2024 November 4

Deep Sky Update – October 2024

Callum Potter

October has been another windy month with not many opportunities for good observing. I did manage a couple of hours in the early part of the month with the Seestar and caught NGC 404 and my targets in the October Journal article. The Seestar is a bit ‘wide’ for small galaxies and galaxy clusters, so although they were detected that was about it. I also went for NGC 7331 and Stephan’s quintet – and it is remarkable how well the Seestar finds objects and can capture them in quite small exposures. I have found that the Seestar does not cope too well with Orkney winds, resulting in a lot of stack failures. Here is a medley of some of my images.

I also had a couple of clear early evening spells to catch comet C/2023 A3 – which for me was not as nice as NEOWISE in 2020, so hopefully we might get a better comet this decade, or century.

ZWO have released the much trailed ‘mosaic’ more for the Seestar but i’ve not had a chance to try that out in earnest yet. Interesting to see that the Seestar 30 has now been released – a smaller aperture and wider field seems to be its main features. I expect it will be a popular addition to the range, though I’d prefer to see a version with a smaller width of field than the S50.

Beverly Lynds

I was sad to hear of the passing of Beverly Lynds in early October at the age of 95.
She is probably best known for her two landmark catalogues; Lynds Dark Nebulae and Lynds Bright Nebulae. The LDN catalogue was developed first in an effort to extend E. E. Barnards catalogue. She traced the outlines of dark nebulae from Palomar Sky Survey plates and measured their position, size and estimated darkness. Her catalogue comprised 1802 dark nebulae. She later did the same for Bright Nebulae which lists 1125 entries.

There are quite a lot of targets for amateurs to target in these two catalogues, but just a smattering seem to gain attention. Maybe some members might like to more systematically observe these.

Deep Sky Autumn Webinar

If you missed the Autumn Webinar or if you want to watch again, it’s available on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/live/0E_4OTs3vRg?si=QrMR1K7kGdhRGJJK
Many thanks to Adam and Jim for their fascinating talks.

Deep Sky Section Meeting 2025

With the webinar now done, my thoughts are now focusing on the Section Meeting on 22nd March in Goostrey. I have a couple of speakers lined up, but need some more, so if you would like to give a talk (long or short) at the meeting please let me know.

Object of Interest for October

NGC 404, the Ghost of Mirach, an elliptical galaxy very close to Beta Andromedae was the October OOI, and I was pleased to see a few images and receive visual reports. Frank Dempsey from Canada writes:
“I enjoyed visually looking for NGC 404. My visual observation of NGC 404 the night of Friday October 4, 2024 at a very dark sky location in Ontario, Canada with a 20-cm f/4 Newtonian reflector, was that it was a fuzzy spot making a perfect equilateral triangle with the bright star Beta AND. When I observed it previously with a 28-cm SCT (Celestron C11) at a magnification of 230x a couple of years ago during August 20, 2022, my notes were that it was a “distinct round fuzzpatch north of Beta AND”. ”

And Jim Latham writes:
“It’s a couple of years since I’ve looked at NGC 404, so thought I’d better check it out having suggested it! It was better than I remember, surprisingly bright and a very pleasing composition, forming a triangle with brilliant, orangey Mirach and mag 8.5 star. ”

Dale Holt sent a sketch from a few years ago. And images were posted on Members Albums from Alan Thomas, Iain Cartwright, Ivan Walton,and David Strange

Many thanks to everyone that had a go at this one.

November Object of Interest

Jim Latham has picked NGC 40, a planetary nebula in Cepheus, as the November OOI. It should not be too hard for visual observers and should be in easy range for imagers, though maybe a little small for Seestar 50 users (I’ll find out next clear night!).

October Picture of the Month

From the October observations my pick is this image of Arp 278 by Paul Downing. A fascinating pair of interacting galaxies picked out nicely by Paul.

And Finally

The winter months now seem to be upon us – longer, darker nights, and the winter constellations will soon be easily accessible, with no end of exciting targets. Good observing for the rest of the year.

Clear, dark skies,
Callum