november-2016-observers-challenge-ngc-0206

The close-up image was taken with a 10-inch f/6.9 Newtonian with an SBIG ST-2000XCM CCD camera 18 X 10 min. The wide-field image was taken with a 71mm f5.9 APO with an SBIG STF-8300C CCD camera, 6 X 10 min.  James Dire 

Notes by Roger Ivester

NGC-206 can be visually observed with a 10-inch reflector and I feel certain it can also be seen with an 8-incher, and probably a 6-inch.

Current observations: M31 star cloud, or NGC-206, without success on two nights last week (November 2016). The cloud was a bit too low in the east, and was involved with sky glow as I had mentioned earlier. I’m going to wait till the moon is out of the way this month and allow it to be at its highest point, and hopefully with excellent transparency.

I was pleasantly pleased to find three sketches and numerous notes from years past of M31, which also included NGC-206. The following “rough” field sketch was made using my 10-inch reflector and a 32mm EP. The magnification was 36X with a 1.7º FOV.

November 3, 1996: Extra supplemental notes for this sketch describing NGC 206: Very faint, fuzzy patch with a NS elongation. Faint, small, with very low surface brightness. Averted vision required, very difficult, but easier when using 71X.

January 11, 1997: 10-inch reflector at 57X. Averted vision required to see both the NW dark lane and NGC-206, which was a very faint, nebulous spot, with an irregular shape.  A Sky-Glow filter seemed to improve the visibility of the M31 dark lane.

Note:  NGC-206 is located in the SW section of the spiral arm. This is an older sketch and I was never able to get out to do a better one. Not my best work.  

Roger Ivester

This entry was posted on December 8, 2016 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Work File Only - Observer's Challenge Reports. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.