Your Deep Sky Scorecard

[Ciel Extreme]

I'm curious here...

Going back to the mid-sixties, I would figure the average deep sky observer would have seen, at most, about 200 deep sky objects (the majority of the Messiers, maybe 100 of the brighter NGC objects), due primarily to limited telescope aperture and poor information resources (limited atlases, databases).

The primo 18-19th century observers were W. Herschel (at least 2500 objects), John Herschel (around 4000 objects) and Guillaume Bigourdan (6000+ objects), amongst others (Stephan, Swift, Javelle, etc.).

Nowadays most dedicated deep sky observers have access to first class telescopes, atlases, databases, etc., allowing for deep penetration into the sky. The late Lucian Kemble, as an example, recorded between 4000 and 5500 deep sky objects during his observing career, never using a telescope larger than 11" aperture. Steve Gottlieb (very likely the king of the deep sky) has evidently recorded 11000+ over the years. So the questions is... how many individual deep sky objects have you (yes, YOU!!!!) recorded over the years? I am figuring, based on the quality of the membership on this site, that some of you must have recorded some truly impressive numbers.

To get the ball rolling, as of my last observing session, June 3, 2014 (poor transparency, high humidity, generally just a really discouraging outing with only two new galaxies observed - NGC5983 and NGC6014), I have recorded 4621 objects. These have been observed over about a 30 year period, with all objects subject to a written description with field sketch included.

I'd be interested to know how you've done over the years... and even your favourite observations, most exotic object seen?

[Steve Gottlieb]

I don't believe Jay Freeman is on the forum, but I'm pretty certain, that although he has been pretty inactive for the past few years, he is well beyond 10,000. Same with Jeff Corder. I have no idea of his total, but I believe he basically finished the entire NGC. Don Pensack (who will probably respond) is another that is well beyond 10,000 recorded observations. And I'm sure there are others, though not everyone can rattle off a specific number.

Of course, anyone is this group has to be very organized in terms of planning and recording observations. That's a main requirement and requires a certain personality. Also, those who like to spend lots of time on each object, whether it is sketching or just enjoying the view, are probably not going to reach these high numbers. Nor should they be encouraged.

Personally, I'm at 12,400 deep sky objects (7,200 of these are NGCs) over 35 years -- all documented with notes and details on my computer -- but I'm not a sketcher (other than diagrams to later identify objects). Nowadays, I'm a relative slow-poke in terms of observing style, so I doubt this will increase significantly in the next few years.

To me, though, this pales in terms of the accomplishments of the Herschels and other 19th century observers, compared to conveniences we have today. It's one thing to track down an object having precise coordinates and an atlas (nowadays, probably computerized star chart), and quite another to *discover* the object in the first place and accurately record the transit time as well as the polar distance, while the object was rapidly moving through the field. In addition, William recorded positions for a large number of single stars, discovered double stars, made star counts of the fields and more -- all while sweeping for nebulae. And of course, he made his speculum mirrors and more from scratch. What else am I missing?

[FaintFuzzies]

I have no idea on how many objects I've observed, but I'm pretty sure that I have less than 10k, but more than 8k. I was pretty inactive between 1986 to 1992. Started in 1973.

[lamperti]

I keep 2 Access files: 1 for the Herschels (all of them observed) and another for non-Herschels. Total between the two is 5,002.

Would be more if the East coast weather patterns would be more conducive to observing. Frustrating to be out only 1x since Thanksgiving!

BTW: electronic files makes it a snap to find them.

Al

[Ivan Maly]

No comparison with the greats here, but just for the sake of completeness... About one thousand. Probably 200 of them with the OP's book - big fan. I started, such as it was, in 2006, and like to re-observe objects to find more details. All but a dozen of these objects were observed from remote sites hours away. I have written notes for most and sketched (with greatly varying diligence) a hundred or so. The NGCs and the like would not be hard to count exactly, but all the little non-NGC galaxies, although always identified in my notes, are another matter. Among the most memorable was one night with 80 objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud; that was like shooting fish in a barrel. Another one is this view of IC 1613: link.

[KidOrion]

Without checking my notes, I'd say close to/just over 600. I got over 150 of those in a week in New Mexico with a TeleVue Pronto (70mm).

Most difficult were Maffei 1, the Eridanus globular, and Palomar 13 (that same week in NM, using a 17.5").

Now I'm curious about the number. To my notes....

Also--love the book, Mark! A must as I work on the Herschel 400/H II lists.

[akarsh]

I'm yet to digitize my observing logs, but I don't think I've observed very much -- maybe about 400 individual objects. Many of them not cataloged, so their records are lost.

[Ciel Extreme]

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply so far! Freeman I seem to recall as a frequent contributor to Sky&Tel a couple of decades back, Corder I remember from the old Deep Sky. Not surprising that the observers with the highest success rates are from the southwest US... observing conditions are so much better there and your winters are not nearly as cold as those in the US northeast, to say nothing of Canada and northern Europe! In Saskatchewan, overnight winter temperatures are typically anywhere from 30 to 60 degrees below freezing, so I very rarely take a telescope out between December 1st and March 1st... you'd have to be nuts to take a telescope out in those conditions. I do recall setting up my telescope once in Quebec when the overnight temperature was -34 Celsius (-29 Fahrenheit)... all for naught - despite being clear ice crystals were suspended in the air, causing havoc with the transparency.

Ivan - a great drawing of IC1613 and Kid Orion I envy your views of the Eridanus Cluster and Pal 13. Several years ago I moved to a small village in Sask to have a “deep sky” backyard. Conditions are fairly good when it's not winter, on the best nights I have mag. +6 skies, but multiple light sources nearby - including a local with a dusk-to-dawn mercury vapour light, means I never get properly dark adapted. So dwarf spheroidal galaxies, Terzan clusters, etc. etc... not for me. I'm sticking to the NGC/IC and the brighter MCG and UGC galaxies. Will be retiring 5 or 6 years down the road... if my health holds out I'd like to do more travelling for observing, Australia, US southwest, etc.

I'd appreciate hearing more from some of the younger observers on this site... nobody expects you guys to have 5000 or 10000 objects seen if you've only been at it a few years, but I'd love to know how you're doing.

[akarsh]

I wonder if there are any young observers here -- everyone here seems like a seasoned observer to me! (Of course, I'm "young" by that very statement, but I'm just talking about the massive expertise at this forum! Very high-quality discussions.)

[KidOrion]

I wonder if there are any young observers here -- everyone here seems like a seasoned observer to me! (Of course, I'm "young" by that very statement, but I'm just talking about the massive expertise at this forum! Very high-quality discussions.)

How do you define "young?"

[akarsh]

Good question. I guess someone who has seen most / all of the Messier, a reasonable number of NGC galaxies and a few challenge objects appropriate for their aperture.

But yes, this is a pointless discussion because "young" is not really well-defined

[Ciel Extreme]

Well, if you're mostly vertical... and breathing without mechanical assistance... YOU QUALIFY!!!!!

Actually, I just looked up about 25 members bios and found at least a half dozen younger than 40, with two younger than 20... so, they're out there.

[Howard B]

Let's see. I have 1446 entries in my observing notes folder, each entry being scanned pages of my field notes that I started in 1973. Each entry has an average of about 5 objects in it, so that's about 7200 objects. Many of these are repeat observations or planets, let's say about 2000, so that puts me around 5000 individual deep sky objects. About 400 of these are galaxy clusters, which I'll guess average about 5 galaxies each, which puts me back around 7200 deep sky objects or thereabouts, roughly speaking. Approximately. Probably about three quarters of the grand total have a sketch as well as written notes.

I've never attempted an estimate like this although I have wondered from time to time how many deep sky objects I've observed. I don't know that I'll ever try to make an accurate count for it's own sake, but if I can figure out an easy way to get a real number from my current notes I'd give it a shot. Or wait a few more years when I can simply ask my computer to make an accurate count for me - that will be a hoot!

I was motivated to see as many objects as possible in the 90's because my then new 20 inch f5 Obsession made the universe so much bigger and brighter than I could see with my previous 12.5 inch f8 homemade Dob - I was flabbergasted at what I could see every time I'd observe. But a few years of that was more like speed sightseeing than observing, and in the early 2000's I started to settle down and take the time to find out what I could really see. That's also about when I decided to sketch every new object - what better way to see the most possible? And then I built my current 28 inch f4, and the universe got bigger and brighter again, and even more wonderfully fabulous.

Today, the more I sketch the more I see and the longer each observation takes. I have only one hard and fast observing rule though - I must observe at least one new object each night. If I can keep going for another 25 years or so and at minimum keep to my rule, I should add at least another 1800 objects or so, if the mix of objects and observing nights stays the same as in the past. According to Mark's definition above I still qualify as young, so perhaps I'll do better than that!

[Ciel Extreme]

Howard

Thanks for taking the time to reply and going through the effort of estimating your number of objects. 400 galaxy clusters???? Are these all Abell clusters or are you including rich galaxy groups as well? Either way... super impressive!

I never really had much idea of how many objects I had observed until I downloaded the NGC excel file from the NGC/IC Project website. Using this file during one of our interminable Sask winters, I colour-coded the NGC objects I'd seen (green for W. Herschel, red for J. Herschel, pink for all the rest) by going back through my records (which I refer to as my “smudge” books - I have 90 of these, averaging about 60 objects per book, which contain my field notes and sketches). IC objects, UGCs, MCGs, vdBs, etc., etc., I have just been adding to the end of the list. Once this was completed, it became easy to just add new objects seen at the end of each observing session. Like you, I make it a goal to observe new objects at every opportunity. Fortunately, there are still plenty of them out there! I just went to the optometrist this week for an eye examination - no sign of cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration - just keep eating those fruits and veggies and wearing sunglasses and we're good to go. Also like you, I figure I can probably track down close 2K new objects over the next couple of decades before I receive my “cease and desist” order from the Big Man.

[Howard B]

Hi Mark, the galaxy clusters are mostly Abell groups, but there are others as well such as Shahbazian and maybe a Rose group or two.

[Marko]

Around 4250 logged observations in my spreadsheet although I rarely take the time to log revisiting of old favorites/eye candy which I do most nights. I have not figured out my count for unique objects but suspect is is around 3500. so this makes me the 'middle ground' kind of guy on this board of so many master class observers.

[aatt]

Well....I don't take notes, so I am in the minority here. Hard to say as I like to linger, as well as revisit objects to get to know them better and better.Last fall, for example, I would spend many observing sessions almost exclusively on M31. Up until a year and a half ago I was observing in my light polluted backyard with a 6" on and off for 14 years with a significant long break in there dovetailing with my new family. Since getting my 15" my object count has been exponential comparatively.Several hundred for sure.Can't say with any certainty that I have broken a thousand, but I may very well have exceeded it....Someone has to be the caboose here on what appears to be, for some, a very long train!

[wvreeven]

I am forty now and I started 25 years ago with a 6" newtonian. Since then I am sure I observed more than 1500 objects, possibly more than 2000, with various telescopes though I only logged about 500.


Clear skies,

Wouter van Reeven

[Don Pensack]

At the end of 30 years of observing (1993), and not owning a scope > 6", my log stood at 3500+/-.
By the end of 2004 (eleven years with an 8" SCT), my log stood at 9300.
This last year, 2013, I passed 11,000 and am inching up on 11,500.
Through the years, I have observed literally thousands of objects not worth revisiting. Had I known that in advance, I would never have viewed them.
Of course, I had to view them to know that.
Every time out, I try to observe 10-20 objects I've never seen before. Invariably, one of those objects is pretty decent and worth revisiting.

Were I going to give advice on which objects to start with, I'd try my list of 500 first, add Vic Menard's "The List" (some overlap with my list, but oriented to a little larger scopes), all of which are really interesting objects, then proceed to the Saguaro Astronomy Club's Deep Sky List download (a little over 10K objects and stars). If you like star clusters, all 5500 star clusters in Archinal & Hynes' "Star Clusters". If you like planetaries (who doesn't?) Hynes' "Planetary Nebulae". There are also some cool lists like the list of red stars in DeepSky 2000, and the Arp object list, the Abell Planetaries, etc (I'm not complete on any of the last 3). For the guys with the really big scopes, the RC3 could be a good resource. Or trying to find as many globulars in M31 as possible. Or.......

I won't live long enough to exhaust a 12.5" aperture. None of us will live long enough to see everything possible in a 16". Alvin and Jimi will have to outlive Methuselah to see all the objects visible in those apertures. I'm getting selective, now, and relying on others to steer me in new directions to see objects I haven't seen. It's a big universe out there.

By the way, has anyone seen more objects than Larry Mitchell? I'd bet his "favorites" list was larger than the entire Herschel Catalogue.
I've been observing 51 years as of 2014 and keeping a log since 1982. My most productive years were 1993-2004, where I tried to log 50-60 new objects every time I observed. I wanted to see every object visible in an 8" scope under dark skies. Well, so much for that idea. You'd need to spend years just in VIR/COM/CVN/UMA, and it begins to be a little too much like work after a while.

Steve Gottlieb talked about "The Billion Year Club" once, and seeing the absolute limit of distance in your scope seems a worthy goal. I haven't broken 500mly yet, but I'm still trying (quasars don't count). If your log doesn't have a lot of NFs (not founds), you haven't been trying to see deep.
At some point, it's not about the total number of objects in the log--it becomes more about the really cool astrophysics of what you observe. And for that, I humbly bow to many on this Forum. I have learned so much from you all.

[Richard Navarrete]

Hi,

My Excel spreadsheet says 2344 unique objects. Like some others mentioned, I don't tend to re-log favorites that I'll re-observe just about every time out. I've seen many more objects as I observe with generous friends and we always share views. I don't log objects that I don't find myself.

Richard Navarrete
18" Obsession

[havasman]

Happy to provide some contrast any maybe levity here, I claim newbie status at age 63 as I have had my scope just less than 1 year. I have had an absolute blast seeing and logging, all discreet objects: 80 Messier objects, 74 NGC/IC objects, 3 Melloitte objects; 48 multiple stars, 8 planets and 40 constellations identified. Some were seen from my white zone driveway, many from the club's Oklahoma dark site. To say that I have a long way to go, well that just depends on which part of it we speak.
As with us all, the list could've been longer and better with more favorable weather.

[Ciel Extreme]

Hey ladies and gents

I am thrilled to see the variety of replies so far... each one fantastic in its own right.

Don: I'm mighty impressed with your observing career and what you have managed to do with 8-inch and smaller scopes. I seem to recall seeing (perhaps it was in one of the Webb Society Deep Sky guides) a comment that 50,000 deep sky objects were likely within the range of a 16-inch telescope. NONE of us are going there but it is inspiring (and a little humbling) to realize that few of us exploit our instruments to their full potential. As a deep low pressure system pounds Saskatchwewan, Alberta and Montana at this moment with copious amounts of rain, I'm anxiously awaiting better weather and the slow departure of another moon for the opportunity to set up the scope again and get back at ’er.

[Preston Pendergraft]

Okay my scorecard:
110 Messiers
227 NGCs (mostly H400 objects)
1 IC
1 M31 Globular
100 Carbon Stars
13 Double Stars
Approx 35 Earth Orbiting Satellites
88 Lunar Craters and around 120 Lunar Features
All 8 planets
2 Asteroids
8 Comets
3 SuperNovas in other Galaxies
Zodiacal Light
Gegenschein

I tend to observe the lists from the Astronomical
League, so my observing tends to go in trends. Right now I am working on the Local Group Galactic a Neighborhood pin, Double Star pin and the Comet pin. I am more interested in observing objects and programs where you learn something versus just a list. Not saying anything is wrong with just lists though like the H400 or Messier.

[sanath]

hi all ,
it was a real pleasure reading all the numbers reaching 12,000 objects !!!, i am sure i have a long way to go , now i am into observing from past 2-3 years and i am 20 now , so i still have lots of time to learn , i have overall observed around 300-350 objects most of them are simple and bright easily reachable for a 6" , around 97 M objects , NGC clusters , NGC galaxies , my main interest is in observing galaxies , globulars and other exotic objects , akarsh has been a guide to me when it comes to visual observing , i intend to do the Hershel 400 objects this year . i have not documented any objects as such , i only do so when i am over exited about it , 2 such events were when i saw G1 in M32 and B-33 .

[davidem27]

Hi everybody.
That's a very interesting discussion.

My astronomy journey started since 1997, with a simple 60mm achrorefractor, but I started to log my observations in a logbook (evergreen pencil and paper) when I bought my first dobson: a 12" Meade, in March 2007.

I changed in a short time my diameter, buying a 16" dob, in the middle of 2009.

Since that date I estimated that I've gathered about 1.000 objects, near 500 digitalized here (use the translator tool, if you like).

I'm following projects like Herschel 400 and 2500, Hickson Groups, Palomar Globs and, eventually, Arp entries (where visbile in a 16" with rhodopsyn activaded )

I hope to have underestimated the number of observed objects.

As someone said, logging preserves memories: writing down notes about observation is the visualist's photographs of every night.
The more precise we are in reporting what we see, the more we can remember the observation.
And I think that's one of the most beautiful things 'bout observe the remote deep sky with our own eyes.
All this, just to say that (especially in beginning of writing notes) I've passed over descrive every single DSO that I was lookin' at eyepiece, just crossing NGC entry in the atlas.
It's a pity having dozens of objects left in memories...

One special word goes to my friend, known in Italy as "Il Galassiere" (The Galaxyman).
He observed along 25 yrs about more than 17.000 objects, all reported: http://www.galassiere.it/content.htm
He is a real machine gun: during the night session, while I've reported 40 obj, he reaches 60-100 galaxies... an extermely experienced shotgun!