Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

 

Before we hit the leading edge of the autumn Messiers, muchachos, let’s get one thing out of the way: Yes, I did see comet Lemon (c/2025 A6). I didn’t observe the visitor in any kind of elaborate fashion, though. I didn’t even give my Richest Field Telescope, Miss Tanya, a shot at it. Weather and my health (I’ve been down with a bad cold/some kind of bronchial infection) impelled me to keep it simple. When I decided I’d better get to the comet before she got into the trees—Lemon is moving south at a good clip, now—I grabbed my beloved Burgess 15x70 binoculars.

These glasses, purchased at the 2003 ALCON in Nashville where I was a speaker, have long been my goto when I want reasonably wide fields, and a little power—both in magnification and light gathering—in a compact, hand-holdable package. They are also high in optical quality, and I simply cannot believe the late Bill Burgess sold them to me for a mere fifty bucks!

Anyhoo, out onto the deck I went. The Moon had waned away, so that was not a factor. The factor was the race between altitude and position. Every day I waited put the comet a little higher in the sky, but every passing day also put it farther to the south. Chaos Manor South’s southwestern sky is almost completely obscured by trees, so, I didn’t wait too long. On my chosen evening, I had to do a little scanning around, but it wasn’t long before I turned up Lemon. At first as just a fuzzy “star.” A little staring, however, revealed a delightful wee tail!

That, friends, was the extent of my adventures with the comet. I didn’t image it, not “even” with a smartscope; I just didn’t feel up to it. I was glad, however, to have seen our visitor from the outer depths and have enjoyed looking at the lovely pictures y’all have taken.

But onto the main course, the next batch of Ms. As I mentioned in the first installment, this time we’ll be taking them on constellation by constellation rather than by numbers. The constellations for this evening are few but lustrous: beautiful Pegasus the Flying Horse and Andromeda the Maiden. They are the heralds of the star pictures of fall and are renowned both for their beauty and for the ease at which they can be picked out even by novice observers.

So, let’s go. The instruments for this bunch? I’d like to say Zelda, my 10-inch Dobsonian, was one of them, but ‘twas not to be. While, as I told you last time, I can still get Z into the backyard safely if I am careful and take it slowly, my Bad Cold meant I didn’t feel up to lugging her sizeable self into the back forty. So, the visual telescope would be my 6-inch SkyWatcher Dob. What’s that? Her name? Let me ask; I haven’t thought to enquire. OK, she’s says, “Patty.” Why Patty, I don’t know. But that is what she said, and a scope should know her own name, shouldn’t she? The imaging telescope? The SeeStar, Suzie, natch. She is really no trouble at all even when I’m not feeling so hot.

Messier 15

There is no doubt globular cluster M15 in Pegasus is a grand sight. One of the best globs in the northern sky. However, that comes with a caveat. In addition to its lovely appearance as a ball of tiny stars, this cluster is famous for its very tight, preternaturally bright core. The cluster isn’t the densest one on the Messier list, but at Shapley-Sawyer Type IV, it’s dense enough, and the brightness of that core (a feeding black hole is thought to lurk there) makes it tough for smaller scopes to resolve. On the plus side, M15 shines at magnitude 6.15, making it at least a near naked eye object from dark sites. It subtends an impressive 18’0” of sky.

The cluster’s discovery history? It is another one not discovered by Chuck Messier himself. The credit goes to Jean-Dominique Maraldi, who spotted a strange, bright fuzzball not far from the prominent star Enif one autumn evening in 1746. That closeness to Enif, “The Horse’s Nose,” both makes it easy to find and gives it its nickname, “The Horse’s Nose Cluster.”

So, to the Horse’s Nose Cluster me and Patty went. What did we see? With a 30mm finding eyepiece in the focuser, what we saw was probably not much different from what Jean-Dominique saw on that Italian evening those long centuries ago: a bright fuzzball with a brighter center. Seeing more required more magnification, and as much as I like Miss Patty, that is not easy for her. Her optics are good, but at 150mm f/5, you need a short focal length ocular. Luckily, I had one, a 4.7mm Explore Scientific wide-field eyepiece (160x) that I won at the last Chiefland Star Party I attended. When I looked into it, I was gratified to see the spray of tiny, tiny stars that surrounds that blazing core.

Famous observer (obviously not moi) impressions? Tonight, we turn to Walter Scott Houston. He’s often described as “the dean of deep sky observers.” So frequently, in fact, that that has come to sound like a cliché. It is nevertheless oh-so-true—and how. What did Scotty have to say about M15 in one of his “Deep-Sky Wonders” columns?

The view of M15 is impressive with anything from binoculars to the largest telescope. My 4-inch Clark refractor at 40x shows M15 as a slightly oval disk, more luminous in the center, with edges just beginning to break up into individual stars. Increasing magnification enhances the view, and at 200x stars at the center of the cluster start to be resolved.

Which is right on the money as far as I am concerned.

Then it was Suzie’s turn. Despite the Seestar smartscope’s 50mm of aperture and 250mm focal length, the girl brought back a very pretty rendition of M15. That said, I need to let my longer focal length Smarty-scope, Evie, the 4-inch Evolution reflector, have a go at M15 before the season is out.

Messier 31

There are few objects in the deep sky I’ve had as much of a love-hate relationship with as M31, the Great Andromeda Galaxy. The hate stems from my disappointment as a young’un with one of the very first deep sky objects I observed. When I finally ran it down, what was in the 1-inch Kellner eyepiece of my 4-inch f/11 Palomar Junior Newtonian? A big, bright blob that pretty much filled the field. Extending southwest to northeast from the blob was a stream of dimmer nebulosity that I guessed represented the galaxy’s disk. What? No spiral arms?! Little Rod expected spiral arms.

Despite M31’s closeness and brightness, it was no wonder I didn’t see spiral structure. This is a huge object, a blazingly bright (magnitude 3.4) SA galaxy that extends across a whopping 3.1 degrees of sky. Not only did its size make it a challenge for my small, long focal length reflector, the galaxy’s rather shallow inclination to us—77°, not edge-on, but not far from it, makes it difficult to detect signs of spiral structure in any telescope. While M31 was first recorded by Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi in his Book of Fixed Stars in the 10^th century, there are apparent references to it going way, way back.

Certainly, as the years rolled by and I acquired more suitable scopes for M31 and learned how to use them, I came to see a lot more in M31. That included the dark lanes that are the signature of spiral arms, a giant star cloud, a tiny near-stellar nucleus, globular clusters, and more. However, most of those sights are reserved for dark sites. What did my 6-inch pick up from the backyard of suburban Chaos Manor South?

There was the blob, naturally, that enormous central bulge that filled my field with milk. I struggled for at least a hint of the compact nucleus but did not see a trace—not surprising, as that is an object that often needs 10-inches and almost always needs a dark sky. The disk? I didn’t expect dust lanes, but wondered if the giant star cloud, NGC 206, that lies 49'0" southwest of the galaxy’s center might be visible. I convinced myself I saw something in the correct position, but that may have been averted imagination. M32 and M110? See below. If I’d been feeling a little better, I’d have popped in the house for those Burgess binoculars, which are a more appropriate instrument for M31 than even a short f/l 6-inch reflector.

Let me say that you can pick a far worse scope for M31 than a 6-inch f/5 at 25x with a 30mm ocular. The problem was the light pollution-scattering haze of autumn that is almost always with us in the weeks before cold fronts begin to clean things out.

Scotty’s thoughts? He just isn’t bullish on Andromeda, remarking that it is often a disappointment. That is certainly true, but I do take issue with his claim that spiral structure “Probably cannot be seen in amateur instruments.” I would say the aforementioned dark lanes are certainly the galaxy showing that spiral structure. He does admit these dark lanes can be seen in modest scopes but does not connect them with “spiral structure.” That quibble aside, yes, Scotty nails it again. Andromeda is more famous for its brightness (I was able to see it with ease as a fuzzy star from the backyard of the original Chaos Manor South downtown) and what it represents, the closest large galaxy to us, than how it looks in the eyepiece.

How did The Suze do with Andromeda? M31 was the first object I essayed after ZWO implemented “mosaic mode” with the Seestars. When you engage that, the scope takes a picture, moves, takes another picture, etc., making it able to frame objects too large even for its short focal length. I was pleased by the results, but found the mosaic business to be a pain, taking hours to complete and often not completing due to the target getting into trees or other obstructions before all the shots were done. Still, it’s a nice tool, and Suzie returned a pretty good Andromeda. The bottom line is that this bright and big and obvious object is much more difficult to image than you would think. 

M32

This little E2 elliptical is the most prominent of Andromeda’s retinue of satellite galaxies. While it’s “only” magnitude 8.2, it’s small, 8’30” x 6’30”, and appears bright indeed. If you’ve successfully located M31, there’s no “finding” to M32; it stands out like a sore thumb about 25’0” south of the core of M31. Visually, it’s just outside the disk of its parent galaxy. Who discovered the little guy? That is attributed to Guillaume Le Gentil in 1749, but I’d guess whoever it was who first turned a telescope to M31 saw M32; it would seem impossible to miss.

For me, M32 has always been, “Yeah, nice, adds to the beauty of M31” and that is about it. There’s just not much to see here; it’s a bright, featureless elliptical that appears completely round. At magnifications of 150x and up, it should be easy to see the center is surrounded by a dimmer envelope and… End of story. Scotty? He has little to say about the elliptical, merely noting that it can sometimes be mistaken for M110.

I didn’t bother to do a separate image of M32; there’s just not much reason to do so. The Seestar’s M31 picture shows the small companion well enough. Frankly, large telescopes and long exposures don’t get you much more with M32. They can show the elliptical’s elongation, but that is about it.

M110

Like M32, M110 is a satellite galaxy of Andromeda, but it is at least a somewhat more interesting one. It’s an E5 with a magnitude of 8.1 like M32, but is considerably larger at 21’54” x 11’0” and looks much dimmer—it can be rendered completely invisible in the suburbs by sky conditions that allow M32 to shine on. It’s also considerably more distant from M31’s center, lying 36’19” to the northwest. The discoverer? Messier never added this elliptical galaxy to his list, though he did include it in drawings he made of M31. In my opinion, then, the credit should go to Caroline Herschel who observed it on August 27, 1783.

As a young observer, I didn’t pay much attention to M110. I just used it as an indicator of how good or bad observing conditions were. Easy in a 4-inch and I was in for some fine views. Doubtful in a 6-inch? Don’t expect much of the deep sky on a night like that. Later, though, especially after I began observing with Stellacam and Mallincam deep sky video cameras, I began to really look at this galaxy. Almost any telescope will show M110 is strongly elongated, but on a good night with a bit of aperture (or a deep sky video camera), I begin to see tantalizing—if fleeting—hints of detail near the center. M110 is an elliptical and there shouldn’t be much in the way of dust/gas to create features, but there is something there, as is witnessed by images taken with large instruments.

Scotty doesn’t have much more to say about M110 than he does about M32, just that it is the next closest satellite galaxy to M31 after M32, the remaining companions being to the north in the Cassiopeia area.  

As for The Suze? She did a rather nice job on M110, as you can see here in this crop from her main M31 images. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I believe I can see signs of that subdued detail in M110. It’s enough to make me want to turn the Unistellar smartscope loose on M110 some evening.

M33

M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is another object that really fired my imagination as a kid observer. It was obvious to me from pictures that, unlike Andromeda, Triangulum should show spiral arms. Given the galaxy’s inclination angle of 50°, I figured it should be duck soup to see some arms. As I soon discovered after multiple nights observing it in Mama and Daddy’s backyard, ‘tis not so. While this magnitude 5.7 SA galaxy can be spotted with the naked eye from darker sites, that is not an easy task. With a telescope, especially a longer focal length one, M33 is almost as difficult. That magnitude 5.7 light is spread out over an area of 1°08’42” x 0°42’00. I was lucky to see anything at all. The recipe for success if you want spiral arms? Dark skies and a 10 – 12” telescope at f/5 or below.

Historically, while a naked eye object (if only marginally), it does not appear to have been recorded before the age of the telescope. When it was first noticed, it wasn’t by Charles Messier, but by Giovanni Battista Hodierna in/around 1654.

How did me and Miss Patty fare with the Triangulum Galaxy? Not so hotsky. The best we could do on a semi-punk night (because of the haze) was detect a subtle brightening in the field in the correct spot. It wasn’t even clear we were seeing an oval patch of nebulosity, just a generalized hazy something in the field. I tried a UHC light pollution filter in hopes of seeing NGC 604, the enormous complex of nebulosity in one of M33’s arms, but no dice. I have seen the nebula with fair ease with the 10-inch Dobsonian from a site on the edge of the city-country transition zone, but that was on an outstanding night.

As you can imagine, ol’ Scotty has a lot to say about Triangulum—despite my near failure with it on this night it really is one of the premier galaxies for Northern Hemisphere observers. I urge you to read his column “The Great Triangulum Spiral” for yourself, but to sum up, the Old Man mentions both the difficulty some observers experience trying to see even a hint of M33 on the wrong night or with the wrong scope, and his delight at not just having seen the spiral, but of having conquered NGC 604.

The Suzie girl had no problem with M33. The picture she returned impressed me quite a bit. It’s not quite the equal of the M33 I got with one of my APO refractors and my old EQ-6 mount one dark night at the Deer Lick Astronomy Village some years ago, but it’s nice and the color balance is better. And, hell, it was taken on an average night from my bright backyard!

And the Messier road goes ever on. The autumn objects hidden among the subdued stars of the “water” constellations await us. But that’s for another time. The night has grown old, Hercules has plunged into the west, and me and my faithful telescope have covered enough light years for one fall evening.

The Bottom Line:  11 down 99 to go…

Nota Bene:  If you’d like to read Scotty’s “Deep-Sky Wonders” columns, you have a couple of options. If you have access to the original magazines, you’ll find him in just about every issue from 1946 to 1994. Don’t have all those old magazines? If you’re lucky, you glommed onto the Sky & Telescope DVDs that were sold some years ago. These contain the entire run of “Deep-Sky Wonders.” Got neither? You can get an excellent sampling in the compilation volume edited by James O’Meara, Deep-Sky Wonders.

The Passing of a Giant…

I received the shocking news that optical genius Al Nagler, founder of TeleVue, passed away last Sunday, the 27^th of October. Yes, I was shocked. I shouldn’t have been—after all, Al was mortal like all of us and was getting up there in years. But it’s just hard to imagine an astronomy without Nagler. What else is there to say than that Al Nagler was one of the people who didn’t just leave their mark on astronomy but changed it forever. There are two eras in eyepieces, “Before AL” and “After Al.” Nuff said.