Peter Chappell- Viewing Log for the Herschel 400

My target for 2012 was to try and do the Herschel 400, a book written by Steve O’Meara about 400 objects that can be viewed from the northern hemisphere spilt into 12 months and about six to seven objects per night, weather and cloud cover permitting!

As you all know, 2012 was not a very good year for viewing we lost a lot of time in spring due to wet weather and the lack of dark nights in the summer this also slows the list down a lot, I did have a bit of a boost towards the middle of autumn and managed to catch up a bit. My target was to get all of the 400 within the year, as you might have guess this was not possible, in the end I managed to view 174 objects or 43.5 % of the list. I will have another go this year and just hope I can get through most of them, Virgo is an area that will need my attention as there is quite a few on the list from this constellation.
I have a few awards to give out for the list.

Hardest target to find:

NGC 3079, a Barred Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major. This galaxy I have tried to view on at least four different occasions and when the constellation was over head so there would be the least atmosphere to go thru, at magnitude 10.9 I should be able to see it?

Most enjoyable target:

NGC 3242, the Ghost of Jupiter Planetary Nebula in Hydra. Not as famous as M57, the Ring Nebula or the other Planetary Nebula on the Messier list but a good alternate?

Most boring target:

This goes to the vast number of Spiral or Barred Spiral or other galaxies in Ursa Major, one night in late January I was going thru the bowl area of this constellation and came across faint fuzzy blobs or even fainter fuzzy blobs, lots of these objects I had to move the telescope to confirm whether or not I had seen anything, just hope the list in Virgo is not like these?

Recently I finished reading a Planetary Nebula book by Martin Griffiths (a regular speaker at WAS meetings) and made a list of 20 objects to view, some of these I have already seen like the ‘Ghost’ and have tried to see like M97, the Owl Nebula my nemesis or maybe that should read NGC 3079 instead?

Peter Chappell