Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

Christmas Eve has once again come to Chaos Manor South. It snuck up on your aged correspondent. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Unk celebrated his summertime birthday with a POTA activation and margaritas at El Giro’s? Enough of that. It is what it is; Christmastime is here! We’ll get to the Yuletide doings ‘round the manse in due course, but first let’s talk about the next bunch of Messiers…

Perseus and Auriga

It wasn’t just Christmas that snuck up on your Old Uncle. I belatedly realized the western reaches of Perseus the Hero are getting awful close to the Meridian by mid-evening, and that’s not a good place for picture-taking.  With no time to waste, Unk set up Miss Suzie, the ZWO smartscope, in the back forty on a clear but damp late fall evening and got to work.

Messier 76

First up of Perseus’ two Ms was the Little Dumbbell Nebula (aka, “Barbell” and “Cork”), NGC 650, a well-known if not oft-observed planetary nebula. Once again, we have an object not discovered by Chuck Messier himself, but by prolific observer Pierre Méchain (in 1780). M76 is a magnitude 10.1 planetary nebula, the corpse of a dead star, that measures 3’07” x 2’18”. And there you have the two things that account for M76’s relative lack of popularity with observers: It is small and sounds as if it will be faint.

I had intended to observe M76 visually with Zelda, the 10-inch Dob, but wimped out. What I shoulda done was haul Miss Zelda outside in late afternoon. Alas, I got distracted by other things, and it was dark before I knew it. I wasn’t about to lug her down even the few steps of the deck in anything but broad daylight, so I settled for little Tanya, my 4.5-inch f/5 rescue-scope Newtonian.

I suppose getting under dark skies with Z for a few nights at the Deep South Star Gaze got me back in the red-dot finder groove, because I had no problem getting the Little Dumbbell in the field of a 10mm Plössl (one of the two the humble eyepieces Celestron included with Miss T.). I wouldn’t say the nebula was bright without a filter, but it was doable. While some will tell you M76 is a tough Messier, it’s not. The nebula’s small size keeps its surface brightness relatively high, and adding a light pollution reduction (LPR) filter makes observing it like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. I routinely viewed this planetary from the suburbs with my old and long-gone ETX-60 (with a filter).  

OK, so what was M76 like in The Tanya? Unfiltered at 57x with the Celestron Plössl, the nebula was a small rectangle of haze just at the limit of visibility. While dim, it was obvious the second I looked into the eyepiece. It still didn’t put my eye out when I replaced the el-cheapo ocular with a decent 6mm Orion Expanse (95x). I added an OIII filter, and, yeah, better (the OIII is the filter for most planetary nebulae). I even imagined I at least detected the streamers of gas that wrap around the central bar of M76.

I plan to move on from John Mallas and Scotty Houston to other observers as this series progresses but seeing as how I was observing with a 4-inch just like John M. (if one with a far less impressive pedigree than his big Unitron), I thought it would be appropriate to turn to The Messier Album once again.

I wondered how the Little Dumbbell looked in Mallas small-aperture scope… It looked good: “A rewarding object in Mallas’ 4-inch refractor. M76 is a miniature of the Dumbbell and is more closely described by this name than is M27 in Vulpecula when both are seen in a small telescope.” I agree the Little Dumbbell is a fascinating object in a 4-inch, but we differ on the appearance of the nebula. John mentions seeing two distinct lobes. I’ve noted this two-lobed nature in the past, in Tanya, however, the nebula was just a nebulous bar. It’s the same in the Evered Kreimer photo in the book, but Suzie’s shot does hint at the dual lobes.  

Suzie had zero trouble imaging the planetary, but I wasn’t satisfied with our results. While Astrospheric and Scope Nights had predicted clear weather for the entire night, Siri disagreed, intoning, “Clouds at mid-evening!” I thought my favorite AI girl was skipping a few gear teeth, but it turned out she was correct, as she usually is. I had less than 20 minutes on the nebula when a message popped up on the ZWO app: “Image discarded, not enough stars,” Rut-roh, I popped outside and looked up: Clouds, thick clouds, and plenty of ‘em. We got another chance the following night and accumulated 45 minutes of exposure.

Let’s face it, M76 is small for a 50mm f/5 smartscope. Nevertheless, Suze turned in a credible effort. After zooming-in via cropping the image (zooming is more practical using Suzie’s EQ mode, since you don’t have to worry as much about egg-shaped stars as you do in alt-az), the two streamers of gas are prominent, as is the nebula’s green OIII color, and even some tinges of red. Good show, girl!

Messier 34

The other Perseus M, open cluster M34 (NGC 1039), is probably a Giovanni Batista Hodierna find; he appears to have observed it from Sicily in 1654. If he did, nobody outside Sicily heard about it. What is known for sure is Charles Messier—who doesn’t seem to have known about Hodierna’s work—saw it, resolved it, and cataloged it a decade later: “A cluster of small stars, a little below the parallel γ Andromedae; in an ordinary telescope of three feet [focal length] the stars can be distinguished.”  M34 is bright at magnitude 5.8, but also spread-out at a size of 35.0’.

I gave Tanya a shot at M34, but no-go. With Christmas Eve approaching at a breakneck pace, the weathermen said the last chance I'd get to see the Spiral Cluster would be dicey at best. As darkness fell on a warm and humid evening, Tanya was dripping with dew after a mere half-hour outside. I could tell fog was creeping in and got on what I was pretty sure was the correct field post haste. Nada. Knowing I didn't have time to fool around, I dashed inside and retrieved the SkyWatcher 6-inch f/5 Dobsonian.

With a little extra aperture, M34 was visible in a 20mm Expanse (Synta-made) widefield ocular at 37x. Visible, yeah, but not what you'd call "rich." Nevertheless, I declared it a win on a night like this one. The brighter cluster stars were there, but dimmer members and the scads of background suns were absent. That lack of background stars actually made M34 stand out better. "Spiral cluster"? Maybe it's just me, but I scratch my head over that one. What I see is a medium-rich group dominated by star chains.  

John Mallas calls this “A very fine cluster,” but opines that this is an object for smaller apertures due to its large size. That is still somewhat true, but we now have richest field telescopes and widefield and ultra-widefield eyepieces. Today, this one is a standout in larger-than-4-inch scopes, too.

Suze did a fine job on this galactic cluster, but her image highlights the cluster’s “problem” in images and with larger aperture instruments under dark skies: It tends to melt into the rich background starfield.

Onward to Auriga we go. The three famous Auriga open clusters are a sentimental favorite of mine. I could occasionally coax my Old Man, W4SLJ, out of the house for a look through my Palomar Junior on long-lost 1960s nights. While he was mainly interested in seeing the Moon and planets, he did like M42, and, maybe even more, the Charioteer’s clusters. He referred to them as “The Big Three,” and always requested I point my little scope at them on winter nights. How I wish I could have shown SLJ these three wondrous star nests from the dark skies of the Deep South Star Gaze with my 10-inch telescope… Anyhow, we begin with the westernmost group.

Messier 38

Yep, yet another DSO not found by ol’ Chuck. M38 (NGC 1912) was first recorded by Hodierna on a chilly Italian evening around 1654. This cluster was forgotten or overlooked by the astronomers who followed him before being rediscovered by Guillaume LeGentil in 1749. Its specs clue you in that this is one good open cluster: magnitude 6.8 and 20.0’ across. Bright and big, but not too big.

This cluster, my second favorite among the Big Three, was a wonderful sight in Miss Zelda from the dark backwoods of Louisiana. M38 is nicknamed “The Starfish Cluster,” and it is easy to see why. While there are many dim background stars, your eyes are drawn to the chains and patterns formed by the cluster’s brightest suns. They seem to suggest yes, a starfish—or maybe an octopus or cosmic spider. The starfish effect is enhanced by the fact that the more prominent cluster stars are of similar brightness. Best view? In my old 16mm 100° “Happy Hand Grenade” ocular at 78x.

In John Mallas’ beautiful—if small-aperture—Unitron, his impression was “[S]quare-shaped with a clump of stars at each corner.” I can see that, yeah, the central region, the “body” of the starfish or spider, is squarish. I don’t see clumps of stars, though, I see chains. Neither of us is wrong. Looking at galactic clusters is like looking at clouds; you see what those shapes suggest to your mind. Overall, Mallas was impressed, “For small apertures, this is a beautiful cluster in a rich field.” With that, I agree, but the same goes with larger apertures with appropriate eyepieces.

In the ZWO smartscope, M38 looked much as it had to my eye in Louisiana. OK, OK, I’ll admit Suze saw more background field stars from the backyard than I did with a 10-inch from a dark site. There was a bonus, too, one I overlooked with the Dobsonian. At the edge of the frame is another open cluster, little (5.0’) magnitude 8.2 NGC 1907. Not only did I miss it in the eyepiece at Feliciana, I didn’t notice it in Suzie’s shot until the exposure was done. If I had, I’d have reframed the picture to show it better—or at least have turned off the ZWO’s watermark.

Messier 36

M36, NGC 1960, was first seen by Hodierna in 1654. He had no idea what it was, being unable to resolve its stars with his small instrument. It was merely another intriguing “nebulous patch,” which could be anything.  Following Hodierna, it was rediscovered and lost again time or two before being spotted by Messier in 1764 with his 3-foot telescope. Charles was the first observer to resolve the cluster. M36 is both smaller (10.0’) and brighter (magnitude 6.5) than neighboring M38.

This M-object is often called “The Pinwheel Cluster.” I’m not sure that’s what I saw with Zelda on those Louisiana nights, though. Oh, it was beautiful, but my impression was mostly of a rich splash of stars with a medium-dense center. It’s tight but doesn’t begin to look like a loose globular. Maybe 10-inches was too much aperture to give a pinwheel impression, resolving too many dim stars. Anyhoo, I liked it best in the 13mm Ethos (115x).

Mallas, thanks to his smaller aperture, had an easier time seeing an overall shape. However, he doesn’t seem to have seen a pinwheel either, “Outward streamers of faint stars gave a crab-like appearance.” He does note the same thing I did, the lovely color contrast among the cluster’s suns.

Not too much to say about the smartscope’s take on this one. M36 is without doubt the weakest of the three Auriga clusters. It looks good in Suzie’s shot, but pales alongside M37, of course.

Messier 37

The last of the Big Three, M37 (NGC 2099), is another one bagged by Hodierna (in 1654). It was promptly “lost” and rediscovered by Messier in September 1764. In our trio of beauties, M37 is the standout. At magnitude 6.2 and 14.0’ across it is both the brightest and richest of the Auriga clusters.

For Unk, there is no contest; M37 is the best, the richest, the most beautiful. In the 10-inch, it was a mind blower, looking more like a loose globular than a galactic. What I saw was a triangular core about 5.0’ in size surrounded by an outer halo of stars bright and dim, all looking tiny and marvelous. The cluster’s renowned red central star was more than obvious. My most memorable view of M37, however, was with my old C8, Celeste, one dark winter’s eve’ sixteen years ago at the Chiefland Astronomy Village:

This gorgeous open cluster in Auriga was just indescribable in the 13 Ethos. At times it looked almost like the south’s great globular cluster, Omega Centauri. At other times, it assumed weird shape and substance. One time I found myself seeing the central triangular area of the cluster as the head of a raging bull, M37’s red central star forming its baleful eye: the whole thing a miniature Taurus.

John’s opinion of M37 in The Messer Album mirrors my own: “This is one of the finest open clusters in the heavens.” Maybe I’d change that to “the finest.”  This group is often called the “Salt and Pepper Cluster,” but that doesn’t seem adequate. Maybe the old “diamond dust on black velvet” cliché is the best description of this wonder.

There’s nothing to complain about in Suzie’s picture of this great cluster. It’s just beautiful. It’s not a criticism to say it looks less like a loose globular than just a rich galactic cluster; that’s the difference between eyepiece impressions and looking at an image. When you study a photo of M37, it is obvious the group doesn’t come close in richness to even a loose glob like NGC 5053. I am very pleased with little Suzie’s image, though.

Cleanup on Aisle Cassiopeia!

I should have stopped by Messier 103 when I observed M52 at Deep South. Somehow I forgot about it, though, so I made my way over to this spectacular cluster once Zelda and I returned home.

Messier 103

M103, NGC 581, is another one discovered by Messier’s friend and fellow observer, Pierre Méchain, in 1781, and was added to the Messier list by the man himself. What’s special about this young, metal-rich cluster (Magnitude 6.9, 5.0’)? It was the last object added to the Messier catalog by Messier himself.

Yeah, I sure wish I’d turned the 10-inch to M103 during the star party, but I didn’t, so I'd have to see what a small reflector would do with the group from home. When Miss Dorothy and I moved out here a decade ago, my backyard skies were often impressive. Now, they have gone from the “suburban-country transition zone” to the “suburban” category.

I viewed M103 on the same night as M34, and it also got the 6-inch treatment. Despite haze that was rapidly thickening to fog, the cluster was immediately visible when we were on the field. However, the lovely arrowhead of stars that defines it was, well, small, real small. Tanya would have had a hard time here. In a 9mm Expanse (83x), the 6er gave a decent view. The Arrowhead even gave up a few of its dimmer suns. 

John really dug M103. How could he not? “A grand view! The stars form an arrowhead which is also seen in photographs. A 10x40 finder resolved the cluster, but the 4-inch showed the fainter stars, many of them colored.” Indeed, one of the most beautiful aspects of this group is the contrast between the cluster’s blue-white stars and one bright, orange luminary.

Open clusters are duck soup for the S50 smartscope from the suburbs, and Suzie’s image is a nice one. The only way I might improve upon it is to give M103 a longer exposure than the 10 minutes I allotted to it. The picture’s not bad, but there is a little more noise than I’d like.

Christmas Eve 2025 at Chaos Manor South

It is again time for ho-ho-ho and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls...

Thomas Wolfe said, among many other things, “You can’t go home again.” Is that true? Mostly, muchachos, but not always and not completely. If you’re a long-time reader of the Little Old Blog from Possum Swamp, you know our local star party, originally the Deep South Regional Star Gaze, and now the Deep South Star Gaze, was an every-year tradition with me and Miss Dorothy for over two decades. But then much changed. We retired, the pandemic came, and the star party moved to a new location. 

We visited its new venue, a private religious camp, for the 2023 edition, but above and beyond clouds causing a good, old-fashioned skunking on all three nights (which can happen anywhere, anytime), we were not happy with the facility and the food. Most of all, it just didn’t have that “Deep South feel” and Dorothy and I reluctantly decided we wouldn’t be back. 

Then, a few months ago, we got word from DSSG’s longtime director, Barry Simon, that our favorite star party would be moving back to its previous home, The Feliciana Retreat Center (FRC) in Norwood, Louisiana, a place we’d always liked, for the 2025 edition. Dorothy and I didn’t have to do any thinking; we sent in our registration and began looking forward to going home again. 

As the big day approached for us, November 20 (we’d attend Thursday - Sunday of the event), I began ruminating on the equipment I’d haul to the backwoods of Louisiana. Certainly, I’d take Zelda the 10-inch Dob, who is now my big gun, but what else? I’ve yet to get Suzie, my ZWO S50 smartscope under dark skies. And, hey, why not take the Unistellar 4-inch smartscope, too? I could do visual one night and devote the other two to the smarties. But then everything changed. 

Unpacking at the Lodge.

More properly, the weather forecasts changed. Predictions for the week before Thanksgiving, never good, were looking dire less than two weeks out. The closer we got, the less likely it appeared we would see anything at Deep South other than the undersides of clouds. I immediately eliminated the smartscopes from the gear loadout. If the weathermen were correct, there’d be no reason to bring them along. Shortly, I was even considering dropping back from the 10-inch Dob to the 6-inch one. Darnit. 

There was never any thought of us not going, though; even if all we could do was visit with our friends we would be there. Still, what I go to a star party for is deep sky wonders, and I was feeling disappointed. Then, a few days before the DSSG kickoff, the forecasts improved—a little. It appeared we’d get some observing in Thursday, little to none Friday, and maybe a lot Saturday. Whew! 

If I was gonna see anything, I’d need an observing list. That wasn’t difficult to compose. My current obsession, as you know, is (again) the Messiers. I don’t have a good southern horizon at Chaos Manor South, so I would concentrate on the southern “water” constellations, on the Ms in Pisces, Aquarius, Cetus, Capricornus, etc. 

With DSSG week almost here, it was time to round up all the old outdoor gear we’d used at so many star parties. First up, though, was a trip to Academy for a sleeping bag for Miss Dorothy, since hers had gone missing. We’d need bags since we weren't sure Feliciana would provide bedding, and it’s easier to bring a sleeping bag than fool with sheets, blankets, etc. Naturally, the Wednesday afternoon before Deep South, when it was time to load the 4Runner, Miss Van Pelt, my bag was also MIA. Luckily, it (and Dorothy’s old sleeping bag) turned up just before Unk headed back to Academy for another one. 

I also found the little black cat heater I used on chilly nights on the field years ago. I put it back away, though, since the weathermen were unanimous in saying we wouldn’t need it, Highs would be in the 80s and lows in the 60s except for Saturday, which might get into the 50s. The Coleman chairs were accounted for and so was the camp/observing table. While our picnic canopy, our EZ-Up, was looking a little time-worn, I judged it good enough for one more star party. I’d sprayed it with 3M waterproofing in 2023, and we’d never even set it up on the field that year. Now, I just had to get everything into the 4Runner... 

Back on the old field 8 years later!

While I’d be loading a modest amount of gear compared to what I used to lug down to Chiefland in the go-go days of the Herschel Project, I was out of practice getting everything into the truck and fumbled around for quite some time. I forgot the camp table had to go in first and on the bottom and wound up taking everything back out and reloading it all. So it goes; we were ready for Deep South. 

The trip itself was nothing. It’s just under three hours on I-10, I-12, I-55, and a short stretch on Louisiana back roads. It was entirely uneventful save for me not recognizing any of the scenery or landmarks along the way as we neared Norwood. I guess eight years’ absence will do that for you. Thanks to my trusty GPS, we found the FRC entrance without incident and were soon rolling onto the grounds. 

So, out on the field, what was the deal? Partly cloudy. Warm, very warm. A feel of possible bad weather in the air. You know what the whole thing reminded me of? Miss Dorothy’s first star party in 1994. While that was earlier in the year and at the event’s original home, Percy Quin State Park in Mississippi, the feel was eerily the same: Heat and humidity and maybe not much observing. The weather goobers were now warning of possible severe weather Friday, but it looked like the really bad stuff might bypass Norwood. 

Field set up was easy enough, since there wasn’t much to set up. The main task was getting the EZ-Up erected, but with Dorothy’s help, and the help of a fellow ham (I counted at least five fellow radio amateurs in attendance), we got the thing up before your old Uncle was quite drenched in sweat. It is nothing to set up a manual 10-inch Dobsonian (other than me struggling with the weight of Zelda’s steel tube). No computers, no cables, no batteries. With the chairs, table, and ice chest out of the truck, we motored up to the lodge to see what was what. 

My impressions of the FRC lodge nearly a decade down the road? The dining area looked as nice as ever, very nice, that is. Our small motel-type room? I didn’t notice many improvements/changes, but it was obvious the rooms were better maintained than they had been the last several years Deep South was at FRC (which is now billing itself as the “Feleciana Retreat and Conference Center). They had replaced the mattresses with better ones, and bedding was furnished, making our sleeping bags superfluous. All that remained was to hang out on the field with the old friends we’ve observed with for three decades and wait for supper at 4pm. How would that be? 

The answer was “better, much better.” The young couple doing the cooking and serving did a fine job, and Thursday’s BBQ chicken was some of the best star party food I have eaten in a while. One of the things that impelled Deep South to leave Feliciana in the first place was a decline in the quality and quantity of food. I deemed that fixed. Supper done, it was time to get a move on. With the temperature in the 80s, it didn’t feel like late November, but it was, and darkness would come not long after 6pm. 

The way the skies looked Thursday afternoon, I’d feared the night would be a complete washout (maybe literally), but as astronomical twilight came, the clouds scudded off, or at least a giant sucker hole grew until it encompassed the entire sky, giving us a couple of hours of cosmic voyaging. I’m afraid I spent most of that time fumbling and bumbling with the telescope, though. 

Your silly old Uncle was way out of practice using a dob under a dark sky. I had an awful hard time getting used to using the Rigel Quick Finder zero-power finder again. That wasn’t all. It seemed I had forgotten exactly how to work AstroHopper, the iPhone app that guided Zelda to her targets. I eventually got mostly in the groove with all that jazz and knocked a few list objects out, though. 

Note that on all three evenings I observed quite a few objects in addition to the list Messiers. But this is about the Messier Project and those are the objects Unk is gonna (mostly) tell you about… 

Images were shot with Suzie from Chaos Manor South Shortly after DSSG. 

M2 (Aquarius) 

Did not like the way the sky looked Thursday afternoon...

The second object in Messier’s catalog is one of the finest globular star clusters in the sky. It is somewhat diminished for mid-northern observers by its southerly declination down in Aquarius, but it is still quite a prize. At magnitude 6.5 and 16.0’ across, it begins to resolve in small telescopes, and in 8-inch and larger instruments it is a welter of tiny stars of Magnitude 13.1 and dimmer. With a Shapley-Sawyer Class of II, the core is quite concentrated.  

Despite swimming in and out of the haze that was beginning to cover the southern sky, M2 was well-resolved by Zelda, looking like a sparkling blue sapphire in the 13mm Ethos eyepiece at 96x. I hadn’t seen this glob, a favorite of mine in my old 12-inch telescope, looking this good in a long time. That haze no doubt reduced the cluster’s brightness, but it was still bright and prominent and well-resolved.

M2 is yet another “Messier object” not discovered by Charles Messier. Credit for that goes to. Jean Dominique Maraldi, who was out observing a comet with his buddy, Jaques Cassini, one nice French night in 1746. Charles is credited with the cluster’s rediscovery in 1760. You won’t be surprised to hear his tiny scope didn’t resolve any stars and is listed as a “nebula without stars.” In fact, nobody realized it was a star cluster till William and Caroline Herschel had a look at it some years later.   

Turning once again to my favorite Messier book, The Messier Album, John Mallas is enthusiastic about M2: “A beautiful object.” I can’t compare his observation to mine, since my instrument, Zelda, was so much larger than his 4-inch Unitron. He remarks his scope was only able to resolve “[A] few bright members across the nebulous image.” While Evered Kreimer’s photo wouldn’t be anything to write home about today, it was groundbreaking for the time. 

It's hard to get a bad image of M2!

The ZWO was faced with both light haze and a nearby Moon the week after DSSG, but she did an OK job with this magnificent cluster. 

M72 (Aquarius) 

The other Messier globular in Aquarius, M72, is that horse of a different color (the one you’ve heard tell about), being both considerably dimmer (magnitude 9.2) and smaller (6.6’) than monster M2. Discovered by Pierre Mechain, Messier observed the cluster the following year, 1781. 

Messier 72 is a small, subdued globular cluster and looked it on this evening. That doesn’t mean it was difficult to see, even in worsening conditions; it was obvious as a small fuzzball in the 27mm Panoptic when I put my eye to the eyepiece. The 8mm Ethos delivered a little resolution at 156x, but it was still more “grainy” than “resolved. The core of this Type IX cluster is quite loose but still fairly bright. 

This was not an easy object for John M’s 4-inch achromat. In his scope it was “A very small and nebulous patch of light” He was able to tell detect M72’s loose structure, however. 

It wasn't so much that this was a dimmer object, but that conditions were not right for imaging. Miss S50 and I went after M72 anyway, and at least we got a little "cosmic postcard, " a memory of a night under the stars, for our efforts

Sadly, that was it for list-objects on Thursday evening. The southern area of the sky was out of action by 7pm. I spent the remainder of the night looking at some pretty stuff (the Veil was decent, and M15 was a mindblower at high power) before retiring to the lodge room just before 9 for YouTube videos and sarsaparillas. 

Then came Friday morning. How would breakfast be? Good. Very good and lots of it. The star of the show was the biscuits and sausage gravy. There was more—eggs, grits, sausage--but that was just the supporting cast for Unk. Excellent. 

Suzie's M52.

Sometimes star party days go slowly, but I found things to do on Friday. I sat in the dining hall with the MacBook Air, making notes on my observations, and…installing a new astronomy program. Unk has SkySafari Pro 7 on his iPhone and loves it. However, when I opened the program on the Mac I realized I was still on 6. I was able to download 7 for free and was excited to have the new one on the MacBook. 

Well, until I tried it. Simulation Curriculum, the makers, didn’t do a good job porting it from the iPad to the Apple Silicon Macs. Zooming is broken. Oh, you can zoom, but you have to use buttons. For me, zooming with the mouse/trackpad is erratic at best. Luckily, 6 is still on the Mac and that is what I will use. Maybe they’ll fix 7, but after this long, I doubt it. 

Following a great supper of Thanksgiving ham, dressing, and all the fixings, Friday night started out promising, but clouds began rolling in not long after dark. The southern constellations were soon gone, but the north-northeast was clear for a while, and that’s where me and Zelda went. Starting with a look at a nice open cluster... 

M52 (Cassiopeia) 

Finally a Messier Object discovered by Messier! He spotted this galactic cluster floating along the Cassiopeia Milky Way in 1774. At Magnitude 7.7 this magnitude 6.9, 15.0’ diameter open cluster is trivial for binoculars or very small telescopes. 

M52 was certainly impressive in Zelda… I hadn’t expected too much on this increasingly punk night, but it was outstanding, looking more like a loose globular cluster than a galactic cluster. A bright star on the edge of the cluster’s densest section made it distinctive. 

Mallas didn’t see much here with his Unitron. Other than that single bright star, the 4-inch didn’t resolve M55 or even make it look grainy. I wonder if John observed this one on a poorer night, since it seems to me I’ve had some good looks at it and considerable resolution with 4-inch telescopes. 

Most open clusters aren't a challenge for the ZWO. Suze delivered a nice portrait of this one with only five minutes of exposure. 

I hoped for clearing, but as 9pm came, the sky got worse. I did manage two more deep sky objects, though, the stars of our 1994 Deep South: 

M74 (Pisces) 

Suzie did a nice job on the Phantom given the conditions

Numero uno was the Phantom galaxy in Pisces, M74, which was first spotted by Pierre Mechain in September of 1780. Messier was able to confirm the observation a few weeks later, which I find impressive. His scope was tiny, and this is the second toughest Messier (after M101). Why? It’s not terrifically dim at magnitude 9.4, but it is large, 10.5’ across, and the light of this face-on Sc galaxy is badly spread-out, giving it a surface brightness of 14.1. It is an object for 10-inch and larger scopes under dark and steady skies. I’ve had the best success with it when the seeing is excellent. 

As I’ve written many a time, the best look I have ever had of M74 was that fall of ’94 at Deep South with Betsy, my old 12-inch Dob (then in her original Meade Sonotube). This night? I’d be hard put to say M74 looked any worse. Conditions on both nights were similar, including both slightly reduced transparency and steady seeing. When AstroHopper told me I was there, the galaxy was immediately obvious in the 27mm Panoptic eyepiece. Best views were in the Happy Hand Grenade (Zhumell/TMB) 16mm 100° (78x) and the 13mm Ethos, both of which delivered mucho spiral structure. My visit to the star party this year was worth it just for this one observation. 

Unsurprisingly, John Mallas found Messier 74 a difficult object indeed for his long focal length Unitron refractor (he notes it was more noticeable in his 40mm finder). Be that as it may, his drawing with the 4-inch indicates he was seeing some spiral structure, quite a feat. Kreimer’s black and white (Tri-X) photo is lovely, and competitive with modern pictures.   

Little Suzie, the SeeStar S50, had to go after the Phantom Galaxy on yet another humid night. While it’s not the best image she’s ever done, she had no problem picking up the spiral arms (and a piece of photobombing space junk). I’m frankly amazed at what she did from my bright backyard. 

M33 (Triangulum) 

It’s difficult to say who originally discovered Messier 33, since it is (barely) a naked eye object at magnitude 5.7—I’ve certainly never seen it without optical aid. What is certain is that Messier spotted it in 1764.  Its large size, 68.7’ x 41.5’ means that despite its bright magnitude, its surface brightness is relatively low, and it’s not that easy to spot the multiple spiral arms of this near face-on SA galaxy. 

The Triangulum Galaxy isn’t a water dweller but was in the clear and was the other star of 1994. It was very good, with its spiral arms amazingly evident—as in “slapped me in the face” evident. I hunted around a bit before I saw the galaxy’s huge emission nebula, NGC 604, but once I oriented myself, there it was. Was it quite as starkly visible as in 1994, when I had two more inches of aperture, a more transparent sky, and younger eyes? No, but it was easy, nevertheless.  One last look and M33 faded out as clouds enveloped the sky. 

You won’t be surprised to hear Mallas’ small, slow achromat had a tough time with M33. This is just not an object for narrow field scopes (and eyepieces): “[It] is very faint and difficult in the 4-inch f/15 refractor. Instruments with smaller focal ratios will do much better.” He mentions a bright central region with nebulous patches around it and that is it. 

Suzie? This is a bit on the large side for her (though I could use mosaic mode if I had the patience for that), but it’s not an object that gives her trouble. 

Saturday 

Zelda hoping for Starlight Saturday afternoon...

We had high hopes for Saturday. The usual weather sources on the web (the FRC now has good Internet at the lodge thanks to Starlink) said it might be a good night. Hell, it might even be a long night. Astrospheric pronounced, “OK at sundown but getting better after 8pm local time.” I was skeptical. There wasn’t the feel of a front passage, not a barreling passage like in 1994, anyway. So far, it was more clouds and ever-higher humidity. 

The sky did look pretty good just before astronomical twilight. Then, as I sat out on the field with Len and Annette Philpot, a bank of low, dark clouds drifted in from the south and stayed for a while. They did move off when darkness arrived, but I was nervous that this was a harbinger of things to come… 

Long night? No. In the end, we got maybe 90 minutes of fruitful observing. The Milky Way was visible, but not as bright as it is at this site on a truly good evening, and deep sky objects of all types were passable but subdued. I had the feeling conditions might get worse rather than better after 8pm, contrary to what Astrospheric said, so I didn’t waste any time ticking the remaining water Ms off my list on SkySafari. Since my phone was dedicated to AstroHopper, I had the Mac on the field under the canopy. It was a real help at times. With clouds floating around, out of practice visual observer me sometimes lost his way among partially obscured constellations. SkySafari’s beautiful charts saved me every time. 

The night’s haul? Modest, but not bad for an hour and a half with me giving each object sufficient attention: 

M73 (Aquarius) 

Chuck Messier spotted this asterism in 1780 and thought he saw nebulosity along with four stars. Herschel, however, observed the cluster and found absolutely no trace of the nebulosity Messier thought he’d seen. It was long thought that M73 was a galactic cluster, but spectroscopic studies done a couple of decades ago revealed the four stars are at drastically different distances from Earth. 

This little group of stars isn’t a cluster, but it’s an M anyway. I’d somehow passed it by on the previous two evenings and wanted to get it in the log, lackluster as it is. What you have here is an asterism of four somewhat prominent stars of magnitude 10 – 12 that cover an area of 9.0’. 

All Mr. Mallas has to say about M73’s appearance is, “Messier’s description matches what was seen in the 4-inch. Moderate magnification shows the quartet centered in the photograph.” In other words, “Ho-hum,” which is my reaction as well.

This was obviously nothing for Miss Suze, who showed four stars in a backwards checkmark shape in a short exposure. It doesn't look much different from the shot in The Messier Album.

M30 (Capricornus) 

This Shapley-Sawyer Class V globular cluster was discovered by Messier in the summer of 1764. Like the other globs he observed, it was not known to be a star cluster until William Herschel observed it. At magnitude 6.9, and a size of 12.0’, it’s not difficult for smaller scopes, though they may need dark skies to deliver much resolution. 

M30, which I call “The Goat Cluster,” is one of my favorites, mainly for a curious feature, two streams of stars on the southeastern side of the cluster. More prominent visually than in photos, they suggest the horns of a goat, fitting for a cluster in the Sea Goat. They were visible on this night in the 13mm Ethos but were not as prominent as usual. For one thing, Capricornus was beginning to descend into the west, and for another, the haze was thicker than ever.   

While Mallas’ Unitron didn’t pick up many stars, he still called this “A splendid object even in small apertures.” He also notes the cluster’s “unusual” appearance, which I take to me the star streams mentioned above. Kreimer’s photo shows the “goat horns” remarkably well. 

Despite conditions, the girl did a nice job on the Goat, her image showing the horns clearly. 

Our final night started out promisingly--but didn't stay that way.

M77 (Cetus) 

Prolific observer Pierre Mechain ran across this magnitude 8.9 SA galaxy in 1780. Of course, he didn’t know anything about galaxies and told His friend Charles he had discovered a nebula down in Cetus. This small (7.1’) object is easy to see thanks to its intensely bright center. M77 is known to be an active Seyfert galaxy and a strong radio source (Cetus A). It is also on Halton Arp’s list of peculiar galaxies. 

Cetus A has never been a challenge in any scope for me. This was one of the few that I could see easily with my 4-inch f/10 Newtonian from the backyard of the old Chaos Manor South downtown. On this evening? Bright. Fascinating. What you see is a large, nebulous envelope surrounding a bright central region with a disk and spiral arms. I bumped up the power to over 200x with the 5.7mm ES eyepiece in hopes of seeing that spiral structure, and I did get a glimpse or two of it on a night that was winding down. 

Mallas was impressed with M77, calling it “One of the best objects for viewing in small apertures.” Not surprisingly, the Unitron didn’t show any spiral features, He does, however, seem to see that the central area of Cetus A is different from that of other galaxies. 

The problem with M77 for the smartscope is that it's a little small, and there is a limit to the central detail you can expect.

M75 (Sagittarius) 

It’s not clear whether this one should be credited to Mechain or Messier. It is known that Charles at least confirmed Mechain’s observation in October of 1780. Once again, it was The Man, William Herschel, who first resolved this Magnitude 8.6 cluster. How to describe this glob? Tight, small, relatively bright. It’s a Shapley-Sawyer Type I, the most highly concentrated class. At only 6.8’ across, it is easy to see. 

I got to this one a little late; it was low enough that it wasn’t quite as bright as it should have been in a 10-inch telescope. Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t prominent and easy—it was. However, what I saw was nothing more than a grainy fuzzball with a reasonably bright core. 

His 4-inch presented John Mallas with an M55 that was just a nebulous ball with a bright core. In other words, not much different from what I saw in my 10-inch. I was, however, able to see a grainy texture suggesting resolution, which Mallas didn’t detect in his 4-inch. 

Small, low, on the dim side. Well, at least Suze and I got something. 

And then more clouds came. I waited ‘em out, and they began to thin (some) around 9pm, but only some. Astrospheric had begun talking about “mist,” and it now looked to me as if the clouds hadn’t really left; they had just reduced their altitude. As a check, I sent Zelda to NGC 891, the famous edge-on galaxy in Andromeda. Initially, I thought Astro-hopper had missed. Finally, I spotted a dim, slightly elongated glow in the field. I’ve seen this galaxy better with an 8-inch SCT. NGC 7331 was about the same, there, but lackluster. I could see it with fair ease, but the “deer” accompanying the Deer Lick Galaxy, the small galaxies in the field, were invisible. 

Time to throw the big switch? Nope… I wanted to try out my wonderful prize! Your aged Uncle, who rarely wins anything astronomical, had won a TeleVue eyepiece at the Saturday raffle drawing! And a very special (and specialized) TeleVue it was, the 55mm Plössl. This is an eyepiece I’ve thought about buying for years, but I have always hesitated. Mainly thanks to that enormous exit pupil, which is a bit large even for my SCTs. I had one now, though, and I was going to try it out on an f/5 telescope. 

M45 (Taurus) 

Wow! I won something!

Messier placed this galactic cluster in his list, but it had, of course been known since time immemorial—Homer mentions it. The Seven Sisters compose an enormous open cluster—the sisters are only a central region, and they encompass two full degrees of sky. These bright young stars shine with a combined magnitude of 1.5.  In former times the blue nebulosity associated with them was thought to be remnants of the gas that formed cluster the cluster. Then, someone mentioned the color, blue, which is indicative of reflection nebulosity, not hydrogen that forms stars. The Merope Nebula is merely dust with the consistency of cigarette smoke that the cluster is drifting through. 

First object for the 55mm? Why M45, of course. It was quite something to encompass most of the Pleiads in the field of a 10-inch telescope. Exit pupil, exit schmupil; I even convinced myself I saw a trace of the Merope Nebula (uh-huh). 

John has a lot to say about the Pleiades, but mostly background and technical information as it was known well nearly 60 years ago. His big Unitron was, after all, a very narrow instrument for this object. He does tell us of seeing the Merope Nebula with his scope from the dark skies of Arizona, though, which is a master class observation. 

I needed to post this article before I was able to give Suzie a shot at M45, but in the past she’s done a good job on the Daughters of Atlas. 

Saturn 

You can bet I visited Saturn before giving up the ship. With his rings near edge-on, some would say he isn’t quite his normal spectacular self. He is to me. This is the way I saw Saturn with a telescope for the first time, with my Palomar Junior in 1966. On this night, seeing was good; the shadow of the rings across the disk razor sharp in my 4.7mm Explore Scientific 82° ocular (265x). Coolest thing? Little Enceladus was visible just above the plane of the rings and almost seeming to touch them. 

Fun is fun but done is done. The sky didn’t slam shut; it just faded away as it got damper and damper. I covered the faithful Miss Zelda and headed for the Lodge. I was sad not to be able obey the rule my old friend, Pat, and I established many a long year ago, “No going to bed before M42 is up high enough to fool with,” but there was nothing for it. Shining my flashlight into the air produced a cone that looked like the Bat Signal. 

Sunday morning, Dorothy and I departed before breakfast, wanting to get home and check on the cats. It wasn’t pleasant loading sopping wet gear—it seemed more like the product of a downpour than a dew fall—but our simple field setup meant we were on the road in record time. 

The verdict on DSSG 2025? Attendance was 62, nowhere near what it was in the golden age of the 90s - 2000s but improved over the last years at its previous location. I predict the Deep South Star Gaze is on the way back up and has many more good years ahead of it. Our personal experience? Despite the weather, it was just great, and we plan to be back for 2026, I am also hoping to be at the spring edition of the star party, the 2026 Spring Scrimmage, which will also be held at Feliciana again.

Totals:  17 Down 93 to go…

Nota Bene:  You can see many more pictures in the DSSG 25 Photo Album on Unk's Facebook Page...

 

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.