Astronomy magazine recently published a "new" DSO observing list: the Bennett Catalog. (It's a compilation of prior lists by Bennett.) The catalog appears in the article "A southern-sky Messier catalog" by Michael Bakich, July 2006, pp. 76-81.
While the object lists were developed in South Africa by comet hunter Jack Bennett, most of the objects are viewable by observers living in the Northern Hemisphere.
I have received permission from Astronomy magazine to distribute adapted versions of the catalog. I took their PDF document and converted it into an Excel spreadsheet. I then streamlined that, retaining all objects with declinations more northerly than -40. That produced a list with 100 objects!
I call it the "Bennett 100". It is designed for northern observers (even those observing as far north as 50 degrees latitude).
I also created an Excel version of the full Bennett catalog, which you can sort by declination for your latitude and observing horizon.
The files are .xls documents, but are openable in AppleWorks, too. I've created a web page where you can fetch them. It's
http://home.roadrunner.com/~lstedman/
Both are simple files with columns for Bennett number, Messier/NGC number, type of object, constellation, magnitude, RA, and declination. The Bennett numbers are those from the original Astronomy magazine article.
The document is ordered by RA. I've added several columns that break the RA into hours and minutes and Dec into degrees and minutes for sorting purposes.
Hope you all find them useful!
While the object lists were developed in South Africa by comet hunter Jack Bennett, most of the objects are viewable by observers living in the Northern Hemisphere.
I have received permission from Astronomy magazine to distribute adapted versions of the catalog. I took their PDF document and converted it into an Excel spreadsheet. I then streamlined that, retaining all objects with declinations more northerly than -40. That produced a list with 100 objects!
I call it the "Bennett 100". It is designed for northern observers (even those observing as far north as 50 degrees latitude).
I also created an Excel version of the full Bennett catalog, which you can sort by declination for your latitude and observing horizon.
The files are .xls documents, but are openable in AppleWorks, too. I've created a web page where you can fetch them. It's
http://home.roadrunner.com/~lstedman/
Both are simple files with columns for Bennett number, Messier/NGC number, type of object, constellation, magnitude, RA, and declination. The Bennett numbers are those from the original Astronomy magazine article.
The document is ordered by RA. I've added several columns that break the RA into hours and minutes and Dec into degrees and minutes for sorting purposes.
Hope you all find them useful!
But of the 24 remaining, I see 13 are below dec -35...Hmm, maybe my next Hawaii trip? Gotta get that 10" travel scope going...