M29, M39, M71, and M92

Tonight was a very clear night, just came back from our friend Jessica's cottage, whose dark skies were very beautiful, its a shame I did not bring my scope with me! The difference in the northern skies and the skies in Ajax was quite astounding, the stars in the two dippers and Cassiopia were significantly dimmer, and it was hard to find the dimmer constellations at first glance. Tonight I decided to target some previously seen, but yet-to-be-documented Messier Objects, the only new one tonight was M71 in Saggiti. Below is a log of my observations, I was able to get them all in in about an hours time, spending about 10-20 min on each ones, some of the dimmer clusters were not that exciting :)


AstroByte Logging System


Messier Number 29 NGC # 6913 Name / Type Open Cluster
RA 20 23.9 DEC 38 32 Constellation CYG Mag 9.0 Size 7

Instrument Used NewStar 10" Magnifications Used 38x
Seeing Conditions Transparency 4 Seeing 4 Observing Location Ajax, On
Local Date 9/ 5/2005 Local Time 10:10pm
UTC Time & Date 9/6/2005 2:10:00 AM
Personal Notes
This small cluster was fairly hard to find for me, i had to really look hard to make out the 'mini dipper' in my ST80
finder with a 30mm EP. But once found it was hard to miss the shape of this small cluster. In the 10" scope
the 4 main stars that make the dipper were very easy to see.


Messier Number 39 NGC # 7092 Name / Type Open Cluster
RA 21 32.2 DEC 48 26 Constellation CYG Mag 5.5 Size 32

Instrument Used NewStar 10" Magnifications Used 38x
Seeing Conditions Transparency 4 Seeing 4 Observing Location Ajax, On
Local Date 9/ 5/2005 Local Time 10:15PM
UTC Time & Date 9/6/2005 2:15:00 AM
Personal Notes
This large cluster was first seen in my binoculars a month or so ago, and was seen as a large hazy patch. Once viewed in the ST80 and the 10" this shows the individual stars. This cluster takes up almost the Entire FOV with my 32mm EP.


Messier Number 71 NGC # 6838 Name / Type Globular Cluster
RA 19 53.8 DEC 18 47 Constellation SGE Mag 8.5 Size 7.2

Instrument Used NewStar 10" Magnifications Used 38x
Seeing Conditions Transparency 4 Seeing 4 Observing Location Ajax, On
Local Date 9/ 5/2005 Local Time 10:00PM
UTC Time & Date 9/6/2005 2:00:00 AM
Personal Notes
M71 was a very plain globular to me. I had difficulties resolving anything in the 10" and in the ST80 with a 30mm EP was a very hard to spot circular smudge!


Messier Number 92 NGC # 6341 Name / Type Globular Cluster
RA 17 17.1 DEC 43 08 Constellation HER Mag 7.5 Size 11.2

Instrument Used NewStar 10" Magnifications Used 38x
Seeing Conditions Transparency 4 Seeing 4 Observing Location Ajax, On
Local Date 9/ 5/2005 Local Time 10:05PM
UTC Time & Date 9/6/2005 2:05:00 AM
Personal Notes
I have viewed M92 many times before the first time being around the end of June 2005. M92 is a very bright globular, but 1/3 of the size of the great globular M13, which is very close by. M92 was very prominent even in the ST80, and in the 10" i could start to reslove stars at 38x.