3 June 2006 Observation

It’s almost a week since last observation. The night skies this weeks were really encouraging. Of course, I wouldn’t miss the chance to observe the charming sky. However, most of the objects in Tonight’s Best were either blocked by my house or they were just too faint. One of them was 20 in magnitude! This object was impossible for my 8″ telescope. I think I’ll be able to view some brighter objects after I get my notebook for astrophotography. As the sky was very clear, I decided not to observe planet in this observation.

Date: 3 June 2006
Time: 11:04PM GMT+8
Sky Condition: Extremely clear except north-east sky

Objects Observed
Galaxies

• NGC3377
• NGC4261

Star Clusters

• Messier 68 (NGC4590, Globular Cluster)
• Jewel Box ( NGC4755, Caldwell 94, Open Cluster)

Nebulas

• Coal Sack (Dark Nebula)

NGC3377 is a galaxy. Most of the mass in this galaxy is not in stars but in a mysterious form of “dark matter” which scientists have not yet indentified. I didn’t see this object as it’s blocked by my house.

NGC4261 was west in Virgo and 2′ in size. It’s a 10.3 magnitude galaxy. Therefore, it’s nearly impossible to be seen using small telescope. I didn’t see this though. It’s believed to have a black hole in this elliptical galaxy whose mass is equal to 400 millions stars like our Sun.

Messier 068 is not visible again. I doubt this is due to the unprecise pointing of my telescope. I got to ask the experienced.

Coal Sack is also known as Caldwell 99. It’s a dark nebula in Crux. It’s a 20 magnitude dark nebula! No wonder, I couldn’t see it for the whole night. Luckily I did check the autostar for its information. However, it’s 400′ in size which is very big!

Lastly, It’s the Jewel Box. Don’t you think its name is quite wonderful? It’s also known as NGC4755, Caldwell 94 I didn’t find it a jewel box but a frog. It’s a 4.1 magnitude and 10′ open cluster. I checked the magnitude before I observe this object as I didn’t want to waste any time to look at a very faint object like the one just now. I learnt the lesson! By the way, it’s best seen in low power and wide field eyepiece.