Summer Targets You May Not Readily Think Of…
We’re now (at least in the northern hemisphere) at the beginning of summer and looking at what we want to target for imaging this season. We still have an opportunity to get several fine galaxy and globular cluster targets in Virgo and Coma Berenices, as well as preparing for the usual suspects located in the plane of the Milky Way such as M8, the Lagoon Nebula and M20, the Trifid Nebula. While those are fine targets to go after and I’ll be aiming for some of those myself, I’d also recommend you consider a few from the van den Bergh catalog.
Sidney van den Bergh has been one of Canada’s major astronomers since he started his career at the University of Toronto in the late 1950s. He identified and catalogued 158 objects from the Palomar Sky Survey red and blue plates as what we now know to be reflection nebulae; nebulae which have a bluish color to them as nearby starlight scatters off the dust and gas surrounding the star. His catalogued objects have the designation vdB and many of these objects are well known and very challenging imaging targets such as:
vdB 34 - Flaming Star Nebula in Auriga
vdB 93 - Seagull Nebula in Monoceros
vdB 36 - Witch Head Nebula in Eridanus
For the summer, there are several other vdB catalog targets coming into view that you may want to consider. In Scorpius, vdB 107, vdB 104, vdB 108 and vdB 106 make up the Rho Ophiuchi complex which has wonderful coloring and nebulosity. The Iris Nebula, vdB 139 is another favorite which comes into prime position beginning in July. For me, vdB 146, the Cosmic Rosebud will be one of my prime targets to try to get. This target is particularly interesting not just for it’s reflection nebulosity but also because there is a lot of dark nebulosity around it and would be an excellent and compelling image if you can get it right.
By the way, there are now actually 159 van den Bergh catalogued objects; the last one was added by one of his Canadian colleagues, Rene Racine a couple of years after he published his catalog.
Stay safe, have a lot of fun if you decide to go after these targets, get your neighbors to turn off their lights at night and convince them to join in the fun….
Cover Image Credits
Rho Ophiuchi Complex; Telescope Live 1-Click Bundled Observation LRGB Data using CHI-1 & Processed in PixInsight
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