Hello astronomy fans! I got out for another four and a half hours on Aug. 26/27 and had a very productive night.
Jupiter was its brilliant self with all four Galilean Moons to the west and the Great Red Spot was plainly visible.
While looking for the planetary nebula NGC 6818 "The Little Gem" I got my first look at Barnard's (or the Sagittarius) Dwarf Galaxy. It is a very faint diffuse glow of light that is surrounded by a field of dim stars. It is easiest to spot if you look to the edges where you can see the open, very black space interact with the brighter glow of the object . It is big, I would guess that is is a half degree or more in angular diameter.
The Little Gem was a treat and not hard to find. I had seen it before at star parties, but this was the first time I had found it for myself. On to NGC 6802 a dim open cluster in Vulpecula that looks more like a "faint fuzzy" galaxy than an open cluster. It is beautiful. I caught NGC 6781 the planetary nebula in Aquila that Randy and I looked at during the Star BQ. Then it was on to NGC's 6823 and 6830 two nice little star clusters in Vulpecula that required careful starhopping.
Then the wind picked up and I settled in with an adult beverage and my binoculars. I looked at the Pleadies, the Hyades, Algol, M34, the Andromeda Galaxy and company, the Perseus Double Cluster and Stock 2 (looks like a stick man) and then found Kembles Cascade in Camelopardalis. I needed on more Herschel Object to hit 180 and accomplished that by finding NGC 1502 a planetary nebula near the bottom of the Cascade. Very pretty and very satisfying to hit 180. 🙂
I had quite a few faint to medium bright meterors through the night. Almost all of them went from SW to NE. The last one I saw while packing up was a 1st mag. meteor that dove down to the Big Dipper low above the northern horizon going from SE to NW. It had a nice green trail.
This weekend looks to be very good for astronomy. I'm going out tonight and hope to see some of you at Eagle Bluff Fri and Sat nights. Io reappears from Jupiters shadow at 10:13 CDT on Sat. nite. I''d like to watch the whole thing unfold, and should be able to knowing the timing beforehand. See you there!