Alright, this is for sharing of your observation experience. Or, if you are arranging gatherings, star-gazing expeditions or just want some company to go observing together, you can shout it out here.
Hi Sam,
Is this the Mag 20 planetary nebula we saw on the first night on the 10"LX200 and were so amazed it was so bright for a Mag 20 object ?
As I recall, I can't tell why its called a "bug" nebula since it did not resemble one but Chuan Yee seemed to think it does.
rich
Hi,
Nope, the Mag 20 object we saw was not the Bug Nebula.
Sam Lee : We did observe an object that was clearly listed as Mag 20 on the Autostar ! I couldn't believe my eyes either. Richard, did you note down the catalogue number of that Mag 20 thingy ? (or maybe like you said, we could have pressed the 'next' button by accident and the magnitude of that next object was displayed instead)
Oh, and before I forget, another interesting object we saw on the first night through the 10" LX200 was this pair of interacting galaxies called the "Ring-Tail" galaxy. Cool ! (it's nice to have GOTO sometimes eh ? )
Nope, the Mag 20 object we saw was not the Bug Nebula.
Sam Lee : We did observe an object that was clearly listed as Mag 20 on the Autostar ! I couldn't believe my eyes either. Richard, did you note down the catalogue number of that Mag 20 thingy ? (or maybe like you said, we could have pressed the 'next' button by accident and the magnitude of that next object was displayed instead)
Oh, and before I forget, another interesting object we saw on the first night through the 10" LX200 was this pair of interacting galaxies called the "Ring-Tail" galaxy. Cool ! (it's nice to have GOTO sometimes eh ? )
I went through my "A" list for that night and can't seem to find that object.
Maybe it was accessed randomly through the autostar...
rich
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R United Federation of the Planets
Hi,
I finally went through my autostar and confirmed the Mag 20 object we saw (or thought we saw) is NGC 6337. Strange, although the autostar listed it as Mag 20, I did a search and there are altenative sources that indicated it as having a visual mag of 12.3 instead. In anycase, for those who saw it and want to recap, here is an image of it courtesy of ngcic.com ....
Hi Woei Jiin (hope I got the name right)
wooo....very nicely composed and framed images...
I didn't know you are also an accomplished photogapher! thought you are one of those point and shoot types...
Can you consider uploading the images into singastro album database, so the images can be left for future viewing ? Do remember to identify the people in the photographs too...
thanks!
rich
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R United Federation of the Planets
There quite a number of other astro dudes and dudettes who are photography buffs. There is a definite correlation between the 2 hobbies: astronomy & photography. Afterall, it's lights & optics! Ha....
Chris,
Juz bring your camera along during the next trip & the bunch of us can go trigger happy together ya.
I was just running Celestron's The Sky software just now and I realized that other than the Bug Nebula, there are actually 2 other interesting planetary nebulae in that area ! One of them is 'The Little Ghost' planetary and the other is called the 'Box Nebula'. Anyone managed to observe these in the recent CME 2004 ?
Looking at the magnitude and apparent size of both, I think we shouldn't have had any problems in observing them on both the first and last nights of CME 2004 (Little Ghost mag 13, 1.1', Box Neb mag 11, 1.1' . Bug Neb was mag 12.8, 0.8'). On closer examination, I found to my horror that the star atlas I had with me then does not show them at all and caused me to overlook them as a result ! :x :x :x
)
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." 
