I have not been completely idle over the last two months. Here are a few observations to catch me up to the present.
7 July 2013 was clear but a little warm and humid. Even though transparency was decent, I could only spot two of the three galaxies in Trio #36 in Libra. At about mag 12.8, NGC 5915 was an easy direct vision galaxy, elongated with a stellar nucleus. At mag 14.2, NGC 5916 was more difficult. It was dim, very elongated, and did not have a stellar nucleus. At mag 15.1, the third member of the trio, NGC 5916A was not visible.
On 17 August 2013, I went out to look for Nova Delphini. The evening was partly cloudy with a waxing gibbous Moon but the nova was easy to spot with my 7×35 binoculars directly above Delphinus and off the point of Sagitta. It was the brightest star in the binocular field of view. The sky was too bright from the Moon and too cloudy to see it naked eye (although at last report the nova was at magnitude 4.4 which should have been visible to the naked eye with better conditions).
I had even worse observing luck on my galaxy trios with #39 in Draco. On 24 August 2013, the seeing and transparency were both good but in spite of that I could only see one galaxy, NGC 6608, a small, dim, roundish galaxy that became gradually brighter toward the center and showed a dim stellar nucleus. It seemed dimmer than its listed mag 14.3. It was flanked by two dim field stars to the SSW and NNE. NGC 6607 & 6609 were not visible. Again, they seemed to be dimmer than their listed mags of 14.6 and 15.0.
Hickson 85 was almost a “no show.” The night of 25 August 2013 was mostly clear but only after several minutes of viewing could I just barely detect the presence of a faint round spot corresponding to the galaxy C 341-10. Its listed magnitude is 15.1. None of the other three galaxies in this group in Draco were visible to me, with mags of 15.6, 17.0, and 17.0.
I had better luck with the additional group #42, snaring four of the seven galaxies on 3 September 2013. The night was very clear and that seemed to make a good bit of difference. All were averted vision galaxies varying in magnitude from 12.3 ( NGC 6338 ) to 15.7.
Lastly, on 4 September 2013, I got two out of six listed galaxies in Additional Galaxy Group #43 (NGC 6472 group). This was a cool and clear “sweatshirt” evening with temps in the mid 60’s. NGC 6463 actually appeared brighter to me even though it was listed as mag 15.1 and NGC 6472 was listed as mag 14.2
If I had the option of looking for these galaxies only when the transparency was exceptionally good, I’m sure I would see more of them. Unfortunately, I would also never finish this project as nights of exceptionally good transparency are rare, especially in the summertime in the South.
