[sac-forum] Last Call for Call for Observations

The western part of Pegasus is our area of interest for December.  There wasn’t time to include this in last month’s column so we will only have one month for observations.  Making it more difficult will be holidays so let’s not tarry around and get out before they are upon us.  Our first object, NGC7042, is found in the extreme south west part of the constellation about 3.5° north of delta and gamma Equulei and is a rather faint 12.8 magnitude.  If you have a larger telescope look for its companion NGC7043 a scant 5.5’ to the northeast at a magnitude of 14.7.  Our next object is about 4° to the east of southeast and is Messier 15, a grand globular cluster, which needs little or no introduction.  A long sought after planetary nebula, located within the confines is Pease 1.  If you have time and want extra credit see if you can observe this challenge.  To do so I suggest getting a finder chart.  One that I have used can be found on Doug Snyder’s site at http://www.blackskies.org/peasefc.htm.  It will also help if you have an OIII filter.  Moving on we next get to 12.4 mag NGC7137, a bared galaxy located just under 1° southeast from 5^th magnitude 12 Pegasi. Next up is NGC7177 another barred at an 11.2 magnitude.  It is located 2.5° east of northeast from 5^th magnitude 13 Pegasi.  One type of object we haven’t investigated is a non-existent entry and such is NGC7210 located at RA 22 06.4 Dec +27 07 or about 30’ northeast from 6^th magnitude SAO90241.  There is a grouping of stars making a nice right triangle and is just to the northwest.  Take some time, do some research to determine why this is a non-existent object and report your results to us.  NGC7217 is next; at magnitude 10.1 located almost 2° south and slightly west of pi Pegasi.  It is a mid-life spiral that should display some nice detail – look for it!  Located 2.5° west of northwest of Matar is NGC7303 with rather asymmetrical spiral arms.  Can you detect them?

I’m going to go out on a limb for January and pick Aries.  There isn’t a Messier object in here, only a number of pretty bright to faint galaxies.  Never the less, let’s give it a try and take on the challenge.  We’ll start with NGC691 located about 30’ south and about 10’ east of 6^th magnitude 1 Arietis. This 11^th magnitude galaxy is located in the same field as our next selection, NGC678, a quite elongated 12^th magnitude galaxy.  This field also contains four more galaxies down to about 14^th magnitude in a 1° field – have fun with this one!  Next is NGC677 and is 3° northeast of pi Piscium.  One and a half degrees east of southeast from gamma Arietis you’ll find a Herschel 400 object, spiral galaxy NGC772 at a bright 10^th magnitude; but see if you can ferret out NGC770, a 14^th magnitude spiral galaxy at 4’ south preceding.  Next is NGC821 another pretty bright galaxy, at almost 11^th magnitude.  Finally, we come to NGC972 that should have some detail to be seen.  Take a look at these nice galaxies and report your findings to us.