For illustrative purposes, an excellent way to present the general location of a deep-sky object is to use a wide-field cell phone photo. This works far better than a copy from a star atlas or printed finder charts. After all, you are showing a true wide-field photo of the real-sky. Then just mark or circle the deep-sky object via the photo.

I made the following cell photo Wednesday morning April 1st 2024, at 3:15 AM EDT from my suburban backyard.

I’ve been attempting to see galaxy NGC 6118 located in Serpens, from my suburban backyard for quite a while now.

However, If I can’t see an object more than 25% of the time or intermittently using averted vision, and I know, I’m on the spot, I might not really be seeing it. 

Our mind can sometimes trick us into seeing things that are really not there, such as a faint galaxy.

Galaxy, NGC 6118 located in Serpens:

So has it been with galaxy “NGC 6118, known as the Blinking Galaxy” which many feel to be the most difficult object in the entire Herschel 400 list.  Since last August, and two early morning observing sessions in the past couple months, I can’t “now say” for sure that I’ve seen it.

If this continues from my suburban backyard, overlooking some moderate light pollution…well, I might be willing to travel to a dark site.  Something I really don’t like to do anymore.

The following photo was made using my cellphone: Wednesday, April 1st @ 3:15 AM EDT.  

Note the constellation Scorpius, and go up (north) in the photo to the pair of brighter stars, known as Yed Prior and Yed Posterior.  NGC 6118 is just to the N (or up of this pair of stars.)

If you’re not using a GoTo mount, then go to your star atlas for greater precision to complete your observation (hopefully) of galaxy NGC 6118.  

iPhone 14 photo (handheld) as following:  

This entry was posted on May 2, 2024 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Roger's Articles. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.