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| AGM 2014 Latest and Past AGM Talks | Double Star Section and Circulars |
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Bulletin Board
DSO162 - Erratum It has been brought to my attention that there are a number of transcription errors in the Ron J. Morales article on the 'NGC 1550 Region in Taurus'. I have attached a corrected version of this article here. Most of these articles are scanned and the OCR software sometimes has issues with the material. I apologise for this production error. Owen Brazell. DSO Editor The Webb Deep-Sky Society Annual Meeting 2014 will take place on Saturday 21st June 2014 at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. Speakers confirmed to date include: Guy Hurst: The Evolution of Star Clusters Gain Lee: Observing & Imaging the Distant Deep Sky Nick James: Remote Observing of the Deep Sky with Practical Demonstration Mark Hurn: Sir Arthur Eddington: Man, Myth and Mystic - the life of the great astrophysicist who proved Einstein right Wil Tirion: Charting the Heavens - Uranography Yesterday and Today |
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March 2014 - Picture of the Month IC417 - Sh2-234 (The Spider) in Auriga Image Courtesy of Sara Wager, Spain
Click on image for a high resolution version Sara's Observation Notes:
Located in the constellation of Auriga IC417, or the Spider
is an emission nebula approximately 100 light years across.
It is located about 10,000 light years from Earth. It is a
hotbed of new star formation. For more images from Sara please visit the Sara Wager Astrophotography website and Flickr Astrophotography Photostream March 2014 - Double Star of the Month
24 CBe (12 35 07.76 +18 22 37.4) sits at the north edge of the great Coma cluster of galaxies about 3 degrees following M88, but it is in a poor naked-eye star field so that locating it is not straightforward. One way would be to find beta CVn (V = 4.3) and move 23 degrees south. The effort is worth it - this is a very pretty, bright and easy pair for the small telescope. The contrasting colours have been noted by many observers. Webb thought the stars yellow and very blue, Smyth found orange and emerald and Sissy Haas made them citrus orange and fainter royal blue. The pair also serves another purpose - as a scale and orientation calibrator. At present the position angle is 270 degrees and the separation 20" (actually 270.3 and 20.14 for 2015.0). Many observing guides list the pair as optical but the evidence is not very persuasive. The Hipparcos satellite gives the parallaxes as 7.24 +/- 2.74 milliarcseconds (mas) for A and 19.29 +/- 14.58 mas for B. The proper motions are small but very similar. A is a K2 giant and B is a metallic-lined A9 dwarf which is also a spectroscopic binary.
x Vel = DUN 95 (10 39 18.39 -55 36 11.8) is in a rich area of the southern Milky Way just 5 degrees north of the Eta Carina Nebula, NGC 3372. This pair was found by John Dunlop at Paramatta in 1826 and is a glorious sight in small telescope. The stars (V = 4.38 and 6.06), according to Ross Gould using a 35-cm reflector, are yellow and deep-yellow and the low power field contains two small asterisms. Andrew James, on the other hand, is an experienced Australian observer with a very extensive website devoted to double stars and especially those of Dunlop. He reports that Russell in 1873 made the colours straw-yellow and greenish blue and around 1980 members of the AS of New South Wales reported orange and pale blue. Given the spectral type of B is B8V, the reported deep yellow is rather unexpected. There has been little motion between the two components over the last two centuries. In 2000 the position angle was 105° and the separation 51".7. The primary is an early G-type supergiant which is also a semi-regular pulsating star. Hipparcos puts the primary at a distance of 840 light years. In 1834 John Herschel found a faint companion to B, V = 11.9, some 15" away in position angle 178°. The distance has widened to 20" today.
Bob Argyle - Double Star Section Director |
February 2014 - Galaxy of the Month NGC 4088 in Ursa Major Image Credit - Volker Wendel & Bernd Flach-Wilken, Spiegelteam Astrofotografie
Click on image for a high resolution version
The major galaxies M81/82 and 108,109 and 101 in Ursa Major usually get all the attention but the constellation is filled with other interesting galaxies. One of the overlooked ones is NGC 4088. Classified as an intermediate spiral galaxy it forms a physical pair with NGC 4085. NGC 4088 was first discovered by William Herschel in 1788. The same observer found NGC 4085 the following year in 1789. Described as a grand design Spiral galaxy Halton Arp included it in his Atlas of Peculiar galaxies as Arp 18 because it appears to have a detached spiral arm. Both NGC 4088 and 4085 are members of the M109 group of galaxies. This group lying about 55 million light years away contains maybe 39 galaxies including M109. It is also known as the Ursa Major North group. Unusually the group contains no major elliptical galaxies. NGC 4088 and 4085 are at the front of this group at perhaps 50 million light years. Distances however to galaxies this close are notoriously unreliable if it is based on redshift because the peculiar motion of the galaxy maybe a substantial part of the Hubble flow. Recently NGC 4088 had a supernova (2009dd). Previous to that it had one in 1991 so it is a relatively prolific supernova generator. The image here shows Sn2009dd near the core of the galaxy. Visually NGC 4088 is bright enough to be seen in quite small telescopes, certainly in the 8-10 class. Larger telescopes will show much more detail and a series of observations made with a range of telescopes can be found at the DeepSkyForum. An interesting set of drawings of NGC 4088 can be found Bertrand Laville's Extreme Deep Sky Drawings website. Another view is at the Astronomy Sketch of the Day website. NGC 4085 should be visible in 8-10 telescopes but is considerably fainter. It is also an edge on spiral. For those who like collecting lists NGC 4088 is part of the original Herschel 400. The included PDF chart shows both of these galaxies. There is a fine image showing both galaxies at Kai Wiechen's Deep Sky Astrophotography website. Owen Brazell - Galaxy Section Director Object of the Season - Winter 2013 & Spring 2014
The Webb Deep-Sky Society Nebulae & Clusters Section Director Wolfgang Steinicke has requested observations for the following deep-sky objects:- Object of the Season (Winter 2013): Bipolar reflection nebula NGC 2163 in Orion. Details will be published in DSO162 and the results will be presented in DSO 163. Click here for Object Details Object of the Season (Spring 2014): Globular cluster NGC 5466 in Bootes. Details will be published in DSO163 and the results will be presented in DSO 164. Click here for Object Details
Click on images for high resolution versions The complete schedule, including further objects, is published in the Deep Sky Observer (DSO). Observations should be sent to: steinicke-zehnle@t-online.de Wolfgang Steinicke, Gottenheimerstr. 18, D-79224 Umkirch, Germany. |
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Supernova 2014J in M82 Sketches Courtesy of Dale Holt, Hertfordshire, UK & Andrew Robertson, Norfolk, UK
Click on sketches for a higher resolution versions Dale's Observation Comments: "Hi All, here is my sketch of M82 with the glorious Supernova, such a privilege to be able to see such amazing happenings in the universe from ones own garden :) My estimate of current magnitude is Mag 11 to 11.5 using local stars as known reference. I hope that you get to see it soon too, if you haven't seen it already." Andrew's Observation Comments: My sketch from last night [25th Jan 2014] using the 12" D-K Mewlon, pleased with this one. Diagonal used, laterally inverted. Pentax 20mm E/P, 70° AFOV , x180. Not very transparent; Mag 5 Nelm , Ant III Seeing Haven't got a clue where North was (diagonal used, equatorial mount, near the pole etc)" :-) |
Supernova 2014J in M82 Image Courtesy of Dave Adshead, Doncaster, England
Click on images for a higher resolution versions
Dave's Observation Comments: "This is my effort of the supernova in M82. Taken yesterday evening at an earlier time than I normally image. So, there are some vibrations, well quite a few actually. Taken with a Takahashi FSQ106ED, QSI 583 CCD camera and an Avalon M-Uno mount. The camera was looking through a Ha 3nm filter." Dave
For more images from Dave please visit his gallery |
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Sketch of Supernova SN2014L in M99 Sketch Courtesy of Dale Holt, Hertfordshire, UK
Click on sketch for a higher resolution version Dale's Observation Comments: "At last I caught the supernova in M99, I made this sketch using the 505mm mirror and Watec 120n+ video camera on Thursday 27th Feb." Clear Skies to you, Dale" Keep up to date with Dale's observations from Chippingdale Observatory by reading his Blog |
NGC 2264 and the Cone Nebula in Monoceros Image Courtesy of Dave Adshead, Doncaster, England
Click on image for a high resolution version Dave's Observation Comments: This is the first light image obtained on the 22nd December, 2013, for my new mount an Avalon M-Uno equatorial which has replaced the Skywatcher EQ6 Pro. The imaging scope and camera was the usual Tak FSQ-106ED with the QSI 583 CCD looking through a 3 nm Ha filter. The object is NGC2264 an open star cluster and the Cone nebula in Monoceros." Clear skies, best wishes and a Happy New Year. Dave Adshead
For more images from Dave please visit his gallery Clear Skies Observing Guides (CSOG) Courtesy of Victor van Wulfen
Webb Deep-Sky Society member Victor van Wulfen produces the CSOG. Samples of these guides can be found here. There are four versions or formats of this guide True and mirrored images MH, MV and MHV to best match the view in different mirroring telescopes. "The advantage of this publication is that with a suitably dimmed laptop or tablet/iPad you have at your finger tips an excellent resource" - Owen Brazell, UK review in The Deep-Sky Observer (DSO 160, Quarterly Journal of the Webb Deep Sky Society) For more details please visit Clear Skies Observing Guides website |
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Current Deep-Sky Observer - DSO162
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Deep-Sky Observer (DSO) No 153 - Free Sample
This free journal is DSO 153 from 2010. You can download it as a PDF file onto your computer by right clicking the link below and choosing either 'Save Target As' or 'Save Link As'.... |
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BAA Deep Sky Section Annual Meeting - Saturday 15th March 2014 Venue: The Deco, Abington Square, Northampton, NN1 4AE Speakers: Dale Holt - "Using a deep sky video camera to observe the Hickson Compact Galaxy groups" Stewart Moore - "Great Balls of Fire - The Glory of Globulars" Grant Privett - "Digging in the Dirt: Adventures with image noise" Ian Sharp - Remote imaging the deep sky Prof. Albert Zijlstra (Uni. of Manchester) - Latest developments in planetary nebulae research Price: £10 to BAA members and members of BAA affiliated societies £15 to non-members. All welcome. Includes tea and coffee refreshments, buffet lunch. Entrance payable at the door, no advance booking. Traders: Astronomia, BAA Sales. More details and programme can be found here Callum Potter, Director, Deep Sky Section British Astronomical Association |
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The Brightest Planetary Nebulae Observing Atlas - 2nd Edition Courtesy of Massimo Zecchin - Italy Massimo has just completed the 2nd Edition of an atlas of planetary nebulae observed with small apertures and from suburban locations, entitled: "The Brightest Planetary Nebulae Observing Atlas". The atlas is freely available in two versions, Black (for display) and White (printer friendly with the images in negative).
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.jpg "SN2014L in M99 - Sketch Courtesy of Dale Holt")
