08 September 2015

More Southern Observing

Another observing plan of special interest to visual observers and astrophotographers with access to southern skies has been posted to the Deep-Sky Planner Plan Library. The plan is called "Sandqvist Lindroos Dark Nebulae".

The plan includes the 42 objects identified by two astronomers working at the Stockholm Observatory in their 1976 paper about dark dust clouds in the southern sky. Sandqvist and Lindroos examined  Palomar Observatory Sky Survey plates for dark clouds in previously unexplored declinations (-32° to -46°). They researched the presence of formaldehyde in the nebulae that they identified. As part of their process of identifying these dark clouds, they cataloged the area and opacity of each cloud in the survey - data which appear in the observing plan mentioned above. Objects in the plan also include their corresponding Barnard numbers where appropriate.

Observing these objects will require dark skies and large aperture. Imaging these objects should offer some interesting results since these objects are not imaged frequently.