The Veil and M32

Midway through the Red Sox game I paused the DVR and headed outside for an hour of observing. My goal was to ensure that I had captured The Veil Nebula a few weeks ago when I wasn't sure I had grabbed it.

I bundled up and reclined my beach chair. The Veil was at a comfortable 50 or so degrees up, just about perfect for binocular viewing. Any lower and you are looking through too much air, any higher and the seating gets uncomfortable.

I followed my pointer stars in the chart from the wonderful Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas. Lets see, draw a line from those two naked eye bright ones, then look for a row of three, then two real close to each other. Then down a bit.

I had only been outside about 10 minutes when I finally saw the very dim glow of the NGC 6992 / NGC 6995 complex. This is definitely what I saw a few weeks ago. I very carefully confirmed all the stars in the chart against the plethora of stars in the sky. Yes, I had it.

(Image from Wikipedia, you should click the link if you want to see a huge image of the Veil)

I then tried for the other 2 "parts." Both NGC 6979 and 6960 should have been easy pickups, the pointers are obvious, but alas, no matter how much I tried they never jumped out at me. Oh, I'll go on record saying that with averted vision I saw a haze where 6979 is, and once, just once I thought I saw a brightening for 6960.

All in all I'd say it was a pretty good outing for a pair of 50mm binoculars without OIII filters! I hate getting all ready and then not doing some more, so even with the lure of the Sox calling, I spun the chair around and looked a The Pleiades, no counting stars, no splitting doubles, just looking how pretty it is!

I then reclined fully and went up to Andromeda. I've seen the galaxy a lot this time, but tonight I wanted M32. Again, carefully, I looked at the star patterns and sure enough, there was a very small dim spot that didn't appear stellar, just where the chart said it should be. Yay!

And for a bonus, I also got to see what I guess was a tumbling satellite. It moved very slowly through the star field, flashing very brightly about every 5-6 seconds. It took about a minute to traverse M31. What a nice bonus.