Objects in Pegasus, Andromeda, Triangulum and Aries

Conditions:
Transparency 1/5, Seeing 4/10, Moon at 8.3% waxing crescent, set

Targets Observed:
M31, M33, M76, M45, MGC7331, NGC7662, NGC752, Doubles 78 Peg, gamma Ari, gamma And

Music
2nd Test, India v Australia Day One

Notes
What a night. The conditions were not great, I was hoping for more transparency, but the air was relatively warm and there were no clouds or wind. I warmed up with 78 Peg, a close pair that I couldn't seperate. I began with hopes of finding some fuzzies in Pegasus, notably NGC7331 and NGC7662, a galaxy and a planetary nebula respectively. A combination of my unadjusted eyes and the moisture in the atmosphere made them invisible.

And so I scanned the shapes of these early fall constellations, asterisms that are not familiar to me. It took a while to orient, Triangulum, Aries and the two arms of Andromeda. When I did I turned to M33, a new target. Following a line from M31 through two stars like a gate and then down through Mu And and beta And another five degrees or so to a faint smudge that was M33. It's a face on spiral galaxy held within a triangle of 9th magnitude stars, but I could only just make out the slightly asymmetrical centre.

Excited by the discovery, I took a shot at another Messier object, M76 which is a planetary nebula near rho Per. Not much popped out, until sweeping the area, something very faint caught my eye. Sure enough a subsequent comparison of the star field confirmed my find. No structure could be resolved and while I was watching it and sketching, the transparency degraded noticibly.

Turning to some clusters, I found NGC752, which is a really large and pretty open cluster just northwest of beta Tri. It features some nice doubles and was quite the jewel box. I should come back and sketch it.

The deteriorating transparency was my cue to look for doubles. I found some lovely ones. Looking for gamma Ari, I stumbled upon an Albeirio-type pair a little further east. Gamma Ari itself is a lovely cat's eye pair. But the best was saved till last: the spectacular tight green and yellow pair of gamma And. I could stare at this pair for hours. Even thorough the Barlow they looked great.

As I was about to pack up, the Pleides came into few from behind the Douglas-fir. I'll sketch them another day, the sisters and their myriad components.

And all the while, India took a couple of quick wickets in the post-lunch session.