by Craig Scull
Just thought I'd share a particularly interesting view of 3 objects in the same eyepiece field through Peter N's 20" Robo-Dob with the 31mm made by you know who.
Open cluster 6520 (Herschel object) is a tight grouping of evenly lit sparkling stars just off the western edge of the tea pot in Sagittarius. Directly adjacent but not quite touching is the dark nebula B86 (aka "Ink Spot") which is one of the darker and cooler looking things I've seen. B86 stands in stark contrast to the relatively bright milky way background in this portion of sky. In this large a scope the nebula shows varying distribution of brightness or darkness I should say. There is a particularly dark, small round blob on the side of the dark nebula opposite the cluster. Pushing the 2 beautiful objects to the west edge of the eyepiece reveals the globular Djorgovski 2 (aka ESO456-SC38 in Uranometria) smack in the middle. It's around one-quarter the size of 6520 and a faint misty patch with no hint of resolution.
To see a hint of what this 3-some looks like, check out Steve G's page:
http://www.angelfire.com/id/jsredshift/july.htm
The above photograph shows a little more than half the field visible with the 31mm (~70x). Even though Djorgovski 2 looks faint in the photograph (and indeed it is faint) don't be shy. It has been observed with averted vision in an 8-incher at Fremont under average conditions.
Thanks for the view Peter.