OR 3/4: Massacre Rim

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi TACos,

Here's the night I'm most excited about, and I think Tarun feels the same way. I still prefer the night sky at the Warners, but I am most happy with the experience at Massacre Rim.

Prolog:

In 2019, Massacre Rim, north of the Black Rock desert where Burning Man happens in Nevada, was designated as a dark sky sanctuary. The nearest small community is Vya, NV where some TACos have spent several nights observing. The elevations are around 6000ft, and it does get cold at night.

Tarun and I had pondered the possibility of going to Massacre Rim for a night. We got down to Likely Place and over our hot lunch, pulled out Benchmark Atlases of Nevada and California. Google Maps said Massacre Rim was about a 2¼ hour drive, so why not, we thought. We picked up some essentials in the general store at Likely, including $$$ fuel, and headed off to the desert, through Alturas and Cedarville.

(Gas dispenser with a mechanical counter at the Likely general store!)

(An antidote to dob stiction, seen at the well-stocked Likely general store)

At the Nevada stateline the road becomes a well-graded gravel road, NV-8A; my off-road truck was extremely smooth on it, Tarun's Subaru not so much, so we drove slow. After about 45 min of the gravel road, we came upon a junction with a two-track road along which Tarun had marked a potential site. We drove about 3 miles on this road, which was surprisingly good for a two-track. There were some rocky sections requiring high clearance (no 4x4 needed). We also marked a smaller fallback site which my low-clearance sedan would make in theory.

Site conditions:

Arriving at the site, our first concern were ant mounds everywhere teeming with red ants. We carefully scouted the ground to find an area far away from any of the bigger ant mounds. Thankfully, we did good and were not bothered by ants. There were no mosquitoes at this site, no bears to worry about. There were a bunch of ominous holes in the ground, but we did not encounter any rattlesnakes, perhaps because it was rather cool. The second concern was the crazy wind. There were high wind gusts and Tarun was certainly hoping they'd die down so his imaging would not be disturbed. The winds were high enough for me to be concerned despite my stiff dob motion, but winds usually die down at night, and these thankfully did. The site was good enough for ~5 telescopes, we estimated, if we carried anticide (but do we want to do that?). There was no cell service and we used our InReach Minis to keep our folks abreast of our well-being.

As the sun set, we enjoyed "blue hour", great lighting for photography, taking pictures of our rigs and our environment. Tarun being a gifted photographer captured some great photos. As the sky got dark, we got progressively more excited. There was not a single light-dome in sight, although there was lots of airglow. We had so much airglow that at some point in the night, we were able to see the curtains of airglow (gravity waves?) visually. The airglow was especially prominent in the north and was pretty much the only source of stray light after the zodiacal light in the west faded. The winds had died down, but there were breezes of varying temperature throughout the night -- a harbinger of poor seeing. The seeing, however, looked much better than what I remembered of Likely Place for what it's worth.

(Dob and truck welcoming nightfall at Massacre Rim)

After dark, especially once it got a bit higher, the summer Milky Way was an incredible sight. I looked up at it and thought how lucky our ancestors must’ve been to see that sight quite often, and what legends they must have come up to explain it. The African legend of the "Backbone of the night" came to mind looking at all the rifts and protrusions. I really wished to share it with my loved ones, if only I could somehow bring them there. It is really sad that in our pursuit of a better life, we’ve somehow lost something this fundamental. I wished I had the skills and patience to sketch it, because the visual appearance is quite different from what photographs show. Tarun shared my appreciation for the Milky Way and captured it in some incredible photographs that I hope he will post here! You know that when someone who has looked at the summer Milky Way for 15 years exclaims about it, there must be something special. Yes, this place was as dark as it gets.

Observations:

1. M 51

I pointed at M 51 (which was way past meridian but still well-placed), hoping to spend some time sketching it while the sky was darkening, and then move on to Corona Borealis cluster so I could assess the sky quality. To my utter shock, I was able to see a faint tidal extension protruding out of the smaller galaxy (NGC 5195) on its northwestern side (bottom left in the sketch). I realized I was seeing part of the "E" as we call it, a three-pronged tidal tail from NGC 5195 that looks like a mirrored "E". I've seen this readily in Jimi Lowrey's 48" on many nights, but detecting it in an 18" was new to me. I then looked for the other prongs of the "E", and sure enough, the middle prong appeared to my averted vision. The third (northeastern) prong was faintest and appeared like an elongated piece detached from the galaxy, which I then confirmed against the POSSI image I had on my laptop. Studying the POSS image prompted me to look for two more features -- the faint tidal tail going due west from NGC 5195, and the faint tidal extension of the southern arm of the bigger galaxy -- which I found after knowing what to look for. Although I started with the intent of a "quick look", I spent about 2 hours making this sketch with three different magnifications and was very pleased with the result. Sketching M 51 was a particularly relaxing and enjoyable experience.

(Sketch of M51 through my 18". Please ignore the really faint gradients, they were artifacts introduced when photographing of the sketch and processing it for aesthetics, e.g. blurring out pencil strokes and clone-stamping out smudges)

As I finished the sketch, I looked around it using the 18mm Orthoscopic and saw a faint brightening of the background in a region east of M 51. Without any reference image, I sketched the star field around which I saw this brightening. There was structure in the brightening but it was extremely hard to tack down and sketch, so I made a very rough diagram. I later asked Mel Bartels in a private list if I was actually seeing IFN (Integrated Flux Nebulae) and he did affirm! I know it sounds hard to believe, but for some reason, IFN is visually more apparent than you would imagine given how hard it is to photograph. Mel Bartels has not only found IFN visually first and later confirmed against deep exposures made by others, but he also wrote an article called "Herschel's Ghosts" in Sky & Telescope where he unearths evidence that Herschel himself did see some IFN. I would consider it established beyond doubt that IFN is visible to a visual observer using a fast telescope under dark skies. What surprised me is that I detected any of it using an f/4.5 telescope, which is generally too slow for this purpose. Other than Bartels, several other visual observers including Paul Alsing, Howard Banich, and Jimi Lowrey have confirmed observations of IFN. For more on Bartels' methods, see this CN thread. I'm happy to finally have my own detection of IFN. Mel's sketch shows some nebulosity in the same region.

By this point, I was already satisfied for the night and a bit sleepy; but I decided I would "go on". I hit Corona Borealis cluster to test the conditions.

2. Corona Borealis cluster

"Lumpy brightness! At least half a dozen condensations [flash in and out]. Did not spend time as it is very low [in the sky]. Stars are slightly soft at 400x"

3. NGC 6621

Once again used as a test of the sky conditions. I marked both cores, but not the bright part of the spiral arm described on Night 1 of the Warners. I did see the curved tidal tail. I can't remember why, but I wrote in my logbook "Not a great test of seeing". Perhaps this is because my star test was showing substantial signs of astigmatism, and not because of the mirror resting on the bumpers. I think it was because the Glatter sling velcros were not distributed symmetrically about the lowest point, or less likely because the off-roading had thrown off my secondary alignment (See part 4). Maybe if I had a properly supported mirror, I could've better assessed the seeing, and maybe it wasn't all that bad after all.

Sky conditions at 1:40 AM: The sky seemed to deteriorate at this time. I wrote "I guess airglow has increased. The Ophiuchus loop of the Milky Way is less prominent now and the Delphinus milky way is weak."

I wasted about half an hour not knowing what to observe, the fatigue catching up with me. I loaded my observing list into KStars and looked through it to see if I found anything inspiring. I didn't find much with the Milky Way high up. In hindsight, I could've done way better than simply waste half an hour of excellent sky, but I was tired.

4. Sh2-54

I'm usually not a nebula guy, but this is what showed up as well-placed on my list. "A modestly bright, roundish piece of nebulosity easily observed with DGM NPB filter."

5. SagDIG

I observed this on night 1 of the Warners, but to further bolster the observation, I hit it again. "Perhaps a bit stronger than the observation from 2 nights ago. Is it just experience [of knowing what to look for]? A glow is detected once the confusing stars are isolated. Best observation in 18mm [Baader Classic] Ortho."

6. NGC 7026 (Cheeseburger Planetary Nebula)

[See this DSF thread]

I had last observed this from near Likely in October 2020. This is when I discovered astigmatism from my Kevlar sling, which I had later adjusted to see "the cut" in NGC 7026 more easily. This prompted me to replace the sling with a Glatter sling, which apart from issues with the mirror penduluming onto the bumpers because of the use of an equatorial platform, produced excellent star images. However, ironically, this night I again had astigmatism when looking at NGC 7026. Rather than burn darkness troubleshooting the astigmatism, I decided to live with it. I still managed to see substantial detail in NGC 7026, including not only the cut, but the two brighter lobes embedded in fainter extensions. One of the lobes looked slightly longer than the other one. I did see the lobes curving away from each other at one instant, but that could've just been bias from prior memory / what a PN might look like. It did not flash in enough times to warrant logging it.

7. NGC 6745 (Birdhead galaxy)

Revisited this old favorite to check sky conditions. I was able to see the shape of this galaxy, including the "beak" of the birdhead. I was too tired and the stars were too blurry to try for the "worm", the faint 17th mag galaxy that is the companion of the main galaxy. I have seen flashes of "the worm" earlier on great nights in my 18".

Epilog:

At this point I was way too tired. I wrote in my log "Bailing out due to sheer fatigue and lack of enthusiasm. I can't believe I'm quitting early under such fantastic skies."

But thankfully, it was already breaking astronomical dawn. I had somehow survived until 3:15 AM. Before the night sky vanished, I jumped onto the top of my truck canopy and lay down there on my back for many minutes to just look at the fantastic milky way over my head.

In the morning, Tarun and I were split on whether we should just spend another night there, given how fantastic it was. I wanted to go to GSSP to see my friends, but I could easily be convinced to stay. In any case, both of us decided to go to GSSP. The drive out was pleasantly uneventful (no tires were sacrificed). I was desperate to shower before heading to GSSP. Many RV parks will not sell showers to outsiders, but the Sunrise Motel in Cedarville, CA does. They asked me if I was driving a truck (it's increasingly an Indian, esp. Punjabi, dominated profession) to which I answered "Yes, the green pickup" before realizing what they meant! After cleaning up in Cedarville, getting lunch and groceries in Alturas, and filling up water in Adin, we landed at GSSP (Part 4).

Clear Skies

Akarsh

[Mark W]

Very nice sketch of Arp 85.  And sounds like a great trip.

Curious about the airglow report.  With the direction you describe along with curtains, it sounds very much like aurora.  I've seen curtains and spikes/spires from the north when I saw a good auroral display (from Los Gatos, btw).

[Rahul S]

Another fantastic OR Akarsh. This was a joy to read.

[Matt Tarlach]

Great report. I enjoyed the sketches! Thanks for sharing the experience.

Matt T

[Tarun Kottary]

Here's one quick photo from that night at  Massacre Rim.

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[Rahul S]

Gosh. This picture is just perfect! Wow!! What a shot!

[Arvind K]

Very nice OR. Thanks for sharing!

And great photo, thanks Tarun!

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[mccart...@yahoo.com]

Need to update Wikipedia; the source of airglow is Akarsh's truck

[Dan Smiley]

Well this is all fabulous, your M51 sketch is wonderful, I have tried for the “E” coming off 5195 but not detected it with my 12” (Don Pensack reported seeing it with his 12.5”)

But after the case of mistaken identity in Cedarville, the image most fixed in my mind now is Akarsh high in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler, barreling down the highway with a tractor-trailer full no doubt of large dobs.

[Jamie Dillon, DDK]

Dan, I'm expunging that image from my head. We do not want our Akarsh at the wheel of a semi, not with his lead foot. There wouldn't be enough money in the world for his buddies to bail him out.

The only other person I know who's gotten a speeding ticket on Jolon Rd is the eminent Bobby Czerwinski. He got pinched by an MP.

Mm-hmm.

[Lumpy Darkness]

Agreed Jamie.  Akarsh in a semi is not ever going to happen.

Speaking of speeding tickets, over $500 in....  Pinnacles East.  Got out of it too.  Crazy story.  One angry ranger!

Anyway, Akarsh has again "gone where no man has gone before" observing.  To quote a well worn phrase.  Impressive.

Mark

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From: sf-ba...@googlegroups.com <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jamie Dillon, DDK <ngc1...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 6, 2022 5:31:28 PM
To: The Astronomy Connection (TAC) <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [TAC] Re: OR 3/4: Massacre Rim

 

Dan, I'm expunging that image from my head. We do not want our Akarsh at the wheel of a semi, not with his lead foot. There wouldn't be enough money in the world for his buddies to bail him out.

The only other person I know who's gotten a speeding ticket on Jolon Rd is the eminent Bobby Czerwinski. He got pinched by an MP.

Mm-hmm.

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[Akarsh Simha]

Wasn’t there a semi-recent post on HackerNews or somewhere about software engineers becoming truck drivers after a certain point and talking about how calming the job is?

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[Peter Santangeli]

There are days, man... there are days...

A buddy and I used to talk wistfully about giving up software and going into the business of selling that crappy orange snow-fencing they use up north. It only comes in one color, orange. It's always crap. And there is only one question you have to ask the customer: "How many feet would you like?"

And on that note, another early GSSP results....

For a change, I decided to image using my very old C11 at prime focus, using an OAG. Decided I wanted some image scale for a change.

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[Tim Lorz]

What a great and inspiring OR Akarsh - Thank you! 

On a side note... it seems there is an AirBNB just off that little highway 34 heading into the Massacre Wilderness Study Area... Hmmm... I feel a road trip on the horizon. 

Did you spend the night in your truck? Did you find a hidden dirtroad to camp out on, or what did you do up there when the night ran out and you wanted to rest up a bit?

Again, great OR and awesome picture!

Tim

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[Shashi Sathya]

Excellent OR Akarsh and Amazing image Tarun, you have set a pretty high benchmark now wideangle milky way images.

Shashi.

On Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 11:34:09 PM UTC-7 akars...@gmail.com wrote:

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Tim

Glad you enjoyed the OR and Tarun's photo.

 

Did you spend the night in your truck? Did you find a hidden dirtroad to camp out on, or what did you do up there when the night ran out and you wanted to rest up a bit?

Yes, I did spend the night in my truck. I sleep pretty well on the driver seat, reclined, even though there are other options with a truck. We turned off 8-A onto a two-track road marked on a USGS quad to head to our "site". This is all BLM land, so camping is allowed almost anywhere off an unpaved road with the usual "leave-no-trace" principles, so we just slept in our vehicles at our "site". Tarun being an imager was able to go to bed earlier and wake up before it got hot, but for me, aluminet was a life-saver to keep the vehicle cool during the day -- I draped aluminet over the truck, held it in place using the windshield wipers and by closing my rear doors on it, and left the windows open. The aluminet keeps most of the bugs out, allows air circulation, and reflects most of the light.

This place was remote enough that we saw nobody but the two of us. Safety can still be a concern, but IMO it's a tail risk.

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[Scott Harrington]

Great sketch of M51 and its companion there, Akarsh! I wonder what was the highest magnification you employed in your study? Here is my CN post where I mention the three to four brightest H-II/SFRs and OB associations visible inside the spiral with a 10-inch. It's really tough to observe them and the whole galaxy without it taking all night...especially when you have that big a telescope under that dark of skies! I mean, I can tell from your sketch that you hit the big picture. Maybe next time you'll be able to hit the "little picture" details.

"[Sh 2-54] I'm usually not a nebula guy, but this is what showed up as well-placed on my list. "A modestly bright, roundish piece of nebulosity easily observed with DGM NPB filter."

Not usually a nebula guy? Hmm, that's the complete opposite of me! I've seen what you saw with my 130mm reflector, 59x, and a NPB filter. From what I understand, Sharpless cataloged the large, faint nebulosity while Simiez Observatory only picked out the small, bright nebula you and I saw. I'd have to do more digging to give you more than that.

Great reports,

Scott

[Mark W]

Fascinating.  Where (roughly) is your regular dark sky site Scott?

[Scott Harrington]

I don't want to get too far off-topic, Mark, but my regular dark sky site is outside my house...in northern Arkansas. Jamie Dillon kindly let me become a member of TAC recently after I asked to be able to simply comment on a few recent posts I've been reading. I believe it is you who has worked with Steve Gottlieb to kindly host a few of my observing PDFs on his and your website! So it is nice to finally meet you...virtually.

Scott

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi Scott,

On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 5:20 PM Scott Harrington <sn4...@gmail.com> wrote:

Great sketch of M51 and its companion there, Akarsh! I wonder what was the highest magnification you employed in your study? Here is my CN post where I mention the three to four brightest H-II/SFRs and OB associations visible inside the spiral with a 10-inch. It's really tough to observe them and the whole galaxy without it taking all night...especially when you have that big a telescope under that dark of skies! I mean, I can tell from your sketch that you hit the big picture. Maybe next time you'll be able to hit the "little picture" details.

Thanks for sharing that post. Fascinating project -- I did not imagine one could tack down HII regions in M51, where things are a bit tight. The highest power I used was 200x, which revealed the bright clumps of the spiral arms that I marked on my sketch. In fact, I didn't spend an awful lot of time at that power even. I imagine you need excellent seeing to catch some of those tiny HII knots?

 

"[Sh 2-54] I'm usually not a nebula guy, but this is what showed up as well-placed on my list. "A modestly bright, roundish piece of nebulosity easily observed with DGM NPB filter."

Not usually a nebula guy? Hmm, that's the complete opposite of me! I've seen what you saw with my 130mm reflector, 59x, and a NPB filter. From what I understand, Sharpless cataloged the large, faint nebulosity while Simiez Observatory only picked out the small, bright nebula you and I saw. I'd have to do more digging to give you more than that.

I see, so what you're saying is that the Sharpless designation refers to the entirety of the faint nebulosity seen below, but there is a different designation for the smaller bright patch at the center of my screen?

Glad you enjoyed the reports. There's one more coming up, perhaps by the weekend.

Regards

Akarsh

 

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[Dan Smiley]

I believe that small bright patch is Simeis 3-132, I observed that wonderful field using night vision in my 12" and it's terrific with NGC 6604 sparkling at the corner of the large nebula Sh-2-54 which envelops Simeis 3-132, nestled within its curving arms

[Mark McCarthy]

Sh2-54 is the large nebula; Simeis 3-132 is the smaller nebula ("the egg" within "the nest")

This is the page from Vogel's guide:

"Also: Gum 85 (18.70°, 2.00°) Distance: 1900 pc, Size: 10.8 pc Source: 2000AJ....120.2594F This HII region is associated with the Serpens OB2 association and the NGC 6604 star cluster and is the core of the W35 star formation region. It lies, unusually, about 70 parsecs above the galactic plane. Serpens OB2 contains over 100 OB stars with a common age of about 5 million years. Sharpless describes a large region, so this nebula would be the large nebula, not just the small bright one within. A good image of this nebula, which looks like a nest carrying a tiny egg, can been seen here. NGC 6604 lies towards the bottom of Sh 2-54. It is not clear from the scientific literature what is causing the remarkably intense glow of the "egg"."

Mark

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[Scott Harrington]

It's known as Simeis 3-132...or is it Simeis 3-123!?! I know what Vogul has in his atlas, but on Stoyan's excellent Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas, he labels it as Simeis 3-123. I do know the entire large nebula is Sh 2-54 and the bright "Egg" is GUM 85. I'll continue to keep digging, but the Simeis Catalog was created just before the Cold War, so we don't know much about it and SIMBAD isn't much help at all. Like I said, I'll keep digging.

Scott

[Akarsh Simha]

https://bbastrodesigns.com/precession.html

Don't ask me how I found this, but I did (One of the "transferable skills" I learned during my PhD). This is an excerpt from the third Simeis catalog. I could not find it on VizieR or Simbad, but the original archive of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory is well-maintained and available here (English through Google Translate):

https://jn-craocrimea-ru.translate.goog/index.php/izvcrao/issue/archive/6?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Now the coordinates are in J1900, and I have no idea what "S" stands for -- is it "Simeis", or something else? Even if it were Simeis, SIMBAD doesn't know anything called "Simeis 187". So we go to Mel Bartels' precession calculator:

https://bbastrodesigns.com/precession.html

Sim 3-123 puts me bang in the middle of the Milky Way near the double globular, NGC 6553

Sim 3-132 puts me right on top of the "Egg" that we are talking about

So that would mean that Sim 3-132 is the right designation. The precessed coordinates are 18:17:47.22 -11°45'48.9" according to Mel's calculator.

Regards

Akarsh

[Scott Harrington]

When I get around to it, I'll dig into what you found, Akarsh. But wow, oh wow, those are some amazing skills you have there since I've looked high and low and not found what you did. I will comment and say that I believe the "S" stands for "Sharpless" -- either his first or second catalog.

Great job. I might just be able to help me figure out a big puzzle I've been working on concerning the Simeis Catalog...

Scott

[Steve Gottlieb]

Here’s more catalogue information on Simeis 3-132.

Simeis 3-132 is also catalogued as Gum 85 in Colin Gum’s 1955 “A Survey of Southern HII Regions” (page 161) and included in SIMBAD here, but without reference to the Simeis designation.

I believe the earliest reference, though, is M 1-88 from a 1946 investigation by Rudolph Minkowski.  It was listed in table 2 of "Diffuse and Peculiar Nebulosities” found with the 60” and 100” at Mt. Wilson.  Simeis listed his 3-132 with this alias “Mi I 8”, which I think is a typo, because it’s the 8th object in Minkowski's second table or the 88th object overall.  Once again, it’s listed in SIMBAD here without reference to Simeis or Gum.  SIMBAD often does a poor job connecting various aliases such as these.  If you go by discovery order, the Minkowski designation should be the primary one!

Finally, Simeis 3-132 contains an embedded infrared star cluster.  It’s object 9 in the 2003 paper "New infrared star clusters in the Northern and Equatorial Milky Way with 2MASS”

Here’s an observation I made back in 1991, over 30 years ago!

16x80 finder (8/10/91): very large, very faint emission haze (Sh 2-54 = Gum 84) surrounds a very large group of stars, improves with UHC filter.  The Eagle Nebula was very prominent in the field to the south.  On the north side of this large HII region is a small brighter knot = Simeis 3-132 that was visible in the 17.5" at 64x using a UHC filter as a moderately bright, 3'x2.5' glow, slightly elongated N-S.  The eastern side of this HII knot has a sharper, linear border.  Also viewed at 220x unfiltered and a group of a half dozen mag 12-13 stars extended N-S in a string are superimposed near the eastern boundary.  This obscure, but relatively easy nebula is located 30' N of open cluster NGC 6604 on the north end of Sh 2-54.

Steve

[Steve Gottlieb]

The “S” in the second column of the Simeis list can’t be from Sharpless — his first catalog came out in 1953 and the Seimeis list was published in 1952.  There were several earlier emission object lists by Gaze & Shain from the Simeis (or Simeiz) Observatory going back to at least 1951.  I’m pretty sure the “S” numbers are from one of an earlier lists.

Steve

On Jul 9, 2022, at 7:40 AM, Scott Harrington <sn4...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Scott Harrington]

Yeah, you found the crux there, Steve. Here is some of my research so far. Take # 122 on the 1952 Third List of Diffuse Emission Nebulae by Gaze and Shajn. It is also listed as S 186 on the image Akarsh posted. I found that in Sharpless's 1953 catalog (Sh1) he lists it as Sh 24 (Sh 1-024) with the alternate designation of S 186...not S 3-122. In Sharpless's final 1959 catalog (Sh2) he lists Sh 24 as Sh 34 (Sh 2-034) with the alternate designation of [GS55] 77a. So Gaze and Shajn's 1955 master catalog didn't use the "S" numbers, but they were used while the four catalogs were being published. So where are the BIG "S" numbers coming from? That is the farthest I've got. Steve, you and Akarsh are doing some great research there with Akarsh proving (I double-checked) that GUM 85 is Simeis 3-132...not Simeis 3-123 and Steve proving that Minkowski found it first (I haven't double-checked). I'll be letting Stoyan know this for the sake of his iDSA!

Awesome progress, guys! I'll keep digging.

Scott

[Scott Harrington]

Alright, I figured it all out pretty much. Below are the results. First a big THANK YOU to Akarsh for showing me how to get my hands on the actual Shajn and Gaze papers! That was splendid and not only helped me in this endeavor, but also an S&T article that'll premier in December.

Before Stewart Sharpless published his 1953 list of 142 emission nebulae found on POSS plates between 17h RA and 0h RA, Grigory Shajn and Vera Gaze published three major lists containing nearly 400 emission nebulae that they had found between 0h RA and 24h RA on plates taken at the Simeis Observatory. Shajn and Gaze tried to cross-reference as many of the nebulae as they could, but believed that at the time of their Third List of Diffuse Nebulae publication in 1952, they were the first to discover 279 nebulae (which they designated with an “S”). Apparently Sharpless knew of the discoveries at the Simeis Observatory prior to the publication of his 1953 catalog because he tried to cross-reference as many of his finds with those. That’s why in his “Notes” column he lists alternate NGC, IC, and S designations. Thus, he knew he was the original discoverer of less than half of the 142 he listed.

However, nowadays, few nebulae are called by their Simeis designation due to the effects of the Cold War. This is truly sad when you consider that Vera Gaze died in 1954 a few months short of her 55th birthday and Grigory Shajn died in 1956 at the age of 64. Just before Gaze died, though, their Fourth List of Diffuse Nebulae (their last one) was published, bringing the grand total of nebulae they believed they were the first to discover to 292*. Of course, I suspect (but haven’t taken the time to prove it) that a few of what they thought were original finds when their last list was published were actually published by Sharpless a year prior.

The supernova remnant Simeis 147 might just be their most famous find. Oddly, there are a few of their finds that carry their crude catalog designation when they should instead carry their original discovery designation. For example, Simeis 3-210, 3-206, and 3-204 is a far southern part of the Veil Nebula that should actually be known as Simeis 243/45/49 even though it was simply labeled Simeis 3-210 on page 30 of Howard Banich’s Sep ’21 S&T article. Also in Howard’s article, he gives Fleming’s Triangle the designation Simeis 3-188, when it should instead be Simeis 227/28/29. That’s a "mistake" that might have been carried over from Steve Gottlieb’s online piece “Dissecting the Veil Nebula”. Interestingly, Sue French does call it Simeis 229 in her Oct ‘03 S&T article “On the Wings of the Swan”.

Certainly not this month, but maybe next month I’ll have to time to put together a master list where I show which Sharpless emission nebulae (or H-II regions as he preferred to call them in his 1959 catalog) carry a Simeis original discovery designation so that we can start using them again and give credit where credit is due. None of it will be easy, though.

-Scott H.

*In the Fourth List of Diffuse Nebulae, they reached S 301, but noted that two of their original finds in the first list along with five in the second list had actually been discovered prior. They also noted that S 31 and S 121 didn’t truly exist.

[Scott Harrington]

[Akarsh Simha]

Hey Scott,

This is absolutely fantastic. I'm wondering if there's a way you have to read / translate the Russian text. I'm putting together a PDF containing all the Shajn / Gaze papers that are listed on SIMBAD from the various archive volumes, and will send you a copy once it is done.

I think I finally understand what you're saying, after reading the comments in http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/Dic?Sim%20NNN which Steve posted on CloudyNights. The two things that stand out are, "S stands for Simeis in this context" and "Column 1 numbering is not used" (in SIMBAD). What this means is that "S 147" (i.e. Simeis 147) is the preferred designation for the 62nd object in the third list of Shajn/Gaze, which would be also designated perhaps as Simeis 3-62 for being the 62nd entry in the table of the third list:

(The text machine-translated to "... fibrous filamentous nebula forming intersecting circular arcs. Three centers can be noted in it: S 149, S 151 and S 155 ...")

Therefore, the "Spider" fragment described here or the "Region D" described here on Adventures is formally designated "Simeis 155" (as I found out by plugging the coordinates in). Unfortunately, SIMBAD does not carry this designation.

I have a vested interest in getting the cross-designations right, because I would love to have a master nebulae catalog for KStars, the software I contribute to in my spare time. I'm almost done adding the PGC catalog to it, which serves as a master catalog of galaxies, since it has cross-designations with a number of catalogs including UGC/NGC/IC/Arp/MCG/VV/Mrk/Ark/KUG/DDO... I would be very grateful if you license your catalog in such a way that we can distribute it as an add-on with the software (just re-distribution rights would be the bare minimum).

Regards

Akarsh

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