Open clusters in Monoceros (some sketched)

Conditions: seeing good (Pickering 7), transparency poor (NELM 5, SQM 20.4).

NGC2232

16" SCT @ 110x shows one bright greeny-blue member immediately E of a pair of dimmer, straw colored stars. Perhaps 8 other members of intermediate brightness and a further 40 dimmer ones.

But that turns out to be only half the cluser. FC100 @ 30x shows two halves, separated by an empty lane down the middle, strongly resembling a large butterfly. Sadly, color mentioned in SCT is much less apparent in Tak.



NGC2251

Fairly uniform brightness, neither dense nor sparse, with brightest members forming a mis-shapen, elongated triangle. Too dim to be interesting in FC100. (OK, it wasn't all that interesting in the 16" SCT either.)

NGC2301

Bright, contrasting double at center (steel-blue/gold), with an arc of bright stars extending S. 60 to 80 further members packed reasonably tightly around the central double.

NGC2353

One bright straw-colored member to the SSW of a ball of perhaps 40 dimmer members.

NGC2324

A dim but highly condensed triangular patch of stars in an otherwise brighter but sparser neighborhood. A very interesting composition.

FC100 resolves no stars (compared to 100s in 16" SCT).

NGC2506

Another dim and compact open cluster of nearly globular appearance (especially as this one approximates round). Perhaps 20 brighter members in a loose ring around and over 100s of dimmer, mostly unresolved stars.



Mars

Even in decent seeing it's gotten too small to see much.

Saturn

Stunning at 560x with the 12mm AP SPLs and Denk binoviewer. 15mm TV Plossls (450x) gave a tighter view (and appeared to have better transmission as Enceladus was direct vision in them and hovered between averted and direct in SPLs), but the greater image scale of 560x was very seductive.

Mimas and Hyperion were no-shows (not surprising given poor transparency).

C-ring and equatorial belt were quite prominent, and further study revealed two lighter bands N of the equator (on the other side of the ring system). Cassini division visible only at ansae.

-- Jeff.