With the high pressure dry air mass moving out of Canada into the Midwestern
United States, we had a cool clear night for observing the night sky. I chose for
sketching the brightest galaxy in the constellation of Pegasus NGC 7331. This Sb
galaxy called a nebula by William Herschel in the late 18th century is 10’ x 2’ in
size as seen in the sky. This spiral galaxy is somewhere between 43-49 million
light years away and glows at magnitude 9.7. NGC 7331 has been compared to our
milky way in size, spiral structure and general appearance. There are a number of
other galaxies fainter than 13th magnitude in the same field of view but
undetectable under my urban sky conditions with a 10” scope.
Sketching:
Date and Time: 9-12-2007, 3:20-3:50 UT
Scope: 10” f/5.7 Dobsonian. 21mm and 12mm eyepieces 70x and 121x
8”x12” white sketching paper, B, 2B graphite pencils, scanned and inverted, star
magnitude adjustments using Paint
Seeing: Pickering 8/10
Transparency: above average 4/5
Nelm: 4.9
Frank McCabe
I observed NGC 7331 too last night. It showed exaclty the same in my 8″ dob as in your sketch! great job!
Frank,
Very nice sketch of this faint fuzzy! I find it amazing that the photons your eye captured and then translated to this sketch, have been traveling through space for nearly 50 million years. Thanks for sharing this remarkable observation! 8)
Jason
Kris and Jason,
This is one of my favorite galaxies this time of year. It is impressive and nicely glows through the local light pollution. Thank you both.
Frank