New southern Observing guide

[Tony B]

Amazon delivered my copy of Stephen Omeara's latest book " Southern Gems " today. Northern observers - read this book at your peril. It could make for the summer of your discontent. All this stuff is in my neck of the woods and I observed much of it at the South Pacific Star Party last weekend, but scanning through the book has me impatient for next new moon to come. Like I had not known that the central star in Planetary NGC 3918 was visible in big scopes with high power and good seeing. This book needs careful reading rather than scanning so I had better get back to it.

[Clear Skies]

It is a pretty one! Observed it in 2008 from South Africa using a modest 5" Mak, rated it 7/10. The color was obvious and appeared turqoise to me. The central star obviously remained out of sight.

NGC3918.jpg

[Tony B]

Victor - Hartung's observing guide had said that no central star was visible so I never looked hard. He was a skilled observer but used a 12.5 inch newtonian. O'Meara's book suggests you need a large scope and high magnification to lower the surface brightness of the nebula, so I will use a 25 inch or 30 inch next time I try. If you ever want to try the southern hemisphere again check out the Ozsky web site and get to use very large scopes for a week.

[Tony B]

Victor - Hartung's observing guide had said that no central star was visible so I never looked hard. He was a skilled observer but used a 12.5 inch newtonian. O'Meara's book suggests you need a large scope and high magnification to lower the surface brightness of the nebula, so I will use a 25 inch or 30 inch next time I try. If you ever want to try the southern hemisphere again check out the Ozsky web site and get to use very large scopes for a week.

[Marko]

No central star for me either in 12" for 3918

NGC 3918 Type: Plan Position: 11 50 18.1 -57 10 58 Con: Cen
Date: 03/17/10 Time: 00:10 Site: Arkaroola
Scope: 12DobF5 Eyepiece: 7mmNag Power: 220
NELM: 6.7 SQM: 21.70 Seeing: 5 Transparency: 4
Description: 'BluePlanetary: NoFilter 30 asec dia Solid disk. Slightly
fuzzy disk edges. No central star seen. Not seeing central star.
Orange star nearby that is certainly orange. This did look
blue compared to slightly yellow stars but not in a very obvious
way, only subtle. '

[Tony B]

Mark - O'Meara's book suggested a large scope and high power to dim the surface brightness of the planetary which otherwise overpowered the central star - but did not specify how big a scope or how much magnification, so next time I will use the biggest scope I can get at, 25 or 30, and as much magnification as the seeing will allow. Similar with splitting Beta Centauri which I have not managed yet. Hope we get you roaming the southern deep skies some time. We have had San Francisco amateur Bob Douglas observe with us on four trips.

[Marko]

I had for my usage in Australia a 12" with a very nice mirror (BinTel I think it was but it when collimated nicely was very nice). I also had use of a 14" but it was awkward to use on a fork mount and I had a huge number of targets so I went for the 12".
I have had a few views through Bob Douglas's 28" here in California star parties. Bob is a great guy and very willing to share views. (I am fairly certain I am thinking of Bob Douglas, I'm not so good with names)

[Tony B]

Mark - certainly the same Bob Douglas from Mill Valley. He has a 28 inch Starmaster that clinches his identity. Talk to him about observing in Australia as he has observed with us on a number of occaisions and went to the 2002 solar eclipse with me. Also joined us at the november 2012 solar eclipse near Cairns and got lucky with the weather.

[Marko]

Bob and I had discussed his trips to Australia. At CalStar here in central CA last year I was surrounded by Bob with his 28" StarStructure and Steve Gottlieb with his new 24" StarStructure then Allan ? with his 24" or so StarStructure. and another 24" StarStructure on one of the nights from another friend. A slight feeling of 'inadequacy' even with my 18" StarMaster. LOL

[Tony B]

Steve Gottlieb has also observed with us,I think with the 30 inch last time, and was with us at the november eclipse. He and Bob can tell you all you need to know about using big scopes in the southern sky. At least you don't need to bring a scope next time.

[FaithJ]

Steve Gottlieb has also observed with us,I think with the 30 inch last time, and was with us at the november eclipse. He and Bob can tell you all you need to know about using big scopes in the southern sky. At least you don't need to bring a scope next time.

I downloaded and saved Steve's Southern notes which are on the OzSky website. They're good for drawing up observing lists - and I have got some lists already for next year! I think I'll probably run out of time before I run out of objects, but then I won't need an excuse for yet another observing trip Down Under...

[FaintFuzzies]

Victor,

I noticed from your excerpt from your guide - you listed it as VV 109 as well. VV 109 is actually a triple galaxy in Bootes.

14 46 03 +08 30 11

[Clear Skies]

Hi Alvin,

Boris Vorontsov-Vel'yaminov worked on planetary nebulae as well. Hence the VV planetary nebula classification, also listed in my observing guides. In fact, there are two Vorontsov PN catalogues: VV (1934 - Catalogue of planetary nebulae with a statistical discussion of the subject) and VV' (1962).
When I was adding object synonyms to my observing guides, checking all non-galaxy DSO's on SIMBAD and placing the names and synonyms in historical order, I added only the VV' designations to the planetary nebulea, not the VV. This after posting on the Deep Sky Hunters Yahoo Group to verify I was on the right track, message #4888 up to #4903. VV' appears to be an updated edition of VV.

The same applies to Abell designations of PN's, A55 and A66 (A61 is galaxy clusters).

[FaintFuzzies]

Thanks for the clarification. I am aware that VV worked on PNes as well as I mentioned that in both of my VV guides (one is not out yet). It is confusing at the same time. In regards to the Abells, I list PNe's as Abell xx and galaxy groups as AGC yyyy.

[Ivan Maly]

I have received my copy of this new O'Meara's book and naturally wished I had it with me on my last trip to Oz. All the same it is fun to read about objects I remember seeing. Still haven't gone through it systematically to find out if there are any in it that I have not seen. It seems to be a merger of sorts of the Dunlop 100 and Caldwell lists, like my observing program on the last trip. In the introduction O'Meara seems to hint that he may write a volume on the Magellanic Clouds, that would be fun too.

http://ivm-deep-sky.blogspot.com/p/s...n-objects.html

[Clear Skies]

CSOG contains the objects of the Magellanic Clouds, plenty of small and exotic stuff there! No less than 1387 open clusters (some probably asterisms) in Dorado are listed in the guides. Most are extremely faint and will require very large aperture to observe. Still, plenty to see using smaller scopes, hundreds of objects. It so much that compiling just the guides for Dorado & Mensa took me a complete year.

[Marko]

A few southern objects have the greatest of names ... 'The Dark DooDad' comes to mind. Musca for being so very dim contains 3 wonderful objects which include this oddly named dark nebula as well as two very nice globular clusters. Musca itself also a fun name (The Fly). Ngc4372 which lies next to the Dark DooDad was such a wonderful globular with it's very low concentration and it was for me a lesser famed treat of the southern skies. And of course the little guy he-self, the homunculus nebula is another wonderful name (and object of 'top shelf' quality). Wonderful names.