OR: Route 66 Night 1

[Akarsh Simha]

Conditions at a CDSE site nicknamed as "Route 66" on Friday night, 12th Dec 2025, were excellent; except for my fatigue and the dust on my telescope mirror; perhaps also a failing coating. Still, I would count it as one of my best nights this year.

I arrived late at 17:45 due to work commitments. There was some traffic on the drive, but I had left sufficiently early to avoid the worst of it. David Kipping's excellent podcast kept me well-entertained. For months I'd been trying to find good explanations of Hubble Tension and such that were not watered down and rather technical, but still accessible to amateur astronomers. In David Kipping's interviews, I found exactly that.

Trying to be efficient, I had actually purchased my Subway sandwich and loaded the telescope the previous night, but there were still odds and ends to take care of and despite my diligence I missed a few convenience items on the field. I strived to set up as quickly as possible, and placed my telescope on what I thought was a relatively flat spot on the undulating terrain. I still found that it would get caught up on the ground and not rotate freely. My ground board is very low riding because of the requirement that my telescope has to clear my truck's canopy. Oh well, this is where going to the gym pays off. I was able to lift the telescope one corner at a time and shim my ground board to give it some height.

I fumbled while setting up the secondary cage. Then once the scope was assembled I put my peep hole in to check on the secondary mirror alignment. Most telescopes have this set down correctly and you don't need to adjust it but once every few years, and this step cannot be done with a laser collimator (at least not without a special attachment). My telescope is still in the works. The secondary mirror had unfortunately rotated out of alignment. Well, this ain't my first rodeo, I've become experienced at fixing this in the dark. Luckily I was alone and could use white light. I got it done in all of ten minutes (or so I thought). By the time I got started it was 19:45. I had forgotten to tighten up the collimation knobs after putting on the secondary cage, so my collimation kept going off frequently all night and I had to correct it every so often. Anyway, these things are details. You don't have to have the absolute perfect optical system to enjoy the deep-sky. Time under a clear, dark sky is too precious to spend on more than the bare minimum amount of engineering.

I pointed my scope randomly in the direction of Delphinus and in the eyepiece field was a globular cluster! I identified it later as NGC 6934 with the aid of KStars on my laptop. I have KStars set up where it will reproduce the exact orientation of the sky I see in my telescope, and I confirmed it readily by noting the position of the star flanking it.

NGC 7741, a barred spiral, came next. I'm still awed by the aperture upgrade going from 18" to 28". I was amazed to see a clear bar and spiral arms, and hints of its incomplete "theta" shape on one side. Not only that, I was able to pick up a knot in one of the arms of the galaxy, just off the bar. This knot bears the designation NGC 7741: [HK83] 20. The designation is from the Hodge-Kennicutt atlas of HII regions in 125 galaxies.

I noted that the scarily faint dwarf galaxy And VI also known as Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy was not far away and foolishly gave it an attempt. Frustratingly there is a dim asterism superposed on the galaxy and I could not tell whether the glow I was seeing was from scattering of the star light through my dusty optics or the light of the galaxy. No luck. The Andromeda dwarfs still scare me.

NGC 128 was on my wishlist for a long time. The "Seasonal Favorites" lists in Adventures in Deep Space are really darn good, the more I have spent time digging through them, the more impressed I am with the quality of curation that went into them. Hold on, though. NGC 128 isn't just a nice-looking edge-on surrounded by a few galaxies: it's a barred spiral with a prominent X-shape in its core. Ever since I read that bars are "X"- or "Peanut"-shaped when viewed edge-on, I wanted to see one. If you saw Howard Banich's sketch of NGC 4565 in the May 2023 issue of Sky & Telescope, you'd know what I'm talking about.

Did I say the sky was good, here is my sketch of the region:

Unfortunately there's no authentic way to sketch a "subtle sensation of some structure that occurs intermittently", so the X-shape looks rather exaggerated in my sketch compared to how it was picked up in the eyepiece. Nevertheless I can finally say that I caught glimpses of a galactic bar edge-on. The other galaxies in the field were icing on the cake.

This was one of my highlights from the night. I spent nearly an hour studying this field and took notes "At 291x, started showing hints of a bright core region that appears spikey ... At 486x I could sense the spikes become defined intermittently into an X-shape. The southwest spike was most prominent followed by northwest. The northeastern spike was the weakest. 648x showed a knot on the disk of the galaxy as sketched north of the core region. ... spikes weren't clear or distinct, but just a muddled sensation."

Here is Adam Block's wonderful image of the galaxy

Cetus is a gold mine of interesting galaxies. NGC 895 is a spiral galaxy with what looks like very defined arms on the POSS plates, so it figured on my list. It presented a rather satisfying view in the 28-inch at 290x, with the northwestern arm heavily mottled with condensed star-forming regions. The arms looked "thicker" in the eyepiece, I believe this is a common visual experience (on a side note, the linked CN thread is very interesting).

I was in the mood for sketching, so I sketched a lot of what I saw.

I looked at a few more galaxies in Cetus, but my next interesting target was NGC 1232 in Eridanus. I was surprised looking at my observation spreadsheet that the only observations I had of this galaxy were from December 2009 with the Discovery 17.5" f/5 scope. My logs then say "During session 4, showed two spiral arms, not very distinctly, though. During session 6, it showed the feeling of a lot of spiral arms, but could not see anything concrete." Somehow I've always been underwhelmed by views of most grand design spirals except for M 51 and M 101, so I just expected to see some mottled LSB glow with a subtle sensation of spiral arms.

But no, a 28-inch on a good night, even if dusty, is different. There were spiral arms, easily visible. No averted imagination needed.

Okay, not all the spiral arms were distinct. The eastern one really was, but if you compare with an image of the galaxy you'll note that I "merged" two of the arms on the northern side -- which means I was only seeing the brighter knots in them. The arms on the east were a mush with one knot standing out, and I've sketched them as such. NGC 1232A nearby was also picked up -- it's the splotch on the top right of the galaxy in the sketch. The sketch was made using 208x and 290x power.

I looked at Arp 147 next. Nope, this one was too tough. Maybe tracking would have helped. All I got was two blotches of light, one visible somewhat steadily (perhaps 80% of the time) to averted vision, and the other amorphous and dim, flashing in only very intermittently. The fainter blotch of light would occasionally flash as having some form of "curved" character to it -- no distinct ring. Contrast this with the view through Jimi's 48-inch from October 2016 "WOW! Ring popped perfectly in averted vision many times! The core of the edge on is scintillatingly bright and round. The ring has a bright component on one side. Wow! Very picturesque!". For some of these things, aperture is king.

Hubble image of Arp 147

IC 349, also known as "Barnard's Merope Nebula", was discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard in 1890. I was looking up in reverence at the very place of its discovery on my drive to the observing site -- the great refractor at Lick observatory. This tiny nebula lies just about 35 arcseconds from Merope in the Pleiades and is not seen in most astrophotos of the cluster because it's lost in Merope's glare. The eagle-eyed Barnard wrote "I could see it with some difficulty in the 12 inch by occulting Merope with a wire in the eyepiece.". Not being as gifted as Barnard, I had failed to catch this in my 18-inch. I pointed my 28-inch to Merope and examined around the star, and could see nothing of significance. I then gave in and looked at the star pattern to know exactly where to look. Phew, there it was. It was mighty dim. To think that Barnard discovered it visually while studying the cluster, without knowing of its existence, and then saw it in a 12-inch (Clark refractor), boggles my mind. Howard has a sketch on his website. His trick was to time it such that the nebula was between the diffraction spikes. I hadn't particularly timed it as such, but the nebula had cleared one of my diffraction spikes by a bit and the location making a perfect isosceles triangle with two stars helped. I visually estimate the size of the nebula to be around 15 arcseconds. Hand-tracking my telescope at 833x for this observation was not fun, but worth it. This was one more of my highlights from the night. Howard writes that Sue French has spied it with her 14.5" reflector, I should've tried more diligently in my 18".

NGC 1569 was on my observing list for October 2025, but I didn't get to go out in October. I wanted to see two super star clusters (SSCs) designated "A" and "B" within the galaxy. Evidently, it was also on Scott Harrington's observing list for October 2025 and he wrote a nice report about observing it through Jimi's 48-inch here (Paul and Debbie Alsing were also present). In that post, he also shares a helpful finder chart, as always. I made sure to download it before I left home.

At 208x, the galaxy was immediately picked up as a bright cometary glow with mottling. At 416x, I was able to see a chain of condensations in the galaxy, later ID'd as the two SSCs and the two HII regions marked in Scott's finder chart. Power-hungry as I am, I put in a 3.5mm eyepiece (833x) and 2.5mm (1166x). Yes, hand-tracking at 1166x with a small FOV eyepiece was only feasible because this object lies close to the pole in Camelopardalis. At these high powers, SSC "A" was almost continuously visible to direct vision, stellar, vanishing occasionally due to seeing fluctuations. SSC "B" was less frequently seen with direct vision, vanishing more frequently and appearing fainter than "A". The HII region on the leading (west) side was visible continuously to averted vision, fainter, giving the best views at 1166x. The lagging HII region was dimmer but more contrasty as the galaxy is dimmer in that region. I made some valiant attempts at "GC 30" knowing that I would probably not see it. I had a breeze blowing suddenly that tanked the good seeing I was experience. Needless to say, no luck on the globular cluster. Also I need tracking, pretty desperately.

Hickson 34 is a chainy compact group in Orion. The one galaxy in the NGC, NGC 1875, is already pretty dim for an NGC object. I looked at it last December with my 18", and I was only able to see NGC 1875 and HCG 34b = PGC 17176. Even with the 28-inch, it wasn't exactly cakewalk. At 486x, I got intermittent glimpses of both PGC 17176 and PGC 17176 (= HCG 34c). The faintest member was not detected.

At this point, the moon had risen. I was obviously wishing for more of the excellent dark skies I had, but alas. I figured I might as well continue and hit some high surface brightness targets until the moon got too bright to put up with.

After a brief look at the double cluster, I looked at two planetary nebulae in Perseus that I had picked up from the Webb Bright planetary nebulae list. I can't seem to find this list on the internet, but someone sent me the list I think. Anyway, IC 351 and IC 2003. Both were fairly tiny and somewhat less remarkable.

After that I looked at NGC 1501 in Camelopardalis, not far from Kemble's Cascade. I was zapped by the view. Hand-tracking at 833x was frustrating, but the view made up for it. A heavily mottled ring nebulosity with an obvious central star, the outer rim of the ring shining with bright knots shimmering from atmospheric turbulence. I wrote in my notes "There is a lot of structure that is difficult to pin down, especially without tracking." I felt really inspired to sketch this nebula, and so I did. I would not consider this sketch complete, and would love to "add more data" to use an imagers' term, maybe after I have tracking on the scope (presently a distant dream).

Eventually about an hour after moonrise, I was too tired to continue. I put my eyepieces away, covered the telescope, threw some aluminet on my truck and slept like a baby.

Clear Skies

Akarsh

[Mark Wagner]

So nice, Akarsh.  I enjoy reading the sorts of experiences encountered setting up, so familiar, and seeing someone else on the list from ADS Seasonal Favorites, its what I've been after too.  But, you're killing me with remarks about the resultant jump from the 18" (my size) to 28".  Have mercy buddy.  Unless I can come up with an inflatable 28", I can't get one in my car and I don't want to have to buy a vehicle to fit a telescope.  Nice write-up.

I think Route 66 and the TB are great places.  But I think I'm going to keep looking around for still better (and hard to find) locations. Nice write-up.

[Ted Hauter]

I believe that was a spectacularly clear black sky night.

Amazing Akarsh.

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[Howard Banich]

Thanks Akarsh, another terrific OR. 

I've found that Arp 147 needs really good seeing, but even so I was never able to see the complete ring of the ring galaxy with my 28-inch, just an arc - and transparency made the difference in how complete the arc looked.

I need to take another look at NGC 1232 and NGC 128!

Howard

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[Akarsh Simha]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 06:44 Mark Wagner <itsmar...@gmail.com> wrote:

So nice, Akarsh.  I enjoy reading the sorts of experiences encountered setting up, so familiar, and seeing someone else on the list from ADS Seasonal Favorites, its what I've been after too.  But, you're killing me with remarks about the resultant jump from the 18" (my size) to 28".  Have mercy buddy.  Unless I can come up with an inflatable 28", I can't get one in my car and I don't want to have to buy a vehicle to fit a telescope.  Nice write-up.

Mark, whoever said you’ve to own and transport a 28” to look through one? You’re the only one who helped build the scope that hasn’t looked through it yet:

[Mark Wagner]

Akarsh, its true I haven't looked through it.  We all know how one catches aperture fever. I hear it can be severe.

[Richard Navarrete]

I’ve heard it said the best big scope is the one your friend owns. 😆

Richard

Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS

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.

[Akarsh Simha]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 07:14 Mark Wagner <itsmar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Akarsh, its true I haven't looked through it.  We all know how one catches aperture fever. I hear it can be severe.

Well, if that’s your concern just help me unload and set up the telescope and pack after

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[Steve Gottlieb]

Excellent observing reports and sketches, Akarsh!  I’m especially impressed you’ve captured so much detail — often at high power — without any tracking. IC 349 (not to be confused with the Merope Nebula, which is the large hazy streaks of blue reflection nebula) is a great example.  It's small and nearly obliterated by the overwhelming glare of Merope.  When Howard Banich and I observed it in Lowrey's 48”, we could just keep Merope off the edge of the field, tracking at 813x.  So I'm amazed you could pick it up at a similar power, but I assume with Merope passing through the field.  I know Sue French followed Barnard’s lead, and caught it with a 14.5” reflector using an occulting bar to hide Merope, as well as Jay Freeman with a C-14, I believe.

Steve

IC 349 = Barnard's Nebula

The eagle-eyed Barnard wrote "I could see it with some difficulty in the 12 inch by occulting Merope with a wire in the eyepiece.". Not being as gifted as Barnard, I had failed to catch this in my 18-inch. I pointed my 28-inch to Merope and examined around the star, and could see nothing of significance. I then gave in and looked at the star pattern to know exactly where to look. Phew, there it was. It was mighty dim. To think that Barnard discovered it visually while studying the cluster, without knowing of its existence, and then saw it in a 12-inch (Clark refractor), boggles my mind. Howard has a sketch on his website. His trick was to time it such that the nebula was between the diffraction spikes. I hadn't particularly timed it as such, but the nebula had cleared one of my diffraction spikes by a bit and the location making a perfect isosceles triangle with two stars helped. I visually estimate the size of the nebula to be around 15 arcseconds. Hand-tracking my telescope at 833x for this observation was not fun, but worth it. This was one more of my highlights from the night.

48" (10/31/13): IC 349 is a reflection knot just 36" SSE of Merope.  We (Jimi, Howard, and I) used 813x and carefully placed Merope barely outside the north edge of the field.  The orientation was easy to judge using two 15th magnitude stars 1.8' S and 1.8' SSW of Merope and the elongated glow fell between the diffraction spikes.  Despite the glare from Merope making the observation much more difficult, I was surprised this small reflection nebula was fairly bright and elongated (roughly pointing south from Merope) with a straighter western edge, perhaps 20"x10" in size.

NGC 7741

I was amazed to see a clear bar and spiral arms, and hints of its incomplete "theta" shape on one side. Not only that, I was able to pick up a knot in one of the arms of the galaxy, just off the bar. This knot bears the designation NGC 7741: [HK83] 20. The designation is from the Hodge-Kennicutt atlas of HII regions in 125 galaxies. 

24" (8/30/16): at 226x; bright, fairly large, dominated by a central bar extending at least 3:1 E-W, ~45"x15".  A very low surface brightness arm is attached at the W end of the bar, and it curves to the S.  The corresponding arm extending N on the E end was less obvious and was only marginally glimpsed.  The arms blend into a low surface brightness outer halo at least 2' in diameter.  A nice mag 9.8/12 double star is off the NW side 2' from center.

48" (11/4/21): at 375x; very bright and large, low surface brightness halo elongated nearly 3:2 N-S, ~3.5' in length.  The northern halo just reaches a wide pair [24"] a mag 10/12 pair at the NNW end.
The galaxy is dominated by a very bright, well defined E-W bar, extending ~0.8'x15".  A fairly low contrast, broad spiral arm is attached at the W end. It shoots S (perpendicular to the bar) a short distance and merges into the inner halo. Only the root of the eastern arm was seen. Although the two arms quickly became indistinct, they blended into a slightly enhanced glow surrounding the bar, forming an oval N-S ring (the bar defines the minor axis), with dimmer regions to the N and S of the bar!  [No mention made of any knots].

NGC 1232

I looked at a few more galaxies in Cetus, but my next interesting target was NGC 1232 in Eridanus. I was surprised looking at my observation spreadsheet that the only observations I had of this galaxy were from December 2009 with the Discovery 17.5" f/5 scope. My logs then say "During session 4, showed two spiral arms, not very distinctly, though. During session 6, it showed the feeling of a lot of spiral arms, but could not see anything concrete." Somehow I've always been underwhelmed by views of most grand design spirals except for M 51 and M 101, so I just expected to see some mottled LSB glow with a subtle sensation of spiral arms.

But no, a 28-inch on a good night, even if dusty, is different. There were spiral arms, easily visible. No averted imagination needed. Okay, not all the spiral arms were distinct. The eastern one really was, but if you compare with an image of the galaxy you'll note that I "merged" two of the arms on the northern side -- which means I was only seeing the brighter knots in them. The arms on the east were a mush with one knot standing out, and I've sketched them as such. NGC 1232A nearby was also picked up -- it's the splotch on the top right of the galaxy in the sketch.

30" (10/15/15 - OzSky): NGC 1232 is a face-on multi-arm knotty Sc-type.  At 303x, it appeared very bright, very large, roundish, at least 6' diameter.  It was sharply concentrated with a very bright, elongated core that contained a brighter central bar-like nuclear region.  Spiral structure was evident in the large halo, but more subtle than I expected as several segments were disconnected.  The most prominent is a knotty arm on the N side.  It emerged near the NW end of the core and shot linearly (2' length) towards the NE in the direction of a mag 14 star 2.5' NE of center.

Another spiral arm extended E and W for perhaps 1.5' length, just S of the central region.  The arm faded out at its W end but after a short break, a very faint elongated knot, ~14"x8", was visible 1.7' WSW of center.  NED includes multiple designations NGC 1232:[HK83] 442/445/450 and more from Hodge and Kennicutt's 1983 "Atlas of HII regions in 125 galaxies."  The arm dimmed again but could just be traced extending straight N-S in the NW end of the halo.  Another short, linear segment of an arm (containing [HK83] 110) was just visible close E of the core, 1.1' ENE of center.

IC 298 = Arp 147

I looked at Arp 147 next. Nope, this one was too tough. Maybe tracking would have helped. All I got was two blotches of light, one visible somewhat steadily (perhaps 80% of the time) to averted vision, and the other amorphous and dim, flashing in only very intermittently. The fainter blotch of light would occasionally flash as having some form of "curved" character to it -- no distinct ring. Contrast this with the view through Jimi's 48-inch from October 2016 "WOW! Ring popped perfectly in averted vision many times! The core of the edge on is scintillatingly bright and round. The ring has a bright component on one side. Wow! Very picturesque!". For some of these things, aperture is king.

18" (1/26/09): at 285x the elongated member of this pair appeared very faint and small, elongated 2:1 ~N-S, ~18"x9", low even surface brightness. The fainter western component (collisional Ring), forming the "C" or "0" was not visible.

48" (10/23/11): at 488x, both components of this ring system were easily resolved.  The eastern "collider" appeared moderately bright, elongated 5:2 N-S, 25” length, very small brighter core.  The empty ring galaxy (no nucleus) just west was a faint, small, irregularly round glow, ~20" diameter with a low but very uneven surface brightness.  The rim was slightly brighter, creating a weak annular appearance, particularly on the east side.

NGC 1569

At 208x, the galaxy was immediately picked up as a bright cometary glow with mottling. At 416x, I was able to see a chain of condensations in the galaxy, later ID'd as the two SSCs and the two HII regions marked in Scott's finder chart. Power-hungry as I am, I put in a 3.5mm eyepiece (833x) and 2.5mm (1166x). Yes, hand-tracking at 1166x with a small FOV eyepiece was only feasible because this object lies close to the pole in Camelopardalis. At these high powers, SSC "A" was almost continuously visible to direct vision, stellar, vanishing occasionally due to seeing fluctuations. SSC "B" was less frequently seen with direct vision, vanishing more frequently and appearing fainter than "A". The HII region on the leading (west) side was visible continuously to averted vision, fainter, giving the best views at 1166x.

18" (1/17/09): at 380x this unusual starburst galaxy appeared as a high surface brightness streak, elongated ~5:2 WNW-ESE.  The brightest region is NW of center and contains two stellar or quasi-stellar knots (super-star clusters) within the glow.  One of these "stars" was fairly easy (NGC 1569-A) and the other was occasionally visible.  The very faint stellar object (SSC NGC 1569-B) is close to the geometric center.  The ESE side of the galaxy is fairly uniform though the position angle is slightly offset.

48" (10/23/11): at 488x, three very compact knots (luminous super-star clusters) were closely lined up from NW to SE in the central region (total length ~15") with the brightest knot NGC 1569-A in the middle of the trio.  NGC 1569-A was flanked by 1569-C 7" NW and 1569-B 7" SE.  NGC 1569-C appeared very small but was also clearly non-stellar.  NGC 1569-B, very close to the geometric center, was very compact and symmetrical, like a slightly bloated star.  SIMBAD lists a V mag of 15.3 for 1569-A.

Hickson 34

Hickson 34 is a chainy compact group in Orion. The one galaxy in the NGC, NGC 1875, is already pretty dim for an NGC object. I looked at it last December with my 18", and I was only able to see NGC 1875 and HCG 34b = PGC 17176. Even with the 28-inch, it wasn't exactly cakewalk. At 486x, I got intermittent glimpses of both PGC 17176 and PGC 17176 (= HCG 34c). The faintest member was not detected.

24" (2/9/13): NGC 1875 (HCG 34A) is the dominant E or S0 galaxy in HCG 34.  At 375x it appeared moderately bright, fairly small, round, 0.4' diameter, well concentrated with a small brighter core.  A mag 13 star lies 1' W and a mag 16 star is just 0.4' W of center.  HCG 34B is extremely faint, very small, slightly elongated, ~10" diameter.  Could only glimpse briefly at 375x but confirmed. HCG 34C is similar to HCG 34B - extremely faint and small, round, 6" diameter. Only glimpsed briefly at 375x but confirmed.

NGC 1501

After that I looked at NGC 1501 in Camelopardalis, not far from Kemble's Cascade. I was zapped by the view. Hand-tracking at 833x was frustrating, but the view made up for it. A heavily mottled ring nebulosity with an obvious central star, the outer rim of the ring shining with bright knots shimmering from atmospheric turbulence. I wrote in my notes "There is a lot of structure that is difficult to pin down, especially without tracking." I felt really inspired to sketch this nebula, and so I did.

18" (11/7/07): superb view at 450x in good seeing.  The 1' diameter disc is slightly elongated ~E-W, ~60"x50" with a very narrow, brighter rim and darker center.  The mag 14.4 central star was steadily visible.  On closer inspection the thin rim was clearly irregular in surface brightness and slightly brighter along the SW and NE sides with a couple of tiny knots embedded in the rim.  The slightly darker interior was weakly mottled or patchy with subtle variations in surface brightness.