JUNE 2013 OBSERVERS CHALLENGE – NGC-5466

On the night of June 11th, we had a cool front come through.  The sky was great, especially for this time of the year in the foothills of North Carolina.  

Using a 10-inch reflector at 57x, globular cluster NGC 5466 has very low surface brightness, very dim, mostly round, and without any resolution of stars at the lower magnification.  

A brighter mag. 7 star, is located very close to the SW edge. This observation was made from my moderately light polluted backyard, with a NELM of about 5.2.  

NGC 5466, does not appear as a typical globular, and is very dim, even with a 10-inch reflector.   

The following sketch was made using a 5 x 8 note card, and a No. 2 pencil with the colors inverted using a scanner. 

When increasing the magnification to 104x, approximately fifteen faint stars could be counted using averted vision.  The cluster became a bit more irregular in shape, but the surface remained very even.  

It should be noted, however, that on two nights earlier with much higher humidity, which reduced the transparency, NGC 5466 could not be seen at all.    Roger Ivester

When using the 10-inch, I could see NGC 5466, using a magnification of 104x, but with difficulty.  A few of the brighter members sparkled with averted vision.  The shape appeared mostly round and I did notice one brighter star very close to the cluster.  This globular seemed really dim to me, and again, fairly difficult.   Debbie Ivester