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The Perek-Kohoutek Catalogue of Planetary Nebulae

The MASH Catalog of Planetary Nebulae
The Macquarie/AAO/Strasbourg Hα Planetary Galactic Catalog (MASH) contains 905 true, likely and possible new galactic planetary nebulae discovered in the AAO/UKST Hα survey of the Southern galactic plane. The MASH catalog represents the result of a 7-year programme of identification and confirmatory spectroscopy. A key strength is that the entire sample has been derived from the same, uniform observational data. The 60% increase in known Galactic planetary nebulae represented the largest ever incremental sample of such discoveries.

Paper
"The past, present and future of Galactic planetary nebula surveys" by Parker, Frew, Acker, Miszalski
http://planetarynebulae.net/documentation/IAU283-Parker-review-V12.pdf


The MASH Catalog is presented here divided into three Argo Navis User Catalog text files.
* mash_true.txt - True Planetary Nebulae from the MASH Catalog
* mash_likely.txt - Likely Planetary Nebulae from the MASH Catalog
* mash_possible.txt - Possible Planetary Nebulae from the MASH Catalog

Thank you to Al Lamperti from the eastern United States who compiled this composite observing list
of Carbon stars, Flat Galaxies, Quasars, Lensed quasars, Double quasars, Hickson Galaxy Groups, Abell, BL objects, Arp peculiar galaxies.

Wikipedia wrote:
The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way.

Wikipedia page :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group

Bill Ferris kindly compiled this Argo Navis User Catalog of Local Group Galaxies.

Wikipedia wrote:
A carbon star is typically an asymptotic giant branch star, a luminous red giant, whose atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen. The two elements combine in the upper layers of the star, forming carbon monoxide, which consumes all the oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving carbon atoms free to form other carbon compounds, giving the star a "sooty" atmosphere and a strikingly ruby red appearance. There are also some dwarf and supergiant carbon stars, with the more common giant stars sometimes being called classical carbon stars to distinguish them.

In most stars (such as the Sun), the atmosphere is richer in oxygen than carbon. Ordinary stars not exhibiting the characteristics of carbon stars but cool enough to form carbon monoxide are therefore called oxygen-rich stars.

Carbon stars have quite distinctive spectral characteristics, and they were first recognized by their spectra by Angelo Secchi in the 1860s, a pioneering time in astronomical spectroscopy.

Special thanks to highly experienced U.S. observer Bob Rose, an OzSky regular, who compiled the following carbon star files :-

Carbon+Var225.txt consisting of 225 Carbon Stars Down to Mag 10- Listed by Var Star Id

Carbon437.txt consisting of 437 Carbon stars down to mag 10 Using CGCS ID

Carbon-Argo.txt consisting of 75 fairly bright carbon stars.

wikipedia wrote:
The Herschel 400 catalogue is a subset of William Herschel's original Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, selected by Brenda F. Guzman (Branchett), Lydel Guzman, Paul Jones, James Morrison, Peggy Taylor and Sara Saey of the Ancient City Astronomy Club in St. Augustine, Florida, United States c. 1980. They decided to generate the list after reading a letter published in Sky & Telescope by James Mullaney of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

In this letter Mr. Mullaney suggested that William Herschel's original catalogue of 2,500 objects would be an excellent basis for deep sky object selection for amateur astronomers looking for a challenge after completing the Messier Catalogue.

The Herschel 400 is a subset of John Herschel's General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters published in 1864 of 5,000 objects, and hence also of the New General Catalogue.

The catalogue forms the basis of the Astronomical League's Herschel 400 club. In 1997, another subset of 400 Herschel objects was selected by the Rose City Astronomers of Portland, Oregon as the Herschel II list, which forms the basis of the Astronomical League's Herschel II Program.

Wikipedia description page :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_400_Catalogue

Special thanks to Australian observer and dedicated supernova searcher, Peter Marples, for compiling the Herschel 400 into Argo Navis User Catalog format.

Andrew Hincks created the ArgoUserListCreator to enable the creation of Argo Navis User Catalogs in an Excel spreadsheet
and for them to be exported in the requisite Argo Navis User Catalog format which uses 'vertical bar' - also known as pipe - delimiters (|)

The use of the utility is described in a four page User Manual.

Special thanks to Andrew for creating this utility.

What is the BAM600?
The BAM600 is a list of 600 observing targets for the Southern Hemisphere, covering all different types of targets and catering to various telescope apertures and observer experience.

How did it come about?
John Bambury is one of the core volunteers for the Three Rivers Foundation in Australia who do a lot of outreach astronomy. In addition to this 3RF regularly host small and large groups of observers from the US to Australia with a bi-annual astronomy tour called OzSky.

John's role with 3RF is “Observations Officer”. As most of the US visitors have a very short observing time down here (8 days per trip), he decided it would be beneficial to them if he put a comprehensive observing list together. John said he wanted to do something similar to the Herschel 400 for Southern Hemisphere observers and for the US visitors who came down to Australia.

John put the list together himself by incorporating several of the known common lists ( eg. Messier, Caldwell, etc), and then including a lot of targets he had observed himself over many years and by consulting with some of his observing colleagues on some of their favourite targets in each target category, which were “not” part of the common lists.

In 2009 the Astronomical League added the BAM600 target list as a “supplementary list” to their Southern Skies Telescope Club Observing Badge List.

The Files
The list is attached as an excel spreadsheet with targets sorted in Right Ascension (RA) order. You can re sort the list to suit your own observing goals.
BAM600_-_John_Bambury_Southern_Skies_Observing_List.zip 75.22 KB
The BAM600 list. Unzip the file and open in Excel.

BAM600_Southern_Skies_List_in_AN_format.txt 61.16 KB
The BAM600 list as a text delimited file for uploading as a User Defined Catalogue to the Argo Navis DTC.

BAM600-skytools.zip 9.85 KB
The BAM600 list as a SkyTools file for uploading into SkyTools.

How to Use The List
John says you can observe the list in whatever way suits you to fit in with your available observing time. Most people will take a couple of years to work through the list.

A good way to start off might be to sort the list and allocate targets to each “planned” observing night based on “best month to observe”, setting your observing program for each night to observe targets rising towards the zenith from the East.

By doing it this way you will always have the targets on your program for the night well placed and you should be able to work through them all systematically.

Definitions and Abbreviations
BN = Bright Nebula
CS = Carbon Star
DN = Dark Nebula
EG GC = Extra Galactic Globular Cluster
EN = Emission NebulaGal = Galaxy
Gal CL = Galaxy Cluster
GC = Globular Cluster
MS = Multiple Star
OC = Open Cluster
PN = Planetary Nebula
SR = Supernova Remnant
Star = Star
VS = Variable Star

Matt Bielski wrote:Thank you Gary for all the hard work and the quick response in getting this site up
Matt

Hi Matt,

Thank you and welcome to the Group!

We look forward to seeing you down here at OzSky 2020!

Last month, John Izzo reported on his recently finished equatorial platform project.

He wrote :-

John Izzo wrote:
Hi All,

I just like to report that I recently finished an equatorial platform for my home-made 16" truss dobsonian, with the help of Mark Justice and Rod Brackenridge fellow members of the Astronomical Society of Victoria (Instrument Making Section). Last week, I used the first time the Argo Navis in conjunction with the platform. Following the AN manual instruction it worked like a charm. I was ready for all sort of trouble but it worked perfectly from the start. I'm very happy. Now for the weather...

Cheers,

John

--
John Izzo
Stella Observatory
Macedon, Victoria
Australia
144:34:13 E - 37:25:09 S

It was so good to see that it is worth posting again including with attached photos.

Attached is Scott Tannehill's PowerPoint presentation on the method he used for locating the alt axis on a Dobsonian.

ausastronomer wrote:Well done on setting this up so quickly Gary!!

I think this forum software will prove to be more user friendly and versatile, than the older style Yahoo Message Boards.

Hi John!

Welcome to the Group.

Thank you and hopefully by also hosting the group on our own server it will provide extra flexibility and ensure the longevity of the forum
as we go into the future.

Katrina wrote:Hi Gary,
Thanks for setting this up.
Note, I had an error message while setting up my profile (on Firefox) that this website was not secure (using https?, unsure)
Cheers,
Katrina

Hi Katrina,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Group.

The link I posted to access the forum was http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au/forum
However, if you access the forum via https://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au/forum a little locked padlock icon should then appear on the browser's URL bar and hopefully any warning disappear.

Most of the browsers now flag a warning if you are entering data into a web site as to whether it is secure or not in case you happen to
be doing something that warrants high security such as entering credit card details.

For example, when entering data on the Wildcard Innovations purchase page, the user must use a URL starting with https.
However, on the forum, it is optional.

Hopefully that is all it is and I really appreciate the heads-up.

WOBentley wrote:Thanks Gary!
Dave

Thank you Dave and welcome to the forum.