NGCs in the tuned N11 (Blue Mountains)

It was a little luxurious having the NexStar already in the Tony Horvatin Observatory, ready to go. Just needed to jack in the computer. And attached my mirror and eyepiece.

Earlier, I had made an observing list. 80+ entries. With previously unviewed objects plus some of the RASC Finest NGC objects.

11:15 PM, July 12, 2013. The N11 was collimated, at last. I enjoyed looking at Saturn. Spotted Titan, Rhea, Dione. Hints of Tethys. No luck with Enceladus or Mimas.

11:21 PM. Viewed NGC 5746. It was neat, very thin, possibly mottled. [ed: photos show it to have a dark foreground dust arm or ring, not unlike the Sombrero.] It looked like an extreme edge-on galaxy. It was beside a very bright star, 109 Virginis, which I found a little distracting. I panned to get the magnitude 3.7 star out of the field. I thought the galaxy big in the baader 36mm eyepiece (at 78x).

I spotted another smaller galaxy to the south: NGC 5740. Cool.

I considered checking faint stars. To gauge the collimation. And the sky conditions. I noted a 13.3 star to the north-east of the 5746 galaxy: GSC 00326-0315.

11:44. Pushed deeper. Spotted the mag 14.1 star, GSC 00326-0715, closer to 5740. Ah ha. Good stuff. [ed: Huh. That's the deepest recording I've made a note of, at the CAO, in a Centre 'scope...]

11:53. Slewed to NGC 4157. It was at the edge of the field. Large and bright, elongated, not a perfect oval. Wait a minute. It didn't look right. The star field did not match. I scanned in the area in the SkyTools 3 Pro software...

12:53 AM, July 13, 2013. I returned from break. Had had some coffee. Had enjoyed Risa's DSO photog review. Her first through-the-telescope deep sky shots. Along with test shots of the aurora.

12:58 AM. I figured out what was wrong. Thought I had reached 4157; in fact, I had landed on NGC 4605. Ooh.

So. Where was I. NGC 4605 was large and bright... elongated... a less than perfect oval. [ed: Photos show it to be asymmetrical.]

1:10. Went a-hunting NGC 3877. Found it near bright star (χ or chi Ursae Majoris). It was a faint oval. It was near a large square C or U of stars. Neat but challenging. Fairly large.

1:16. Viewed NGC 4026. It too was faint. A bit smaller then 3877. Had a bright centre. It was not an oval shape. ST3P said it was a lenticular.

1:38. Headed to the Bubble Gum Nebula. [ed: Huh? Bubble Gum?] Took me a while to find it. Something was going on here... but there was nothing obvious. It must be very faint...

Fell asleep and bonked into the eyepiece! Twice. OK. That's a sign, I realised. Done. Very tired. No surprise, given yesterday's abuses. And it would be a big day ahead...

The Observing Pad was empty, the GBO roof closed. I bumped into Risa on my way to the house.

§

The mozzies had been annoying this evening. But the layers, while warm, had kept them at bay. There had been some clouds from the south but nothing serious. Conditions were fairly good (although I forgot to take a SQM reading). It was a short session for me but it was fun using the N11 in its newly tuned state.