Astronomy · Obs Report · 24th August 2007

« PreviousNext »

Location:

Northallerton (North Yorkshire, UK)

From:

2007-08-24 23:15 UT

To:

2007-08-25 00:50 UT

Equipment:

Naked Eye Sky-Watcher Explorer 200EQ

Notes:

Unlike the previous night tonight was typical of a summers evening. Although the Milky Way was visible overhead, there was clearly more moisture in the atmosphere and the amount of apparent stars was diminished. This was reflected in the views through the telescope with the sky appearing much darker. Conditions were therefore slightly muggy with dew causing a problem after midnight. The Moon was a waxing gibbous very low in the sky which I was able to observe for a few minutes before it disappeared behind a tree.

Supernova in NGC 1058

After checking the position in Cartes de Ciel I made a serious attempt to track down this (relatively) bright supernova which is currently estimated to be between 12th and 13th magnitude. It is located in the galaxy NGC 1058 which is located on the border between Perseus and Triangulum in a sparsely populated area of the sky. It didn't take too long to follow my star hop down to the approximate location of the galaxy but there was nothing obviously present in the FOV. I spent a good 20-30 minutes looking in the vicinity but did not spot the galaxy for definite. After some time I was somewhat convinced I had something but no amount of looking at it would bring out any more details.

NGC 1003

I decided to investigate the quality of the seeing by tracking down this magnitude 11.5 spiral galaxy close to the position of NGC 1058. NGC 1003 turned out to be a dim but distinguishable patch of light close to the bright star 12 Persii.

M34 - Open Cluster

Globular Clusters in Ophiuchus

As with the previous night I again attempted to locate M10, M12 and M14 in Ophiuchus but again I was let down by poor conditions in the south-east where moisture was interfering with the quality of seeing.

Double Cluster

I finished off the night with a quick look at this stunning sight. The two clusters easily filled the FOV provided by my 25mm eyepiece and were very dense and populated with many stars filling the area around them as well.