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Small Wonders: Aquila a Monthly Sky Guide for the Beginning to Intermediate Amateur Astronomer Tom Trusock 23-Aug-2006

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Small Wonders: Aquila a Monthly Sky Guide for the Beginning to Intermediate Amateur Astronomer Tom Trusock 23-Aug-2006 Small Wonders: Aquila A monthly sky guide for the beginning to intermediate amateur astronomer Tom Trusock 23-Aug-2006 Figure 1. W idefield map 2/11 Small Wonders: Aquila Target List Object Type Size Mag RA DEC B142-3 Dark Nebula 80.0'x50.0' 19h 41m 02.0s +10° 57' 58" NGC 6709 Open Cluster 15.0' 6.7 18h 51m 49.8s +10° 21' 30" NGC 6738 Open Cluster 15.0' 8.3 19h 01m 43.7s +11° 36' 36" NGC 6751 Planetary Nebula 26" 11.9 19h 06m 17.9s Þ05° 58' 55" NGC 6755 Open Cluster 15.0' 7.5 19h 08m 09.9s +04° 16' 37" NGC 6756 Open Cluster 4.0' 10.6 19h 09m 03.3s +04° 43' 00" NGC 6760 Globular Cluster 9.6' 9 19h 11m 33.5s +01° 02' 31" NGC 6781 Planetary Nebula 1.9' 11.4 19h 18m 48.9s +06° 33' 10" NGC 6804 Planetary Nebula 1.1' 12 19h 31m 55.6s +09° 14' 25" NGC 6814 Galaxy 3.0'x2.8' 11.3 19h 43m 03.7s Þ10° 18' 33" Challenge Objects Object Type Size Mag RA DEC Palomar 11 Globular Cluster 3.2‘ 11.9 19h 45m 40.8s Þ08° 01' 03" Aquila quila œ the stellar eagle and pet of Zeus, is probably one of the more interesting constella- tions that Messier and his contemporaries overlooked. Yes, that‘s right, there are no Mess- A ier objects in Aquila, but that doesn‘t mean there aren‘t any interesting targets œ quite the opposite! Aquila offers something for nearly everyone, and as a large scope owner and lover of planetary nebulae, it‘s one of my favorite constellations. Figure 2: Aquila - Region 1 Tom Trusock 23-Aug-2006 Small Wonders: Aquila 3/11 Crossen (in Binocular Astronomy) tells us that Aquila is one of the many constellations that the Greeks received from earlier civilizations in Mesopotamia. He states that the Sumerian Eagle con- sisted only of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma trio, and notes that the Bedouin called this asterism Al- Nasr al-Tair, —the Flying Eagle“, and writes that the ancient Greek version of the Eagle was flying perpendicular to the way it is today. Aquila occupies some prime summer real estate. Lying astride the Milky Way and bordered Scu- tum and Sagitta it‘s a fantastic area to pull through with a rich field scope or pair of binoculars. It‘s home to a number of significant and interesting stars œ Altair, the bright Cepheid Eta, the long period variable R Aquilae, the —local“ red dwarf Van Biesbroeck‘s Star and V603 Aquilae which, in 1918, was one of most brilliant novae recorded in the last 300 years. E. E. Barnard and a young 17 year old Leslie Peltier were the co-discovers. Burnham‘s indicates that at discovery it was al- ready brighter than Altair, and soon outshone nearly every star in the sky reaching a peak bril- liance of magnitude Þ1.4 Blue tinted Altair (Alpha) forms one corner of the summer triangle (Vega, Deneb and Altair) and is the 11th brightest star in the night sky. It has a distance of around 16 light years and an apparent magnitude of 0.77. It also has an optical companion of around 10th magnitude. If you happen to gaze at Altair with a small scope or set of binoculars, take a minute to check out the color contrast with red /orange Gamma just two degrees to the northwest. But it‘s not the stars that are the primary attraction in Aquila œ it‘s the deep sky objects. Although it sits nearly neatly the summer milky way, it‘s surprisingly deficient in open clusters (only 17 cataloged) and diffuse nebulae (only 1). On the other hand, there are 112 planetary nebulae, 133 dark nebulae, 3762 galaxies, 4 quasars and even three globulars. Although Messier didn‘t find anything to include in his catalog, rest assured there‘s plenty here. Barnard 142 & 143, NGC 6803 & 6804 Let‘s start with a couple of wide field or binocular ob- jects; the dark nebulae Barnard 142 and 143. Begin by looking just over a degree northwest from magnitude 2.72 Gamma Aql (Tarazed) for a couple of strangely shaped dark blotches. Known as the —Fish on the Platter Nebula“ these two are not difficult to spot even through small binoculars when sky conditions are good. Next drop about 3 degrees south west to pick up the planetary nebula NGC 6804. Sometimes called the —Snowball Nebula“ this should be visible in scopes as small as six inches. In a medium sized telescope, this is an impressive planetary and should yield it‘s magnitude 13 central star to most observers. One of the things that stood out for me in my 12.1“ was the chain of 3-4 stars Figure 3: B142-3 visible right across the face. Look closely for mottling and changes in brightness in the outer shell. Carl Burton contributed the wonderful NGC 6804 image of figure 4. He took this with a C14 oper- ating at f12.4 mounted on an AP 1200 and an ST-8XE/AO-7 combo. While we‘re in the area, you might take some time to scan about a degree north for NGC 6803. You'll need a good set of finder charts though, as NGC 6803 is a good contrast to NGC 6804. Al- though it‘s located nearby, the two couldn‘t be more dissimilar. NGC 6803 is a difficult catch on the best of nights, appearing stellar at all but very high magnifications. To nab NGC 6803, you might try the time honored technique of —blinking“ using an OIII filter and flipping it in and out of the optical chain. Planetaries respond so well to this type of filter because it has the effect of im- proving the contrast between the planetary and the rest of the field. Look for a —star“ that doesn‘t dim when the OIII filter is in your field of vision. 23-Aug-2006 Tom Trusock 4/11 Small Wonders: Aquila Figure 4: NGC 6804 image courtesy Carl Burton NGC 6871 Since we‘re hunting planetaries, keep that OIII filter ready and head another 4 deg south west of NGC 6804 to find NGC 6781. In a medium sized telescope I found this planetary to be quite bright and very im- pressive. A chain of similar magnitude stars leads right into this planetary, giving it the illusion of being a lake at the bottom of some stellar waterfall. The planetary itself is a near perfect spatial bubble and in larger scopes, I find it reminds me somewhat of M57 in Lyra. This is my favorite planetary nebula in Aquila. Figure 5: NGC 6871 NGC 6738 & 6709 Now let‘s check out a couple of open clusters; NGC 6738 and 6709. Although classified as an open cluster in the NGC catalog, a new study by Boeche, Barbon, Henden, Munari and Agnolin has shown NGC 6738 to be an apparent concentration of a few bright stars and not a real cluster at all. Visually, it‘s a poorly concentrated grouping of stars of multiple magnitudes. There is a chain of stars running roughly north south through the proposed center of the —cluster“, and my mind connects these with another short chain running perpendicular and terminating on the N-S chain. In a 12“ scope, the —cluster“ looks a bit like an intersection with the brighter stars defining the roads. This object should be visible to moderate sized binoculars on a decent night. Tom Trusock 23-Aug-2006 Small Wonders: Aquila 5/11 Figure 6: NGC 6738 Figure 7: NGC 6709 By nearly any measure, I find NGC 6709 2.75 deg south west to be a —prettier“ open cluster. Visi- ble to the slightest optical aid, an 80mm resolves a significant number of stars, while larger scopes simply improve on the view. Carol Lakomiak provides us with this excellent sketch made through her 8“ SCT. Figure 8: Sketch of NGC 6709 courtesy Carol Lakomiak 23-Aug-2006 Tom Trusock 6/11 Small Wonders: Aquila Figure 9: Aquila - Region 2 NGC 6755 & 6756 Where you‘re finished here, head down to NGC 6756 and 6755. Located near each other, these clusters can be seen in the same field of view if your 6 inch (or larger) tele- scope will give you a ² deg (or better) field of view. In a small scope, these two clusters provide a nice contrast to one another, while the view thorough large telescopes begins to remind me of the Double Cluster. In any case NGC 6755 is clearly the larger and brighter. When studying NGC 6755, take care to look for a lane bisecting the cluster roughly North to South, and look for strings of stars radiat- ing out from the center. Figure 10: NGC 6755 & 6756 Tom Trusock 23-Aug-2006 Small Wonders: Aquila 7/11 NGC 6960 Dropping down to NGC 6760, this globular is a bright target and should be a fairly —easy“ catch even in small telescopes. A 12“ scope at high power just begins to hint at resolution of the globular, so don‘t expect M13 type experience. Still, this is a nice catch. Keep this image in mind when you look for the challenge object this eve- ning œ it‘s an excellent illustration on how differ- ent globulars can appear. Figure 11: NGC 6960 Figure 12: Aquila - Region 3 23-Aug-2006 Tom Trusock 8/11 Small Wonders: Aquila NGC 6751 Just off the tip of the Eagle, we find our last planetary for the night œ NGC 6751.
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