Who has observed C39 in M33?

[Akarsh Simha]

I’m sure many of you have. There’s a report by Rich Jakiel on ADS:

https://adventuresindeepspace.com/gcm33.htm

Would love to learn your experiences. After “sitting on” this object for a long time, I finally looked at it and was unpleasantly surprised by how dim it was through my 28-inch, especially when compared with Mayall II which we had just seen.

Regards

Akarsh

[Scott Harrington]

I don't have my notes handy, but you can find them in the November 2024 issue of Sky & Telescope. With my 10-inch, C39 is a challenge. But with your 28-inch, I would think you'd have a fun challenge with the brightest outer halo GC of M33 (also in the article).

Scott

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[owen...@gmail.com]

I am sure there was a piece in the Webb QJ on this long ago, probably by Rich Jakiel

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[Paul Alsing]

I've observed C39 many times over the years in my 25" f/5. It is quite dim but it is easy to pinpoint it's location. There is an easy equal-brightness double star in a "sailboat" asterism that points right at it!

Once I was dead tired at the Shingletown Star Party, sitting in my binocular chair on the runway at 2 or 3 AM when Bill Cone came by and asked me to show him C39. Since I knew exactly how to find it, I sent him up the ladder and gave him the directions to hop to C39, and he found it easily enough... I never had to get out of the char... but this was a spectacular night where you could see M33 naked eye!

As an aside, at the same time I also was able to successfully guide Bill to Markarian's Chain without leaving the chair because it, too, is easy to find. He was good at following my verbal directions!

Paul Alsing

[Ted Hauter]

 Core memory that one...

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[Steve Gottlieb]

Here are two more observations of C39 – neither made under excellent conditions.

Steve G

24" (12/28/13): at 260x appeared as a very faint 16th magnitude "star", which was not visible continuously in soft seeing.  I was unable to use higher mag, but the exact position was verified on an image of the galaxy.  C39 is listed as slightly brighter than U49, but I didn't find it any easier. Based on its age, C39 is a massive intermediate-age cluster.

17.5" (8/12/96): this is the brightest GC (or intermediate-age cluster) in M33 and appears as an extremely faint mag 16 star requiring averted vision and the exact position to be known. It was visible between 1/3 to 1/2 of the time.  Another mag 16.5 star is sometimes visible 1' SE.  Located 22' SE of the center of M33 and 1.2' SE of a mag 11.5 star.  A prominent mag 10.5 pair at 30" separation lies 4' SE.

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[Akarsh Simha]

Extremely impressive observations y’all!

I was observing in the Inyo mountains and west of Death Valley during the weekend and earlier this week and I am pleased to report positive observations of Hodge 3 and Hodge 5 in NGC 185 and FJJ 1  and 3 in NGC 147. The NGC 147 globs were torturously difficult especially given that my scope does not track yet. I’m sure several people on the group have seen them.

I unfortunately did not look at C39 again, it would’ve been fun to benchmark how much the difficulty reduced from a dark site.

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[Howard Banich]

Here's how I saw C39 with my 30-inch:

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[Zane Landers]

I saw it last night with 30” f4.5 here at okie I think. In any case sky is amazing right now we just caught crab pulsar!

Zane Landers

On Sep 25, 2025, at 23:19, Howard Banich <hba...@gmail.com> wrote:



Here's how I saw C39 with my 30-inch:

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