Three Objects in Aquarius, 2003/9/30 UT

Among the many deep-sky objects that my friend Tony Donnangelo and I observed on Monday night from a dark site near Mifflintown, PA, were NGC 7492, NGC 7723, and NGC 7727. We used Tony's 14.5" Starmaster SkyTracker Dob and a number of different Tele Vue oculars. All three are located in Aquarius and were featured in the September 2003 issue of Astronomy Magazine in the Deep Sky section of The Sky This Month.

NGC 7492 is a dim 11.5 magnitude globular cluster located to the east of Delta Aquarii and appeared only as a faint, unresolved glow, perhaps due somewhat to the surprisingly variable transparency that night.

A member of the Astronomical League's Herschel 400 list the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7723 is a fairly large circular patch.

The spiral galaxy NGC 7727, another Herschel 400 object, is smaller and has a very bright stellar core.

Both galaxies are north of Omega 1 Aquarii and were located near bright field stars. They struck me as being easier to see than when I first observed them in 1997 from the ASH Naylor Observatory (without question a brighter site) using a 12.5" Cave Newtonian.

Dave Mitsky

At the Big Meadows Star Gaze last year, someone mentioned NGC 7492 as a tough object. I failed to see it in a 7". Someone else found it in an 18". It was dim and unresolved. The fellow who mentioned it said it was plotted in a 5th mag beginners star atlas some years ago, and gave him many nights of frustration as he never saw it in his small scope.

Last week I saw it in a 12", very, very faint.

I made up for that by ending the night with NGC 247 in Cetus and 253 in Sculptor, bright and large galaxies.

Thanks
John