even at 20x but is also very small (2'). The sky wasn't dark enough to show the true colors of the cluster and did manage to see only 7 members. Apparently I was also in such a hurry that I forgot to sketch the field stars!


I moved forward to King 14. I sketched the most obvious group in the field but it turned out to be the Y-shaped NGC 133. Darn it. With NGC 225, however there was not going to be any problems with the identity. 15 stars between magnitudes 9 and 11 makes the cluster really stand out. Brightest members are packed to the E side and the object is divided in to two. Another fine target for small telescopes.


On the previous night I was unable to spot NGC 1245 in Perseus. This night was clearly better than the last one so I gave it a try. Finding it is easy - just find your way to HD 20023 and look north. There's the cluster. Suffering from clear case of low surface brightness NGC 1245 is not always easy to see. With averted vision I managed to spot about a dozen members and a faint background glow. What I found interesting was this: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312083. According to the 2003 paper, the actual size of the cluster is 40'! Over four times the common value!


It was time for the Giraffe-border. First in line was Trumpler 3. A good binocular cluster to start with and not too bad in a telescope either. The size is roughly 20' and from my perspective the cluster stands out fairly boldly from the background. There is one interesting object near the cluster - PK 138+4.1. This planetary nebula is faintly visible on Palomar plates as a round, diffuse glow surroinding an obvious asterism of stars. The central star appears to be a bright one - magnitude 12.4 GSC 4053:643. American deep sky observer Kent Wallace failed to see this with a 20" telescope but in all honesty I suspect this can be seen with a telescope half that size using O-III filter.


Stock 23 is even better. The brightest star is 7.5 magnitude and the shape of the cluster is very unique. This might also be visible with the naked eye under good conditions. Something to try later on surely.


Time for a re-sketch. NGC 281 was high up in the sky and showed quite much. On a previous night I only managed to spot a haze surrounding the 8th magnitude star in the center. It was round yet somewhat crescent-shaped. Tonight the shape was much more obvious and size larger. Without filter the nebula was only marginally visible. With O-III and UHC filters it came quite obvious. I used both to for the sketch. The faint extension to the SE was extremely difficult. It does look like a Pac-man a bit or like a comma.


The final object of then night was back in Cassiopeia - open cluster NGC 559. With the 4.7" it appears only as a round haze of unresolved stars surrounding a bright triangle of three 11th magnitude stars. I used 160x to sketch the object. According to Star Clusters book (Archinal and Hynes) the brightest star in the group is magnitude 9.0. However, there is no star of that magnitude anywhere near the cluster. Looking at a UBV colour magnitude diagram shows the cluster has few 11 magnitudes stars with the main sequence starting at 13th magnitude with about 110 members in total down to 16th magnitude.


The weather was fairly good considering the location. Background brightness was still very bad - Milky way was only visible in Cygnus and barely. Seems I have to get out of the backyard and go to somewhere darker. The next chance should be on the 19th. Until then...

9.8.2009 / Clusters in the moon

Obs. place: Koivukylä, Vantaa, Finland
Date: 9./10.8.2009
Bortle class: Class 5 (suburban sky)
NE Lim.mag: 5.3 (86% moon)
Background sky: 4-5
Seeing: 2
Transparency: -
Sky conditions: Sun never below -15°
Weather: +14.4°C, humidity ~62%, air pressure 1021 HPa, NW wind 3.9 m/s. 86% moon in Pisces.

Session length: 2.5 hours

I was prepared to do 3 sketches tonight: Collinder 463, Stock 1 and Messier 45. I took the telescope out to my backyard, left it to cool down for 20 minutes and then joined in. Humidity was not an issue (surprisingly) and the air seemed to be pretty clear of particles. The moon was high in Pisces and would obviously have a major impact on observing but I was prepared for that. I could squeeze the limiting magnitude (Perseus) to 5.3 but only barely with the naked eye and down to 12th magnitude with my 4.7". The Double cluster and M31 were both visible with the naked eye which I found somewhat surprising.

I started with Stock 1 in Vulpecula. This cluster has 17 members and are mostly B or A type stars. The cluster was easily spotted @ 20x but would be pretty much lost to the background without the following two characteristics:

1.) Half a dozen stars brighter than magnitude 9.
2.) Two spots of concentration. The trapezium-shaped box in the SE edge and Y-shaped asterism in the NW.

I chose 25mm Omni eyepiece as the best on to sketch the object on. I used 12mm Omni + 2x barlow to hunt down the "fainter" stars in the area. The description was as follows:

"Roughly 30* in a 30' area. An obvious wedge without stars in the middle. Fairly obvious. No obvious color in any of the stars."

Stock 1 with 4.7" Sky-Watcher @ 29x

I was starting my journey to locate Cr 463 when I stumbled on the Double cluster. SE from it was an obvious grouping of stars that I remembered was Trumpler 3. I was wrong. It was actually Trumpler 2 and it looked so good that I decided to stop for a moment and sketch it. The best view was with 12mm Omni (60x).

"Clearly elongated in E-W direction. Brightest member in the middle has obvious blood colored hue. Less than 20*. Size roughly 15'. No points of concentration, stands out well from the background."

Trumpler 2 with 4.7" Sky-Watcher @ 60x

When I finished I had completely forgotten about Collinder 464 and was already moving on to M34. The weather seemed to be so-so and I could squint my eyes down to maybe 12th magnitude with the 4.7" telescope. That was enough for me to sketch M34 and NGC 752 in Andromeda.

Messier 34 looked lovely as always. I especially like the several doubles in the cluster and the huge crescent of stars surrounding the cluster.

Messier 34 with 4.7" Sky-Watcher @ 60x

In order to get the most out of NGC 752, I used very low power - 23x (2° 13'). The sketch came out fairly average at best so I might have to draw it again later.

NGC 752 with 4.7" Sky-Watcher @ 23x

I swung back to Perseus, assaulted NGC 1027, Trumpler 3, Markarian 6 and Stock 23. I sketched them all but later on cropped everything else but Mrk 6. I could do so much better with those objects without the moon. What I find amazing is that both Markarian 6 and Stock 1 are not listed in MegaStar V5. SkyMap Pro shows them both though. Anyway, Mrk 6 is a small and poor cluster in the SW border of the nebula IC 1805. Despite the small number of stars and size the cluster is quite obvious. Brightest star is a variable(?) V529 Cassiopeia.

"Small chain of 12 stars mags 8-12. Both stars in the S are doubles. Two questionable stars spotted (see arrow)."

Markarian 6 with 4.7" Sky-Watcher @ 120x

The Pleiades was still behind trees and was too lazy to walk 2 meters to the other side of the house to spot it. So I went back in and washed my teeth (it was already close to 2am). 15 minutes later M45 was high enough so I went after it. The view was quite beautiful - 40mm eyepiece gave me 2° 23' field of view and Pleiades fitted into it perfectly. In the end I wasn't happy with the result of the sketch so I will have to do it again another time.

20.7.2009 / Collinder 399

Obs. place: Koivukylä, Vantaa, Finland
Date: 20./21.7.2009
Bortle class: Class 5 (Suburban sky)
NE Lim.mag: - (twilight)
Background sky: 5
Seeing: 3-4
Transparency: - (twilight)
Sky conditions: Sun -8° 45' below the horizon
Weather: +13.5°C, humidity 93%, air pressure 1002 HPa, NE wind 5.2 m/s.

As usual the season did not start with a bang but with something else. I received my new set of eye pieces and I wanted try them out. What better way to do so but to go out in bright twilight and do your worst. The best bet was to go after something that is pretty much visible no matter what - asterism Collinder 399 / Coathanger.

The sad thing is the fact that this obvious asterism is still often cataloged as an open cluster. I've always had trouble understanding why.

1) It takes roughly 2 seconds in the eye piece to figure out that it is an asterism. (Visual) CMD is obviously not that of an open cluster.

2) Proper motion data from the Hipparcos satellite (1997) shows no link in star motions.

3) Back in the 1970s(!) a study (Hall and Landingham) found out that the "cluster" had only 6 members. Hello?

And of course the cluster has no business in being in the Collinder-catalog to begin with as it only lists open clusters. So at least in my mind Collinder 399 is a clear asterism.

Having said that one could say Cr 399 is not on my top anything list but it is on Sky Atlas 2000.0 and this was a good day to start the season before the upcoming trip.

"Obvious asterism in Vulpecula. Size roughly 90' x 45'. Brightest star orange, one to the NE slightly red, rest light blue. The 40mm Celestron Omni and Deluxe 45° diagonal (99% pass) provided an excellent image". In loving memory of Kiri, my little queen of stars.

Collinder 399 with 4.7" Sky-Watcher @ 19x

See you space cowboy...

14.7.2009 / Preparation - Part 2

Getting it all together

One of the key aspects in my observing is mobility. So how to get all the gear (or at least some if it) to fit into something that can be easily transported by me driving a bicycle? This is where my 40 litre backpack comes in handy. When you consider that the length of the tripod is over 90 centimeters (35 inches) it won't fit into a regular backpack. The amount of gear to carry is not that massive and the weight is not a problem either:



I packed everything up and it did indeed all fit in. Being maybe a bit on the large-side and missing some external beauty but it gets the job done. Trust me it is all in there. Stuffed, packed, hacked, slashed and kicked:



Making the most of it

Speed is the key in astronomy - especially when you have roughly 30 good clear nights in a year so you don't want to waste a single night in thinking what to look tonight. So just as I did with my last large project I have divided all the objects in the northern hemisphere to four different categories based on difficulty and sky quality requirements as follows:

Class 1 - Bright suburban sky (limiting magnitude 5.2 - 5.8)
Class 2 - Suburban sky (limiting magnitude 5.8 - 6.4)
Class 3 - Rural sky (limiting magnitude 6.5 - 6.9)
Class 4 - Truly dark sky (limiting magnitude >7.0)

For example all galaxies are added into classes 3 or 4 and will mostly be observed under rural skies. Some brighter open clusters and asterisms are in class 1 which means they can be observed even with the moon up and/or from a more light polluted location than rest of the objects. This all will save considerable amount of time.

Here are some examples from Sky Atlas 2000.0 Chart 1:

Class 1: NGC 869 & NGC 884, Stock 2, NGC 1545, Messier 34
Class 2: NGC 957, NGC 663, NGC 129, NGC 1023, Messier 76
Class 3: Tombaugh 5, NGC 1245, NGC 2403, IC 342, IC 1805, IC 1848
Class 4: All dark nebulae, Sh2-205, IC 10, PK 158+17.1, PK 164+31.1

The fate of Hyperion

I have only once eye piece that I'm particularly proud of - the Baader 21mm Hyperion. It is of good quality has a nice leather pouch (must be Kosher too) and a sturdy box to keep it safe. The problem is the weight: whooping 410 grams! Having used it a few times on my 8" Orion DSE it completely changes the balance of the telescope. I have used it two times on my 3" Konus refractor and on both times it ended up with the entire telescope falling down. I'm not planning on trying this on my lovely 4.7" Sky-Watcher. I don't necessarily need the 21mm eye piece but compared to my whacked 8-year-old 20mm Sirius Plössl the difference is like kissing a frog instead of a real girl (no matter how funny the frog tastes).

It might be a good time to purchase new eye pieces as the old ones are mostly 8-year old Plössls. I will have to think about it and consult the only person I trust when it comes to choosing new equipment that need to be of good quality - Steve Waldee. But the fate of the Hyperion still remains.