OR: From 11.4 billion light years away to 6 light years away, looking at a deer with fleas, and a famous quintet
Muriel Dulieu Holzer
OR: From 11.4 billion light years away to 6 light years away, looking at a deer with fleas, and a famous quintet
Our second evening in Glenn County, Sunday June 14th 2026, started a little bit earlier than usual. Steve Gottlieb brought a sunscope. With Mazen, we observed the sun in the heat of daytime. It was quite a mesmerizing and unusual experience to stare straight up at our closest star, its magma-like gas in constant apparent slow motion, with a round prominence on the left and short jets shooting around the disk. In the middle of the disk, there were some thin dark streaks, called filaments, with a thicker one looking like an eyebrow. These filaments were formed by the cooler gas of the prominences facing us straight up.
I also spent some time browsing through the book Cosmic Challenge by Philip S. Harrington, which gave me some ideas on what to look for tonight.
After the darkness set in, we jumped right in our space odyssey with Steve calling me and Mazen to his 24” telescope to look at a quasar whose light had travelled 11.4 billion years to reach us. Even at 16th magnitude, it was surprisingly easy to see once one knew the location but not completely obvious, just looking like a star from the origin of time flickering in the darkness of night. The name of the quasar is QSO J1551+1911.
Exhilarated by the experience, I decided to continue the fun of extremes in my 18” and jump back across the universe to the star that is the second closest to us (if you consider the Alpha Centauri system as a whole). Barnard’s Star is a red dwarf star located 6 light-years away from us. One thing that is special about it is that it has the largest proper motion (apparent motion across the sky) of any star in the night sky. A recent study found that four small sub-earth planets are likely orbiting it at a close distance. Hoping to get some help from the PiFinder I started looking through its star catalogs. Not having any luck, I decided to do this old school and use the Telrad. I estimated Barnard’s Star’s location to be approximately at the corner of a parallelogram made with the stars on the shoulder and arm of Ophiuchus: Cebalrai (Beta Ophiuchi), Nu Ophiuchi, and 67 Ophiuchi. Looking in the eyepiece, I found a V pattern of stars that seem to be close to it from the rendering on SkySafari Pro. I tried to follow star trails in the eyepiece and landed on a white star, but it was the wrong color. Barnard’s Star is supposed to be red. I’ll revisit it when I have an optical viewfinder.
Next I pointed my telescope to NGC 6781, the Snowglobe Nebula in Aquila, a suggestion from the book Cosmic Challenge. This is a large bright planetary nebula that appears eerily green/blue inside a red/orange disk on pictures. In my 18” at 229x and then 411x, it looked like a round mottled white cloud with a slight darkening in the middle when looking at it with averted vision. While I stared at it, its shape seemed to be shifting. I am not sure if this was due to atmospheric turbulence; it had been windy earlier to the point that they had turned off the electricity.
Next was another planetary nebula suggestion from the book Cosmic Challenge, NGC 6804, also in Aquila. This was a smaller planetary nebula (1.0 to 1.3 arcminutes across) than the Snowglobe Nebula (1.9 arcminutes across) but I was interested in it because of its blue color in pictures. Unfortunately its color did not show in the eyepiece. It appeared as a round grey glow, possibly slightly mottled. I saw three stars on a line going ENE to WSW inside the planetary nebula, in addition to another star located also inside the nebula. The middle star on the line is NGC 6804’s pre-white-dwarf remnant (Mag 14.4).
After this, I decided to look for Stephan’s Quintet in Pegasus. While moving my telescope around, I stumbled upon a large bright galaxy. Thinking I had found one of the galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet, I started looking around for the other galaxies in the quintet and identified two faint glows above it. But the image did not look quite right, so I asked Steve about it. He told me that I had found the Deer Lick Galaxy Group, also in Pegasus. The largest member of the group is the Deer Lick galaxy, NGC 7331, nicknamed from an observing site. In my 18” at 229x, NGC 7331 was elongated with a 1:3 ratio. It showed increased brightness towards the middle and a stellar core. Its disk seemed smooth even though it is a spiral galaxy. Looking for the fleas, the small galaxies east of NGC 7331, I found:
NGC 7335, a faint irregular glow above NGC 7331, slightly to the left,
NGC 7337, a roundish faint glow with a stellar core above NGC 7331, slightly to the right,
NGC 7340, a faint roundish glow on the left of two stars, just above NGC 7337.
I don’t remember seeing the fourth flea, NGC 7336.
After this interlude, I continued my search for Stephan’s Quintet, named after Edouard Stephan who found it in 1877 from Marseille Observatory. Stephan’s Quintet is a group of five galaxies, four of which are interacting. One interacting galaxy is not part of the group, NGC 7320c (~Mag 15-16), which I did not see. Being near the group, I identified two stars located on a diagonal top right to bottom left: Gaia 1901638551746662016 and Gaia 1901638384244752768. There was a roundish glow to the left and slightly below the bottom star, NGC 7319, a distorted barred spiral. Then following the line formed by the two stars lower, there was a faint glow slightly to the left of it with two bright concentrations, it was NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B, an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy colliding. Turning left at NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B, 90 degrees counterclockwise from the line formed by the two stars, there was a faint oval glow with a faint star off-centered, NGC 7320, a spiral galaxy that lies 7 times closer to us than the rest of the group. Finally going back on the line formed by the two stars, below NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B, lay a faint star with a glow above and to the left of it, NGC 7317, an elliptical galaxy.
It was getting late, and Mazen had gone to bed. Steve invited me to come take a look in his 24” with the night vision device attached to it. We looked at the North America Nebula, NGC 7000, in Cygnus. Its HII region shaped like North America glowed in the night vision device. The “Gulf of Mexico”, a dark nebula appearing black, encroached with filaments into the “main continent”, a beautiful sight.
Next we looked at the Butterfly Nebula, IC 1318, a giant HII region in Cygnus. This was my favorite object of the night. The wings made of HII gas looked three-dimensional as they shined in the night vision device. The body of the butterfly was made of a furry dark nebula with dark filaments. This was truly gorgeous.
Continuing the animal theme, we looked at the Pelican Nebula, IC 5070, an emission nebula also in Cygnus. Just the head appeared in the eyepiece. It showed a long beak, a head and even an eye formed by a dark dust cloud.
We ended the night with all three parts of the Veil Nebula, a large supernova remnant in Cygnus:
The Eastern Veil, NGC 6992 and NGC 6995, looked like a waterfall with folds. With the night vision device it appeared thicker, almost solid.
The Western Veil, NGC 6960, appeared almost metallic. The Eastern and Western Veil in the night vision device reminded me of sculptures by Zheng Lu “Water in Dripping” http://www.zhengluart.com/?products_12/164.html
Pickering’s Triangle, NGC 6979/6974, looked almost bony. With its elongated appearance and cavities that looked like the nose and eyes, it made me think of the skull of a cow or similar animal. The top of the skull was displaying a U-shaped valley like if it had been crushed by a baseball bat.
On this violent imagery, it was time to go to bed. I did not risk staying alone outside tonight.
-Muriel
Richard Navarrete
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Muriel Dulieu Holzer
-Muriel