[sac-forum] Call for Observations
- From: "AJ Crayon" <acrayon@xxxxxxx>
- To: "SAC Forum" <sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 22:33:35 -0700
Here's the next list for the two following months and is being made available
for your observing enjoinment regardless of which site you pick. Enjoy and
don't forget to submit your observations.
Call for Observations
The November selection is Cetus the Whale, which so far we haven’t done. Not
so sure why this situation exists, perhaps the lure of summer constellations?
This is where we will find mostly galaxies with almost 20 in SAC observing
lists, yet not all of the following seven selections are on one of the lists.
Starting from the western end look for magnitude 10.6 MCG -03-01-015 located at
RA 00 01.9 Dec -15 27 about 10° west of northwest from Deneb Katos (beta Ceti)
and near the border with Aquarius. It has a low surface brightness due to its
11’X4’ size. Are there any other details visible in your telescope? Second is
the SBbc galaxy NGC 157 and is found about 10° north of northwest from Deneb
Katos. Estimate its brightness, size and elongation before checking your
resources and also estimate magnitudes of the 2 stars to the north and south of
this Herschel 400 galaxy. Moving more to the north and a little east find IC
1613 an irregular galaxy that is extremely large but with a magnitude of 9.2.
Our fourth selection is from a catalog we haven’t seen in this column, it is
the galaxy New 1 and is located at RA 01 05.1 Dec -06 13. Supply some
information about this catalog designation. Its magnitude is 11.8 and size is
4.5’X3.5’. What is your description for brightness, size, elongation and other
details? Moving on to another Herschel 400 galaxy is NGC1055, nearly edge-on
with an equatorial dust lane. What design do you see amongst the galaxy and
field stars? If you haven’t figured it out by now the next is about 30’ to the
southeast. It is the Seyfert galaxy M 77! I’ll let you to your own observing
recordings for this one. The last is the SBc galaxy NGC1087 that has a Ring.
Don’t look for the ring as you probably won’t see it. It is about one degree
southeast from M 77. Be careful not to confuse with other galaxies in the
field. That’s it for this pass, there are enough goodies left for another pass
or two, or three.
After some consideration of fall constellations it turns out that Cassiopeia
has lots of bright objects, despite the fact it has been done 4 times in the
past. There’s much left there to observe so let’s get to it. First up is the
asterism named Lucky 7 and is found at R.A. 23 36.4 Dec +52 33, is 125'X70' and
includes 1 and 2 Cassiopeia which are the horizontal part of the number 7. The
open cluster Stock 12 is next and is found at R.A. 23 36.4 Dec +52 33, is 20’,
doesn’t stand out from the Milky Way very much and has a nice blue and yellow
double star on the south side. Moving towards the east and over the 24 hour
R.A line is NGC 103 an almost 10th mag galactic cluster. It is pretty small
at 5’, but has 30 stars in that small area whose magnitudes range from 11th
down to 18th. Moving a little more than one degree to the southeast is NGC
129 that should be observable in a 9X50 finder. Its 21’ has 35 stars from mag
8.6 to 13th. Moving a little more east but going southward in declination
finds our next two entries that will, perhaps, be a surprise. They are
satellite galaxies to the Andromeda Galaxy, both dwarf ellipticals. First is
mag 9.5 NGC 147. It is faint, large and has a brighter middle. The other is
located one degree to the east at mag 9.2 NGC 185. It is the larger of the
two. What other details do you see here?
AJ Crayon
Phoenix, AZ
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