Observing Session: 31, October01/11/2015
Astronomy

This evening was the first real test of my new SkyTee mount. Fitted with the turret, most of the star hopping done was made through the 14mm Delos – each hop being no more than a few FOV diameters from one object to the next.

I also had another bash and trying to draw what I observe through the eyepiece,  using the iPad and a stylus.  The purpose is not to produce a work of art here, but more of an aide memoir of the rough positioning and number of stars in the FOV, which will help me when I write up my observations a few days later. Of the three drawings, the last one for NGC7039 is the least helpful and barely matches the chart. It’s clear that I need more practice 🙂

Session Stats

  • Date: 31/10/2015 
  • Time: 45:45 – 01:00 UT
    Seeing: II Mostly Stable, 
  • Transparency: V Poor,  
  • Temp:11.7c, 
  • Pressure: 1018mb, 
  • Humidity: 97%, 
  • Dew Point: 11.2 , 
  • Wind: 5.0mph, 
  • SQM: – 
  • NELM: –

NGC6997

In the Altair 150mm f/9 RC, 14mm Delos, 98 X, 44.2′, West is to the 5 O’clock.

With three bright 5.6 to 6.8 mag stars at the edge of the FOC, the cluster sits to the NW from the centre. The cluster occupies about 13 arc/mins and contains about 16 stars of 10.0 to 11.0 mag. Stare at it long enough and I see the number ‘2’ aligned NW/SE. The iPad drawing is not quite as accurate as the one for CR428 and completely omits the 7.0 mag star to the East!!!

Collinder 428

In the Altair 150mm f/9 RC, 14mm Delos, 98 X, 44.2′, West is to the 7 O’Clock.
This was a little tricky in these conditions, but at the Western edge of the 10 arc/min cluster is a 7.3 mag star. From this there are eight 10.6 to 11.7 mag stars running two abreast to the East all the way to the edge of the FOV. The iPad drawing of the star field matches the chart pretty accurately.

NGC7039

In the Altair 150mm f/9 RC, 14mm Delos, 98 X, 44.2′, West is to the 7 O’clock.

The cluster sits between four stars, two of each being 7.0 and 8.0 mag. I could only make out about 5 stars within the 14 arc/min circle, but my eye was drawn to the other bright stars in the 45 arc/min fov, of which I counted about 14. These range from between 7.0 and 10.0 mag and run in an E/W alignment. The really weird thing is the FOV I have with this scope /eyepeice combo almost matches that of the Big scope with the 40mm and I didn’t recognise any of it, despite having viewed this cluster a month before 🙁
The iPad sketch is what I saw, but there are so very many elements that don’t match the chart, that I’m not really sure if this observation is actually the object in question 🙂 I need to revisit this again to confirm.