Sticking, or trying to stay with summer constellations for November, let’s take another pass at Cepheus.  There’s enough there for seconds without doing any others from the past and most will be open clusters, so get your open cluster observing hat on, go out and enjoy these for now.  First is Berkeley 59, located about 45 arc-minutes from the border with Cassiopeia; can you see some of the nebulosity involved with this cluster?  NGC188 is next and has been referred to as one of the oldest known open clusters.  Let us know if it is easier to find than Berkeley 59.  The third object on our list is NGC6951.  The SAC database lists NGC6952 at the same location.  Although both are listed as mid life barred spiral galaxies their descriptions are very different.  I haven’t research why this difference.  If you do, please submit with your observations.  The remaining objects will be open clusters, starting with NGC7023 that is located in some nebulosity.  Our next is NGC7129, also located in nebulosity.  Both of these clusters are reported to be involved in some nebulosity.  Let us know if you can see any and describe its appearance.  Completing the middle objects is NGC7226 a pretty bright cluster.  The last two objects are the bright nebula NGC7538 and Markarian 50 an open cluster, that I haven’t yet observed, with a 9.8 magnitude star.

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.  If you have some time, do some research to determine why this is a non-existent object and report your results.  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?