From my viewpoint in
Arizona Cygnus is “the constellation that never goes away”.
It seems to be up late in autumn, we have even seen it on the
western horizon in January, and then is rises again in April and
stays nearly overhead for half a year. A constellation with this
much to view and all that time to view it yields many observations.
Let’s take a look.
NGC 7000 is the North
America Nebula. This large area of nebulosity needs a rich field
telescope (RFT) to be seen in its entirety. A dim glow can be seen
in the area with the naked eye and 10 X 50 binoculars at a dark site
will show the North America shape. In a 4 1/4" f/4 with a 20mm
Erfle and a UHC filter, the nebula is very bright and very large,
filling the field with nebulosity. The brightest section is "Mexico"
and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5067) can be seen nearby.
I enjoyed the small RFT
so much I decided to build a 6" f/6 Newtonian RFT. On a night I
rated 7/10 for transparency the view of the North American was one of
the best I have ever seen. Using a friend’s 35mm Panoptic and
2" UHC filter, there is nebulosity all over the field, with
"Mexico" the brightest section. There are several dark
lanes within the “continental” shape, and many stars
involved in the nebula. The star cluster NGC 6997 is pretty bright,
pretty large and somewhat compressed with 11 stars resolved in the 6
incher. Going to a 22mm Panoptic shows the cluster having 18 stars
resolved, 8 are very faint and there is an obvious glow on
un-resolved stars around the cluster. The "Pelican"
section is obvious. This also cost me some money, I purchased a 35mm
Panoptic after this viewing session and have never regretted it.
Every once in a while I
have an astrophoto of my own that I feel the urge to insert in one of
these articles. Here is a shot on film with my 135mm f/3.5 lens. It
is a 30 minutes exposure on Fuji 800 film. Notice the rich star
field above the North America Nebula.
NGC 7008 is a pretty
bright, pretty large and round planetary nebula at 200X using a 17.5"
telescope. It has several irregular bright spots and three stars are
involved in the nebula. There is a nice blue and gold double star at
its edge. Using the 13" some years later, I said the nebula is
elongated 2 X 1 in PA 45, also that there is a nice dark lane in the
nebulosity.
Viewing through a 6"
f/8 refractor with a 14mm eyepiece this nebula is pretty bright,
pretty small, elongated 2X1 in PA 45 degrees and 1 star is involved
approximately in the center. There is a double star attached at its
edge. Going to the 6.7mm eyepiece shows the central star easier and
the double star appears as light yellow and light blue with fair
color contrast.
NGC 7026 is a planetary
nebula with a very unusual shape. Observing with Larry Mitchell’s
36" shows this nebula as truly bizarre. It appears like two
pancakes edge-on with blackberry syrup in between them. It appears
as two pretty bright, small, short arcs of nebulosity with a thin
area of darkness between them. The nebulosity grows to double its'
size with averted vision. No central star is seen.
Dropping back in
aperture to a Nexstar 11 inch SCT on a good night about 100 miles
from Phoenix it is easily seen at 120X. My notes say it is pretty
bright, pretty small and elongated 1.8X1. Going to 320X provides a
nice view, there are now two pieces to this nebula and averted vision
makes it much larger.
NGC 7027 is an emission
nebula that gets included with planetaries because it is only 5"
in size, a reasonable error. It seems bright, pretty small and
elongated 2X1 in PA 135 at 135X in the 17.5 inch. The central star
is seen occasionally and it has a nice blue-green color. This nebula
is somewhat rectangular and has a bright spot on the NW side at 220X.
Moving up to 330X will hold the star more steady, but something
truly strange has happened, the star is seen as light aqua in color.
I assume that this fascinating effect happens because the star is
embedded deep within the nebula from our point of view. Don’t
miss it if you have a chance to observe this strange nebula.
M 39 is a very bright,
large and loose cluster northeast of the star Deneb. In dark skies,
this cluster is naked eye and was noted by Aristotle in 325 B.C. as a
comet like object. Only at the darkest observing locations I have
seen it naked eye and I found it best with averted vision. Using
10X50 binoculars I counted 17 stars involved within a triangular
cluster that stands out well from the Milky Way background glow. In
a 6" f/6 Maksutov-Newtonian and a 22mm Panoptic it is bright,
very large and is somewhat scattered. I resolved 38 stars within the
cluster. There are several nice pairs of stars involved. You feel
like even with only 6 inches of aperture, you got all that this big
splashy cluster has to offer.
Le Gentil 3 is also the
Northern Coal Sack, this huge dark marking in the Milky Way is
between Cygnus and Cepheus, with the cluster M 39 near its edge. It
is impressive even with the naked eye and cuts the Milky Way right
through. Even my wide field binoculars, 8X42 with a six degree
field, don't quite take it all in. The central oval section fits
with a lovely chain of stars outlining the dark contour on the north
and west sides. I would estimate that the central oval is 4 X 6
degrees and has 22 stars enveloped within the dark cloud. The
"extension" from this dark oval is toward the east it is
about two degrees long and one degree wide with M 39 on its edge.
Moving up to the 4 inch f/6 RFT with a 22mm Panoptic eyepiece shows
some beautiful dark lanes that create a lace effect from the
interplay of light and dark. All in all, a fascinating area;
centered at 21h 13m and +50 42.
Here is my image of LeG
3 with a 35mm lens. The bright star on the right is Deneb and the
North American Nebula is below it. The dark area in the center of
the image is LeG 3. M 39 is below it, at this scale it is pretty
small and only resolves about 8 stars.
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