October 6, 2024

Fall Messiers

October 5, 2024. Cherry Springs. 20" F/4. T 4/5, S 4/5. SQM 21.1, diffuse aurora. Fall Messiers.

M75. Inside an arc of 4 bright stars. Concentrated to a bright center. Begins to be resolved in 8 mm.

M72. 8 mm. Resolved, poorly concentrated, and appears to be shaped like a horseshoe crab.

M30. 8 mm. Resolved. Moderately concentrated to a core that appears off-round. 3 or 4 streams of bright stars sweep to one side from the core.

M2. 8 mm. Resolved to the core. Smoothly concentrated and round. Magnificent sight.

M15. Large but well framed by the 8 mm 100-degree. Resolved. Periphery appears radially scattered, rich in bright stars. Core concentrated to a bright unresolved nucleus. Symmetrical save for a dark sector at the periphery.

M52. No concentration, well detached. Just framed by the 8 mm. Uniformly bright stars. Warmly tinged lucida on the edge.

M103. 8 mm. Moderately rich in a rich star field, yet well detached. No concentration. Dominated by a string of stars that is shaped like a question mark. This string connects two brightest stars and passes through a reddish star in the middle.

M76. 8 mm. Large, bilobed. One side brighter, elongated and has a star on its edge. The other side is larger, longer, and continues in a spiral fashion to a faint separated patch.

M31. Extremely large, stretches across multiple fields in the 8 mm. Small bright nucleus, nonstellar. Two massive dark lanes with a stretch of faint nebulosity beyond the second one. NGC 206 embedded among less prominent mottling on one end.

M32 in 8 mm appears elongated in the direction of the M31 core. Bright, sharp but nonstellar nucleus.

M110 greatly elongated in 8 mm and has an elongated core with a star embedded next to the nucleus.