Observations of Deep-Sky Objects

These are the observations made by amateur astronomers from around the globe. I'm keen to present the work of an observer (members or not) to further the aims of the Webb Deep-Sky Society. Images, sketches or even your observing notes are of interest.

If you have any observations of your own that you'd like to submit I'd be delighted to hear from you. Please try to include as much detail about the object (after all that's why we observe them) as possible. Time, date, location and observing conditions are useful.

We have observations of these Objects

14 Aur 16 Dra 17 Dra 20 Gem 39 Dra 47 Tau AC1 ACO2197 ARN31 Abell 10 Abell 12 Abell 84 Arp 116 Arp 123 Arp 166 Arp 19 Arp 245 Arp 290 Arp 31 Arp 35 Arp 78 Arp143 Arp180 Arp186 Arp43 Arp49 BU63 Hickson 16 IC1364 IC1367 IC1534 IC1535 IC1536 IC1730 IC2458 IC405 IC410 IC418 IC458 IC459 IC460 IC461 IC464 IC465 IC504 IC505 IC506 LAU4 LGG117 M101 M102 M11 M12 M15 M20 M33 M35 M41 M42 M44 M46 M50 M53 M56 M57 M58 M59 M60 M63 M67 M73 M74 M76 M91 M92 M95 M96 MCG+3-30-35 NGC1057 NGC1060 NGC1061 NGC1066 NGC1067 NGC125 NGC126 NGC127 NGC128 NGC130 NGC145 NGC1499 NGC1501 NGC1502 NGC1555 NGC1843 NGC188 NGC1924 NGC1964 NGC2022 NGC2237 NGC2275 NGC2283 NGC2288 NGC2289 NGC2290 NGC2291 NGC2292 NGC2293 NGC2294 NGC2340 NGC2371 NGC2372 NGC2389 NGC2419 NGC2486 NGC2487 NGC2562 NGC2563 NGC2683 NGC2749 NGC2805 NGC281 NGC2814 NGC2820 NGC2854 NGC2856 NGC2857 NGC2903 NGC2964 NGC2967 NGC2968 NGC2970 NGC2992 NGC2993 NGC3018 NGC3023 NGC3344 NGC3454 NGC3455 NGC3473 NGC3474 NGC3482 NGC3501 NGC3507 NGC3628 NGC3636 NGC3637 NGC3790 NGC3801 NGC3802 NGC3803 NGC3806 NGC3837 NGC3840 NGC3841 NGC3844 NGC3845 NGC3851 NGC3865 NGC3866 NGC4109 NGC4111 NGC4114 NGC4117 NGC4118 NGC4314 NGC4410A NGC4411A NGC4449 NGC4567 NGC4568 NGC457 NGC4621 NGC4631 NGC4649 NGC4725 NGC4762 NGC48 NGC49 NGC5053 NGC51 NGC52 NGC5222 NGC5746 NGC5777 NGC5857 NGC5859 NGC5866 NGC5965 NGC6058 NGC6548 NGC6549 NGC6702 NGC6703 NGC6745 NGC6764 NGC678 NGC680 NGC6901 NGC6906 NGC6928 NGC6934 NGC6956 NGC6959 NGC6961 NGC6962 NGC6964 NGC6965 NGC6967 NGC7006 NGC7010 NGC7046 NGC7241 NGC7264 NGC7265 NGC7331 NGC736 NGC738 NGC740 NGC741 NGC742 NGC7431 NGC7433 NGC7435 NGC7436 NGC7448 NGC751 NGC7537 NGC7541 NGC7549 NGC759 NGC761 NGC7635 NGC7724 NGC7727 NGC7768 NGC7778 NGC7779 NGC7781 NGC7782 NGC7789 NGC794 NGC833 NGC876 NGC877 NGC90 NGC93 NGC969 NGC970 NGC978 PGC213372 PGC214715 PGC23406 PGC23493 PGC23509 PGC23510 PK 193-9.1 PK 197-14.1 S502 S503 SN2014bc SN2014j SN2014l SN2016coj STF163 STF2525 STF2690 STF2816 STF2840 STF3050 STF485 STF644 STT147 STT461 UGC 3697 UGC 3714 UGC11320 UGC11435 UGC11964 UGC12914 UGC12915 UGC6697 UGC7089 VV219 iota Cas iota Leo omi Cap pi Ari rho Cap

Which fall into these classes

HII-region Herbig–Haro object asterism cluster double double star emission nebula flat galaxies galaxy globular globular cluster nebula open cluster planetary nebula supernova variable nebula variable star

And these Constellations

Andromeda Aquarius Aquila Aries Auriga Bootes Camelopardalis Cancer Canes Venatici Canis Major Capricornus Cassiopeia Cepheus Cetus Coma Berenices Crater Cygnus Delphinus Draco Equuleus Eridanus Gemini Hercules Hydra Lacerta Leo Leo Minor Lepus Lynx Lyra Monoceros Ophiuchus Orion Pegasus Perseus Pisces Puppis Sagittarius Scutum Sextans Taurus Triangulum Ursa Major Usra Major Virgo Vulpecula

Or if you'd just like to browse through our most recent observations

• NGC 6058 in Hercules

  Sadly no new observations from me of late as my telescope software has malfunctioned and I can't find a remedy!

  However I do have a sketch that matches up with one of this months challenges 😀 It's NGC 6058 in Hercules observed with 14" Newtonian in June 2008, and sketched using a Watec video camera.

  

  Dale Holt - (19 May 2021).

• The Siamese Twins NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 in Virgo

  At the beginning of May 2018, I spent several evenings gathering data on the Siamese Twins, NGC 4567 and NGC 4568. Realising how faint the objects were, I opted for 10-minute exposures which, unfortunately, challenged the tracking performance of my, then EQ6 mount, and virtually guaranteed that I had a satellite trail on every sub. After calibrating the data, I decided not to process them since I considered that they just weren't good enough. I then ran out of dark skies and forgot about this unfinished project.

  I was reminded of the Twins by Callum Potter's recent BAA Deep Sky Notes and went back to revisit the data that I gathered in 2018. By applying some new image processing techniques, I've been able to use the data I gathered, complete with satellite trails, though I confess they have challenged my cloning skills.

  NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 (nicknamed the Butterfly Galaxies or Siamese Twins are a set of unbarred spiral galaxies about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. They were both discovered by William Herschel in 1784. They are part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. These galaxies are in the process of colliding and merging with each other, as studies of their distributions of neutral and molecular hydrogen show, with the highest star-formation activity in the part where they overlap. However, the system is still in an early phase of interaction. (Wikipedia)

  

  Data gathered between 7th and 18th May 2018. 20 x 10-minutes Luminance, 10 X 10-minutes each RGB.

  This is a crop from the original image, which presents the Twins better but at the expense of losing NGC 4564 from the top of the image. The galaxy at the bottom of the image is an edge-on spiral galaxy IC 3578 at magnitude 15. Between it and NGC 4568 is the very faint (magnitude 18.2) PGC042075. There are many other faint galaxies in this image.

  Image Details

  • Telescope: 8" Ritchey-Chretien.
  • Camera: QSI 583 with a Lodestar off-axis guide camera.
  • Mount: Skywatcher EQ6.

  Image data were captured on the evenings of 17th to 27th February 2020. The data comprise 24 x 5-minutes luminance and 6 x 10-minutes each of RGB.

  David Davies - (4 May 2021).

• Observation of NGC 3636 and NGC3637 in Crater

  A call of nature and a clear sky coincided at 01.30 BST this morning. Result the observatory was opened and I went straight for NGC 3636 and NGC 3637 in Crater. These galaxies Owen has picked as his Galaxies of the Month for April, they form a visual trio with 7th mag star HD98591.

  They were low in the southern sky where viewing conditions are at their worse for me. I wasn't even sure that the scope and Watec camera would even get onto them but as I star hopped ever closer I was rewarded with an image on the monitor. Not a spectacular scene but one that I appreciated was not so easy.

  

  Not knowing when I was going to lose the view I waited for decent 15 second steady exposure image and hit the freeze button. The sketch didn't take long, 10-15 minutes perhaps but by the time I had it completed and released the freeze button the sky was completely clouded over!

  So to bed, lucky and pleased.

  Dale Holt - (04 April 2021).

• NGC 2419 in Lynx

  The generally cloudy weather of recent weeks gave few possibilities for imaging, so on the odd cloudless evening, I will tackle a subject that I can capture in a single evening. The enclosed image is of NGC 2419, The Intergalactic Wanderer, a globular cluster that has proved to be something of an enigma to understand.

  

  NGC 2419 was discovered by William Herschel on December 31, 1788. It differs from most other globular clusters in that it is so distant from the centre of the galaxy that it was thought to be not in orbit about the galaxy and thus earned the nickname 'The Intergalactic Wanderer'. Studies of it now reveal that its orbit takes it out beyond the Magellanic Clouds and it takes three billion years to make one trip around the galaxy. It is at a distance of about 300,000 light-years from the solar system and at the same distance from the galactic centre. It presents a dim disc 4.5' across and has a magnitude of around 10. The brightest foreground stars in this image are around magnitude 8 but the brightest individual stars in the cluster itself are around magnitude 15.

  Image Details

  The data comprise 15 x five-minute sub-frames of RGB captured on the evening of 5th February 2021.

  • Telescope: 200mm Ritchey-Chretien at 1660mm focal length.
  • Camera: QSI 683 with Astrodon filters and a Lodestar as an off-axis guide camera.
  • Mount: Skywatcher EQ8.

  David Davies - (18 March 2021).

• Galaxy Group ACO 2197 in Hercules

  I managed to get the following image of ACO 2197 after reading Owen's very interesting Galaxy of the Month for May 2018.

  

  ACO 2197 is a hidden galaxy cluster in the constellation of Hercules. There are so many eliptical, spiral, and irregular galaxies but the brightest three are NGC 6160, NGC 6173 and NGC 6175 and were all discovered by William Herschel in 1787. These galaxies also have very interesting dust halos which were the most challenging thing to process, however, I'm more than pleased with the result.

  Image Details

  • Telescope: C ED 80.
  • Camera: QHY 183 Mono Cool, QHY 5 guide.
  • Mount: Skywatcher Heq5 PRO.

  The image is composed of 120s sub-exposures with a total integration time of 11 hours.

  Vasileios Spanakis-Misirlis - (29 March 2021).

• A well known morsel from Leo

  A very brief opportunity on the evening of March 19th allowed me just enough time to sketch the thin one of the Leo triplet, NGC 3628.

  The skies have probably been the poorest and for the longest in my 22 years of observing! If I had picked either of the Messier members I would have run out of clear sky trying to capture their complexity and magnificence, so I guess I got lucky with my choice!

  

  This galaxy filled my field of view and although I have sketched it a number of times before I think this is probably my best rendition! I hope I can get back to my usual much more elusive and distant prey very soon.

  Dale Holt - (21 March 2021).

• The Tadpole Nebula (IC410) in Auriga

  Observing in the UK has been hampered by very poor weather for weeks. But, through January and February, I eventually managed to collect sufficient data on IC 410, The Tadpole Nebula. IC 410 is often depicted using narrowband data but I wanted to see what I could achieve in 'natural' RGB light.

  Around 12,000 light-years away, in the constellation of Auriga, drifting clouds of gases are condensing into clusters of new stars. The hot young stars in these clusters ionise the gases, making them glow, and sculpt fascinating shapes by their energetic radiation.

  One such star cluster, designated NGC 1893, formed around 4 million years ago and sits at the heart of such an emission nebula, IC 410, which is around 100 light-years across. In the image below, at the upper-left of the centre, two strange tadpole-shaped structures show where the radiation from new stars is causing the surrounding gas to glow, forming bright ridges of gas, the heads, while cooler gas streams away forming familiar tail-like shapes and giving rise to the nebula's nickname.

  The star cluster, NGC 1893, was discovered in 1827 by John Herschel, but the surrounding nebula IC 410 was not detected until 1892, by the German astronomer and astrophotographer Max Wolf. Foreground dust and gas reduce the clarity of the nebula, something which I became aware of during the processing of the image.

  

  Image Details

  • Telescope: 200mm Ritchey-Chretien with a 0.7x reducer.
  • Camera: QSI 683 plus a Lodestar off-axis guide camera.
  • Mount: Skywatcher EQ8.

  The image is an HaLRGB composition. It comprises 30 x five-minutes of luminance and 15 x five-minutes of each RGB. I also collected 10 x 20-minutes of hydrogen-alpha data and applied a small fraction of it as an additional luminance layer to help bring out the subtle structures in the nebula. Image acquisition with NINA; image processing with Deep Sky Stacker, Pixinsight and Photoshop.

  David Davies - (25 February 2021).

• Observations from Orion… at last

  Last night I had my planetary head on mainly because Mike Wood had shown me his stacked video image of Abell 12 which was rather impressive and evidentially had impressed Owen Brazell too! After Mike showed me his image I went through my files expecting to find a drawing from some time or other but nothing!

  I need to put that right so I went straight after Mu Orionis as I knew that Abell 12 lurked in the glare of this magnitude 4.1 star. I had the exposure of my Watec video camera turned down to 5 seconds and bang the ghostly round orb of Abell 12 aka PK 198-6.1 was obvious and striking next to the dazzling star with its large diffraction spikes.

  

  So to were Mu orionis Ab & Ba as this star is a 4 star multiple. I'm not sure if I could see the fourth member Bb as I had no idea where to look and as the faintest member it was most susceptible to Mu A's glare. Anyhow if I kept exposure relatively short then the other two were framed nicely between Mu A and Abell 12 adding to the spectacle considerably in my humble opinion.

  Lengthening the exposure right up to 20 sec did nothing to enhance the detail seen in Abell 12 but it simply lost the multiple members in the glare and bloat of the primary. No central star was seen, mottling across the whole of the round and sharp edged planetary remained unaltered. The attraction of this PN is its ethereal appearance and contrast with its bright neighbour. A delight no less.

  Next I went onto nearby Abell 14 another planetary with the PK designation of PK 197-3.1 This was to be a failure! This isn't the first time that I have tried and failed on this PN. It is very small 40"x27" and faint at magnitude 14. Tonight I had the location absolutely spot on but my camera could not pull it out even with a 25 sec exposure. It is obviously strong in the blue spectrum emission where my camera is less sensitive.

  I dug out an old visual Lumicon 1.25 UHC filter and screwed this to the camera nose piece. I had to refocus and then I tuned the exposure up to 15sec then 20 sec with my fingers literally crossed but I could see not hide nor hair of this nebula! FAIL big style!

  I then thought well I will leave the filter on and try the old favourite, NGC 2022, another planetary nebula in Orion and one I have been observing both visually and with video for 20 years or more. When the scope drive stopped NGC 2022 was bang in the centre of the field and strikingly obvious at 5 sec exposure. At 20 seconds it was incredibly detailed.

  

  I dug out my file and looked at 3 previous sketches, better view tonight for sure 😀 I agonised over the sketch trying to show all the detail available. My new digital monitor is such that I can use a magnifying glass to study small objects and see yet more detail! I love it 😁

  So that was 2hrs gone and time to get indoors and ready for bed, not that I slept! No,no way too excited.

  Dale Holt - (11 February 2021).

• NGC 1499 in Perseus

  With this single colour shot of 500 second exposure Richard has captured a large portion of the California nebula (NGC 1499). Unfortunately it clouded over before he could get any additional frames.

  

  Image Details

  • Telescope: AG14 Orion F 3.8
  • Camera: FLI Microline Camera

  Richard Weatherley - (2 February 2021).

• One from Orion

  Here we have an observation from last night of NGC 1924, a galaxy that I observed and sketched several times before. Perhaps last night I grabbed a little more detail it the spiral layout than previous session had yielded.

  

  A face on barred spiral in Orion, magnitude 13.2 and 1.6'x1.2'. My sketch shows some breaks or disturbance in the spiral structure. Discovered by W Herschel in October 1785. Distance 108 mly and diameter 53,000 ly.

  Dale Holt - (24 January 2021).