rogerivester

Notes and sketch by Sue French from New York:

I went out on December 4th to observe NGC 1003, which was my first clear, moonless night since October 30th.  Apparently the weather gods have a wry sense of humor, since this was my wedding anniversary.  We took out my homemade 254/1494mm Newtonian (10-inch f5.8).  The seeing was fair, the transparency good, and the ground was covered with snow. 

The night was slightly breezy and the temperature 19 ºF.  At 68×NGC 1003 is a faintly visible oval near a 10th-magnitude star to its west-southwest.  At 187× the galaxy is nearly uniform in brightness, and a faint star appears along its northern flank. The galaxy looks more flocculent at 299×, and a slightly brighter region rests between the two flanking stars. The sketch was done at this magnification.   Sue French 

Re: Comet 46P Wirtanen:

We also looked at Comet 46P Wirtanen through Alan’s 15×50 image-stabilized binoculars.  

Pencil sketch by Sue French: 

Pencil sketch by Roger Ivester 

This entry was posted on December 7, 2018 at 12:56 am and is filed under Observer's Challenge Reports. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Responses are currently closed, but you can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.