Sky & Telescope - August 2020 - 56

AUGUST 2020 OBSERVING
Deep-Sky Wonders

pair and ﬂoats in a 7′ pail of seven 11thmagnitude stars that opens northeast.
At 48× through my 130-mm refractor,
this drop in the bucket doesn't quite
look like a star, and a magniﬁcation of
117× conﬁrms a teensy blue-gray disk.
Minkowski 3-34 is a somewhat larger
planetary nebula 2° southeast of yellow,
5th-magnitude 26 Aquilae. A 10′ triangle of 9th-magnitude stars just southeast of 26 Aql points toward the nebula.
M3-34 makes a 17′-long straight line
with three stars. From south-southwest
to north-northeast, they are magnitude
10.7, 12.5 (the planetary), 11.9, and
10.5. A 9th-magnitude star rests 6.2′
west southwest of the nebula.
M3-34 is moderately faint and not
as sharp as the stars in my 130-mm
scope at 48×. It becomes a small disk at
102×, while at 164× it looks quite nice
and is fainter around the periphery.
The nebula dons a blue-green hue in
my 10-inch scope at low power, and
it gains a substantial contrast boost

S Visible in modest telescopes as a small blue
disk, NGC 6751 resembles a dandelion gone to
seed in this Hubble Space Telescope image.

through an O III ﬁ lter when using my
15-inch scope.
Now we'll move on to the triple stars
Struve 2545 and Struve 2547, which
dwell 57′ east-northeast of deep-yellow,
5th-magnitude 37 Aquilae. Struve 2545
(Σ 2545) is the brighter trio. My 130mm refractor at 63× shows the white,
6.8-magnitude primary star barely separated from its 8.5-magnitude secondary
to the northwest. The third star is con-

siderably farther away, south-southeast
of the primary, and much fainter. The
close companion is more comfortably
split from its primary at 102×.
Only 11′ to the south-southeast,
Σ 2547 shares the ﬁeld of view with
Σ 2545, but it doesn't require as much
power to reveal its components. At
just 37× the 8.7-magnitude primary
displays a 9.5-magnitude attendant
north-northwest, and a much fainter
one more than twice as far away in the
opposite direction.
The spiral galaxy NGC 6814 also
shares the same low-power ﬁeld of view,
55′ east of Σ 2547. It's a fairly small,
very faint, round, misty spot. At 102×
it spans about 1½′ and has uniform
surface brightness. There's a very faint
star close to the galaxy's northwestern
edge and another more distant from its
south-southeastern side. My 10-inch
scope at 213× adds a small, brighter
core. How large a telescope do you need
to see the spiral arms of this nearly
face-on galaxy?
 Contributing Editor SUE FRENCH
wrote this column for the July 2009 issue
of Sky & Telescope.

Object

Type

Mag(v)

Size/Sep

RA

Dec.

V Aquilae

Carbon star

6.7 - 7.2

-

19h 04.4m

-05° 41′

Barnard 130

Dark nebula

-

7′ × 7′

19h 01.9m

-05° 34′

01.6m

-05° 27′

Barnard 127

Dark nebula

-

4′ × 4′

19h

Barnard 129

Dark nebula

-

5′ × 5′

19h 02.1m

-05° 18′

05.9m

-06° 00′

06.9m

-06° 15′
-06° 54′

NGC 6751

Planetary nebula

11.9

26″

19h

Barnard 134

Dark nebula

-

6′ × 6′

19h

Barnard 133

Dark nebula

-

10′ × 3′

19h 06.2m

Asterism

-

2′

19h 06.4m

-06° 47′

IC 4846

Planetary nebula

11.9

11″

19h 16.5m

-09° 03′

Minkowski 3-34

Planetary nebula

12.5

11″

19h 27.0m

-06° 35′

38.7m

-10° 09′

Teutsch J1906.4-0647

Struve 2545

Triple star

6.8, 8.5, 11.6

4″, 25″

19h

Struve 2547

Triple star

8.1, 9.5, 11.1

21″, 50″

19h 38.9m

-10° 20′

11.2

3.0ƍ × 2.8′

19h

-10° 19′

NGC 6814

Spiral galaxy

42.7m

Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogs. Visually, an object's size is often smaller than the cataloged value and varies according to the aperture
and magnification of the viewing instrument. Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.

56

AUGUST 2 02 0 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

N ASA / HUBBLE HERITAG E TE A M / STSCI / AUR A

Several Stars, Many Nebulae, and One Fine Galaxy in Aquila
Sky & Telescope - August 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - August 2020
