Cats Eye, Central Star in Ring, and Distant Quasar

Observing Report June 13, 2013

15" Obsession
Paracorr
 14mm ES100 140X .72degree=43'
   9mm ES100 217X .46degree=27'
4.7mm ES82  416X .2deg=12'

11pm-1am Back Yard-80degrees no shirt patio fan on
Laptop Stellarium

Targets:
10pm Saturn Moons (4) - Rhea Dione Titan Tethys
Comet Panstarrs - Fading as it exits Solar System

Targets:
Sue French - Sky and Telescope July 2013 article Deep Sky Wonders "Assorted Delights in Draco and Ursa Minor"

• Object         Type                           Mag(v) Size/Sep RA Dec.
• NGC 6543  Planetary nebula         8.1    22″ × 19″ 17h 58.6m +66° 38′
• IC 4677       Part of planetary halo 15     44″ × 23″ 17h 58.3m +66° 38′
• η Dra           Double star                 2.8,   8.2 4.8″    16h 24.0m +61° 31′
• 20 Dra         Double star                 7.1,   7.3 1.2″    16h 56.4m +65° 02′
• Q1634+706 Quasar                        14.4       —        16h 34.5m +70° 32′
• NGC 6217   Galaxy                        11.2 3.0′ × 2.5′ 16h 32.7m +78° 12′

NGC 6543, Caldwell 6, Cat's Eye Nebula -  very bright  , halo and galaxy nearby not seen
eta Dra - 9mm barely showed double, 20 Dra 9mm double not seen
NGC6217 galaxy not very bright
NGC 5985/82/81 easily seen after Joe's outdoor lights went off.
NGC 6503 very bright

Zeta UMi was not easily naked eye visible.  At first it was level in altitude with Comet.

Tried for Quasar with 9mm, could barely see 15 Dra in TelRad.
Could not locate Quasar star field with 9mm.  Switched to 14mm, used Stellarium, found Quasar star field, verified Quasar 1634+706 z=1.334 with Stellarium and memory from June 8!

Used 14mm on NGC 6503 - mag 10.

Looked at two doubles eta and 20 Dra.  Neither seemed split.  Decided to try 4.7mm ES82 eyepiece even though seeing and transparency did not seem that good.  Readjusted TelRad and finder.

With 4.7mm at 416X, easily split eta Dra 2.8-8.2 4.8" double and 20Dra 1.2" 7.1-7.3 doubles.

Decided to look at Antares.  Companion not positively identified.  Could see multiple diffraction rings on defocusing with scintillation.  Seeing was much better and 4.7mm 416X worked very well.

Decided to go for M57, Ring Nebula.  WOW!! was very large and Central Star was visible most of the time.  I think this is the first time I have seen the central star in backyard.  Why did I not use higher mag before??

Went to M13.  Was almost at zenith.  WOW!!  Stars were resolved, was very beautiful.  Found propeller.  Looked in Stellarium to see position of NGC 6207.  It is about 1/2degree towards eta Her (nearest star of keystone) and center of keystone  Galaxy core was very bright and compact, galaxy was large compared with normal view at lower magnification.

Far Out !!!

June 8, 2013

Back Yard Astronomy Viewing Session

I saw the Quasar PG 1634+706 !

This quasar has a z=1.334 and a light travel time of 8.8 billion years.

It currently is traveling away from us at or above the speed of light, using the Hubble constant H0.

Here is a chart from Aladin:

 

It is the most distant object I am likely to ever see.  I used my 15" Obsession telescope and it was not visible in a 28mm eyepiece.  I found it using a 9mm ES100 eyepiece.  It was clearly visible with direct vision in the 9mm.  I used Stellarium to find the object.  It has a visual magnitude of 14.4 or less.

Using Ned Wright's Cosmological Calculator I find:

For H_o = 71, Omega_M = 0.270, Omega_vac = 0.730, z = 1.334

• It is now 13.665 Gyr since the Big Bang.
• The age at redshift z was 4.790 Gyr.
• The light travel time was 8.876 Gyr.
• The comoving radial distance, which goes into Hubble's law, is 4074.6 Mpc or 13.290 Gly.

 It was a wonderful night of stargazing.  The temperature was about 75-80 degrees.  The sky was about Magnitude 4.5.  It was not easy at first to see all the stars of Ursa Minor.

The first object I observed was the comet C/2011 L4 Panstarrs.  This is the comet I took a photo of on 3/12.  It has moved far away and is leaving the solar system.  It is now very dim, dimmer than the Dumbbell nebula.

Next, I tackled the Quasar.  I wanted to positively identify this object.  It took several minutes to find.  I was able to identify the star field and all the nearby stars.  I drew a crude diagram of the field:

It is not quite to scale as I was in the dark! but this is the quasar, the star next to it is quite a bit brighter.  I had to increase the magnification to 217X to be able to view the quasar with the 9mm eyepiece.  The 28mm at 70X did not show it.

The sky was not that great, there were no stars visible in the Big Dipper bowl nor the Hercules keystone.  The stars of the Little Dipper were visible.  Also, Andromeda was naked eye later on.

I went on to view many more objects, some dim galaxies were visible near the quasar in the area of NGC 6236, 6232, 6248.  These were very dim with averted vision,  I did not take the time to positively identify them.

I wanted to find NGC 5907, the splinter galaxy.  First I found 5866 aka M102, then 5907, the splinter was very narrow and I switched to the 28mm to get a larger view of 1 degree.  The 9mm gives 1/2 degree.  I also found NGC 5985/82 a double galaxy.

Then I used Mizar to better calibrate the Telrad and finder.

I viewed M57, the ring galaxy and saw several stars near the ring, but could not see the central star.

Then on to M13 and 6207, the Great Hercules Globular cluster and nearby galaxy.  I saw the propeller in M13, although it was not very prominent.

I saw M71 glob in Sagitta, M27 the Dumbbell.

Then I moved over to M8 lagoon, M17 swan, M20 trifid, M16 eagle.  I used a Lumicon OIII filter for these.

I cruised around the M24 Sagittarius star cloud, saw the V and deep red star as well as some dark nebula nearby.  M24 was very beautiful.

I went to the Veil saw all three parts 6960, 6995, and 6992.  I check out the North American NGC 7000 and saw nebulosity, but could not see the continent clearly, probably should have used the 40mm.  This session I only used the 28 and 9mm.

I wanted to see the Blinking Planetary, NGC 6826, it would not quite disappear with direct vision.

I checked Stellarium and noticed that Cepheus was nearby.  So I went over to NGC 6946, the fireworks galaxy and 6939, the nearby cluster.

I checked out M31, M32, and M110.

Then I went to Pegasus to see NGC 7331, it was very bright.  I tried for Stephan's Quintet 7317-20.  It was difficult to find, so I more carefully used Stellarium and checked the star field to make sure I went to the correct spot.  Then with averted vision I was able to make out several galaxies, they were not easy to count, I saw three or four of the group.   This is the first time I remember seeing Stephan's Quintet from my home.

With this I finally gave it up as I thought it must be getting late.  I checked the clock and it was like 3:30.  A very good night!

New Moon Venus and Mercury

On June 10, 2013 Jan and I drove to the top of the ridge and there was a rattlesnake in the road, a few thousand ants in a hill and this beautiful view of two planets and our moon.