by Ron Bhanukitsiri
As the 10.2cm TV-102 Light Cup was turning it refractive lens north- ward one night, it caught a white glove thrown from Canada right in the eyepiece ;-) coming from the list known as "RASC Deep Sky Challenge Object" (by Alan Dyer and Alister Ling - a great list BTW). http://www.edmontonrasc.com/deepsky.html Since it has been meaning to equalize the balance of aperture in Libra (which means balance or scale), why not! The LM was 5.7 last night.
The first duel is NGC 5987, a mag 8.6 globular in Libra. It was easily caught by the TV-102 at 22x as dim round smudge. 30x didn’t give much improvement. Much better at 73x (12mm Radian), much darker sky background, still dim, with a nebulous glow using averted vision. A few stars seen with averted vision in and around the core at 110x. Too dim at 176x (5mm Radian), but the GC can be seen as occupying 1/3 of the FOV. The Light Cup showed a grin through the eyepiece as I whispered that the minimum aperture stated by RASC is 15cm ;-). The GC looks dimmer than mag 8.6.
Next object was not the RASC list, but might as well bag it too, a mag 11.2 elliptical galaxy, NGC 5812. Looked like a star that popped in and out at 22x through the TV-102 between the mag 10.3 star GSC 5012:45 and mag 10.4 star GSC 5579:923. 73x gave a very nice dark background but the galaxy still popped in and out as a very tiny round glow, forming a line with the above two stars and the mag 9.7 star GSC 5579:921. At 110x, it is slightly dimmer than mag 12.3 star GSC 5012:69 but brighter than the two mag 13.2 stars GSC 5012:27 and GSC 5012:41 which form a neat tiny triangle with the star GSC 5012:45. Tiny nebulosity surrounding a stellar core can now be seen. Too dim at 176x but the stellar core and glow can still be seen.
Another 15cm minimum aperture? Umm, can you see a trend of record breaking here ;-)...?
As a good scribe for the Light Cup, I anxiously checked my database later and found the following RASC Challenge Objects already broken down by the 4" TV-102 Light Cup:
So, I recommend anyone with a small telescope to give this tough list a worthy right jab ;-).