Observation Targets for this Weekend

[siva]

Observation targets for this week

Hello everyone,

This is a new series where we will post a list of targets for observers of all kinds - naked eyes, binoculars and telescopes.

It will be great if you could comment here with your observation logs, your experience in spotting them, any tips that you want to share on spotting these objects, photographs and anything related to these objects(or any other interesting objects that we might have missed out).

The purpose of doing this here and not on Facebook is because

• We would like to try and keep things organised(categorise posts so that people can look at what they want)
• Keep our discussions discoverable to others and SEOs. One big issue we have with Facebook is that quality posts disappear after a day or two and it’s too hard for future members to find something related to what they are looking for. One example for this is the weekly “What telescope should I buy?” questions that we get even though we have answered it multiple times and even wrote a long blog post about it.
• A platform for people who cannot and do not want to use Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. Hosting our own forum keeps all our data in our server and they will not be used for advertising and tracking purposes. This forum is a Discourse instance whose code is opensource.

I encourage you to take a look at the various features of this forum, ask questions, interact with us as much as possible and let’s all learn something from one another

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Naked eyes

If you look towards east an hour or so after sunset, you will be able to see Jupiter and Saturn close together.

Binoculars

M6, M7 - Open Clusters in Scorpius

These are two bright open star clusters that are visible even from light polluted skies. They even show up on long exposure photographs taken from the city.

Telescopes

M57, the Ring Nebula

This is one of the few planetary nebulae that’s visible easily from the city skies. It’s also easy to spot located right in the middle of two stars of the small yet easy to recognise constellation of Lyra.

Do go out and spot these objects! Do share your observation logs, tips and photographs in comments.

Wish you clear skies,
Siva

[ramasubramaniam]

Venus too we can spot early morning around 3.30 to dawn, Towards East direction. And Mercury also visible northeastern direction between 5 - 5.30.

[AdithyaDivakar]

Here’s a picture from May 14. It was one of those really clear nights with no haze or clouds and I got an opportunity to shoot the Central core of the milkyway.

I chose this frame because I wanted to show the milkyway, but also the Lagooon and Trifid Nebulae.

Shot with a Nikon D750 | 135mm | f2 | ISO 2000. 200 Photos stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop.2020-05-13T20:00:00Z

[siva]

@AdithyaDivakar

This looks beautiful! I think M7 is also visible in this.

One suggestion from my side would be to start using flat frames. They will remove the vignetting that you see in this. You can actually do them even now and add to the existing image. You will have to set the same f ratio, focus, focal length, ISO and only the shutter speed should be different. The simplest technique that I use is to cover the lens with a white veshti or t-shirt and then taking photos while pointing at a bright wall.

[AdithyaDivakar]

Definitely will do. Thanks for the feedback. I do appreciate it!

[Pooja28]

NGC 6231 north of zeta scorpii is also a naked eye sight under clear skies. Amazing under binoculars! Sagittarius star cloud(open cluster) north of Sagittarius is very hard to miss in a binoculars. Also star clusters at the center of Trifid and lagoon nebulae are a beautiful sight in binos although the dust and cloud surrounding it is not meant for binos. M39 in Cygnus at 4.6 mag is a treat as well.

As seen in a skymaster 20×80. My attempt at sketching the Ptolemy cluster

[siva]

@Pooja28, that’s a fantastic sketch! Can you please make a separate post about this in the “Visual Observations & Logs” category with tips on how to get started with sketching? It would be helpful to all of us.

[Pooja28]

Will get started on it.