Date:  September 30, 2011
Location: Blue Canyon at 5200 feet
NELM: 6.2 – 6.5
Transparency: 4/5
Seeing: 3/5

Telescope: 22” f/4.0 reflector on an equatorial platform
Eyepieces:  24mm Panoptic (finder eyepiece), 10 and 6mm ZAO-II’s, 9 and 7mm BGO’s and 1.8x TMB ED Barlow.  Astronomik CLS, Orion UltraBlock (UB) and Lumicon O-III filters

NGC 7270/71/75 trio

22” f/4 (230, 255, 383 and 591x) – Trio of three distinctive type of galaxies with two other nearby galaxies, MCG+5-52-18 and MAC 2224+3220 situated in a rich star field.  A pleasure to observing this group with a large telescope.  This group fits in a 7.0’ field, so use high power while observing this group.
NGC 7270  (22 23 47.5  +32 24 10  0.9x0.5’  14.9p) – Bright low surface brightness slightly elongated glow.  Stellar core.  PA = 0 and 0.6x0.4’ in size.
NGC 7271  (22 23 57.6  +32 22 00  0.7x0.3’  15.6) – Considerably bright high surface brightness small slightly elongated glow.  PA = 120 and 0.2’ long.
NGC 7275  (22 24 17.3  +32 26 45  1.0x0.1’  15.2p) – Considerably bright thin streak with a brighter slightly elongated center.  PA = 45 and 0.9’ long.  A 8.0 mag star lies 2.0 due west.
MCG+5-52-18 (22 24 06.6  +32 25 01  0.9x0.1’  16.5) – A very faint thin glow with a mag 11.7 star almost superimposes the middle, but just a hair due north.  PA = 90 and 0.6’ long.
MAC 2224+3220  (22 24 13.7  +32 20 41  0.5x0.1’  16.0) – Very faint small round glow. 

NGC 7465/64/63 trio

22” f/4 (230, 255 and 383x) – Compact trio with a 8.0 mag star lying 2.4’ to the SW.  This trio easily fits in a high power field as the group is only 2.4’ long.
NGC 7465  (23 02 01.0  +15 57 53  2.2x1.8’  12.6v) – Very bright 3:2 elongated high surface brightness glow with well-defined edges.  Stellar core.  PA = 150 and 0.5’ long.
NGC 7464  (23 01 53.8  +15 58 26  0.8’  14.3p) – Considerably bright very small round high surface brightness glow with defined edges.  0.2’ across.
NGC 7463  (23 01 51.7  +15 58 56  3.7x0.7’  13.8b) – Bright 5:2 elongated glow with somewhat diffuse edges.  Even surface brightness.  PA = 90 and 0.8’ long.  Did not detect structure.
Nearby galaxy, UGC 12321 (23 02 19.3  +16 01 42  1.0x0.2’  15.7p) is very faint 2:1 elongated diffuse glow.  PA = 60 and 0.3’ long.  A string of 11-12^th magnitude star lies from the south to west.

Minkowski 4-15  Bi-polar planetary nebulae (19 32 57.8  +26 52 41  35x7”  16.9p) 

22” f/4 (230 and 383x) – Very faint thin streak.  Even surface brightness with defined edges.  PA = 90 and 0.4’ long.  Observed with CLS, UB and O-III and found that it is best seen with the UB filter.  The O-III surprisingly almost kills it.

MCG-2-2-31,Kaz 356/357 trio

22” f/4 (230, 328 and 383x) – This fait string of three galaxies in a star poor region and fits in a compact field of 4.0’.
MCG-2-2-31  (00 30 44.9  -08 24 54  0.5x0.4’  15.7) – This is the brightest of the trio.  Considerably faint round diffuse glow.  About 0.3’ across.
Kaz 357  (00 30 34.7  -08 22 58  0.3’  16.3) – Very faint small round glow.  0.2’ across.
Kaz 356  (00 30 33.0  -08 22 33  0.2’  16.4) – Very faint small round glow.  0.2’ across.

Mkn 914 (Part of Sharpless 2-126)  (22 34 41.2  +40 40 03  0.4x0.3  - )

22” f/4 (230x) –  Faint irregular glow with a bright knot in the middle (a star?).  Two brighter thin streaks flowing from the knot like a tuning fork.  The CLS helps just a little, while the UB and O-III kills it.

Merrill 2-2  (22 31 43.8  +47 48 00  5”  11.5p)

22” f/4 (383x) – Bright almost stellar.  O-III flicker test confirmed which “star” is the planetary.  Lies on the SE end of a string of three “stars”

Galaxy near DY Peg  (23 08 51.3  +17 12 33  1.1’  ?)

22” f/4  (230, 255 and 383x) – Field is located, but the galaxy was not detected.