Observing Log 19/7/13 @ 21:30 - 20/7/13 @ 01:30

[athornett]

Observing Log 19/7/13 @ 21:30 - 20/7/13 @ 01:30.

Rosliston Forestry Centre.

Andy, Damian, Paul, Justine.

Andy's David Lukehurst 222mm 'Truss Style' Dob (DL scope), Damian's 10" UK Orion Dob, Justine's 8 inch Sky-Watcher Dob, Paul's renovated Meade OTA on a SkyWatcher NEQ5 (a non-GoTo German Equatorial Mount, but with motor driven tracking).

Paul's white van and plywood sheets were a vital component of tonight's observing - to block out one of the forestry centre's halogen lights. Plus, good job we remembered to bring jumpers. It might have been a hot day but still got cold tonight.

First job was to collimate Andy's scope. Paul was brilliant here - we used his Farpoint two inch Cheshire collimating eyepiece - the design is very similar to the Catseye Infinity collimating eyepiece. Turned out the secondary was way out, losing a third of the primary's light due to mis-collimating. Explains why the image looked so dim when I looked through the scope yesterday! When Paul had finished, we could see seven diffraction rings in the Airy disc - wow!!! The only other time we have seen this is with Damian's Takahashi.

The focuser on Andy's scope does not quite have enough outwards extension for his Explore Scientific eyepieces - so he needs a small extension tube.....along came Damian to the rescue with a Moonlight 1.5 inch length 2 inch diameter extension tube - just right. Plus, if Andy buys himself one of those it will provide him with a brass compression ring which the first generation Moonlight focuser fitted to this 'new to him' Dob does not possess.

We used the scopes at 23:30 to look at the Moon using the new A4 'Lunar Field Atlas' that Damian had printed and laminated, see:

http://www.astronomylogs.com/index.html. There are various versions provided on the site to download and print - depending upon your scope/optics... Andy's is for a 'Newtonian reflector' that provides an Inverted-image. This then provides the same image as what is viewed in the eyepiece - makes navigating around the lunar surface and identifying the various features sooooo much easier!

Schiller crater stood out (one that Andy mentioned at our last RAG meeting) - an elongated oval near to the crater Tycho with it's distinctive ejecta-rays. This provided a good landmark to view a number of other craters and to hop to Valles Alpines. However, there was a lot of wind and as a result the image was jumping around in the eyepiece. Nevertheless, Paul still managed to successfully bring the Valles Alpines to focus in his scope with 3mm Williams Optics SPL eyepiece (very impressive, Paul!).

Saturn - found by Justine - oh to get our younger eyes back again! In spite of the wind, the Cassini division was easily seen in both Orion, SkyWatcher and DL scopes. Andy tried to magnify the planet with Barlow plus 9mm in the DL but had terrible problems changing eyepieces - he is so used to the ease which a large heavy scope makes of changing eyepieces (ie they are very tolerant of balance changes even with larger eyepiece changes) - he needs to learn how to make such changes in a small lighter scope. Plus the Teflon on laminate bearings are so smooth on this DL scope with so little friction and stiction, that they move with the slightest change of weight of touch of the tube. Although this means the scope is close to the nirvana of Dob design with finger tip movement, it is also a right nuisance when changing eyepieces!!!!.....but it does mean that nudging the scope to keep objects in the field of view is really easy even at high power.

M103 in Cassiopeia in the DL. Lovely 'A' with a reddish right star and blue left in the 'horizontal' part of the A - compared to last week we couldn't see as many background stars in this open cluster - Was this due to a difference in mirror size (Andy's DarkStar Dob has a 10+ inch primary mirror), or in magnification of in the sky quality? Damian found it in his Orion and this answered the question.....mainly an issue of sky quality. The views in both telescopes were comparable. Paul found the cluster in his renovated Meade 10 inch with 3mm, giving a full field view which looked impressive although added little detail. The reason for emphasising the fact that Paul has renovated his Meade OTA is that none of us have ever seen a Meade perform like Paul's scope - it is marvellous - and the credit has to be given to him for the work he has done on that OTA to improve on the original. Both this week and last he has been able to get great views with a 3mm eyepiece - and given the wind tonight that is saying something!

The Owl Cluster was seen in Justine's 200p with the use of a 2", 32mm Meade Plossl eyepiece that Damian keeps for public outreach. Paul kindly lent Justine his premium 17mm Televue Nagler that provided an even better view - a 'classic' eyepiece picked up second hand (in mint condition) for about £200. That 8 inch scope has got to be the best value scope available new in the UK at present....at only £249 from some shops delivered, it's amazing at 8 inches, portable, and (as Justine proved tonight) maintains its collimation even when carried to Rosliston in the car. The Owl looked magnificent when magnified in the F7.2 DL also, occupying the whole field, although again difficult to see a great deal more detail, as the sky was not completely clear, with some light cloud and bright Moon affecting views.

At 23:23, Justine picked out the ISS crossing the sky from South to Northeast. It appeared quite bright. It is always amazing to see the ISS appear to disappear as it crosses cloudless sky, me as it moves into shadow of Earth. Damian was lucky to have his green laser pointer fixed to the 'on' position and a 13mm Ethos set in the focuser. He quickly moved his scope and was able to grab a fleeting view of the ISS as it whizzed by - he did not report any additional detail though....

23:49 - Damian was on the hunt for some NGC open clusters within Cassiopeia. Once he located one, he was able to guide Justine onto the same target by use of his heated green laser - much easier than star-hopping! Justine renamed it as the 'flake 99 ice-cream cluster' in Cassiopeia.....after much deliberation we decided it was definitely NGC 659....but then again it could be NGC663......no, Damian was sure it was NGC659 - but then those stars to the left appeared not be quite correct and Damian's great atlas of pictures of star clusters showed the picture differently orientated - so on turning the atlas upside it clicked....definitely NGC 663 (!!!) - proven by two pairs of stars at slight angle to each other - then we realised we were looking at the same cluster in all four scopes - surprisingly none of us were on the other cluster - why was that? Damian then picked out NGC 659 - boy was that faint even though it is supposed to have magnitude 7.9 compared to NGC 663's magnitude 7.1 - also former 5 arc-minutes compared to latter's 16 arc-minutes in size (explained why we were all pointed at NGC 663 and not NGC 659). When he used averted vision, Damian was able to observe a small crescent of brighter stars at the right hand edge.

Justine found the Double Cluster in Perseus. Through her scope, these two clusters looked like diamonds in the sky, with each star a bright point of light - gorgeous! It is one of the most incredible parts of viewing the night sky through a telescope - when you can see these very bright small points of light - it is something that just does not appear in photographs - Andy describes it as "diamonds on black velvet" - an effect we have seen in the 16 inch Lightbridge and a real compliment to that Skywatcher Dob that it can give views like that. You need a reasonably large scope to get such views.

Andy found the Ring Nebula in Lyra with the DL. Again it is quite remarkable how magnified the image looks in an F7.2 scope.

00:20 Damian found NGC 637 near Epsilon Cassiopeia - brilliant star hoping using a nearby double star as his marker. He used his 'Deep Sky Atlas' that he downloaded for free from the internet (then inverted in PhotoShop to show white stars on a black background rather than the traditional black stars on white, as he finds that easier to navigate), printed A3 and laminated. With the addition of a handy eyepiece FOV overlay that he made himself to go with this atlas, to aid star-hopping (this indicator overlay provides circles showing the various fields of view for his eyepieces in the Orion Dob + Televue Paracorr coma corrector), he was able to locate and identify this NGC object. The cluster is like an inverted T. We were able to find this in all four scopes, in mine I thought it looked like a teepee.

00:34 - Andy found M31 in the DL. This really demonstrated how poor the sky quality had become by this time, with M31 appearing as hazy mush without a great deal of form or structure, much worse than its visual appearance. There were no signs of its associated galaxies.

00:49 - Andy found M13 first and then quickly thereafter Damian found it for Justine in her scope using Paul's 17mm Nagler - although incredibly he could see it in the Sky-Watcher finder scope once he was able to locate the 'keystone' stars through the murk! In the DL, the longer focal length immediately magnified the view which was very pleasing with perception of resolution of stars at edge - limited by failing skies.....

.......although meanwhile Damian was back on M103 in Cassiopeia - the skies might be getting worse but even so the cluster looked better with more obvious background stars.

00:53 - 45% cloud cover - today's weather forecast was correct for once - clearly we won't be able to observe all night but let's see how far we can go!

Throughout the evening, Justine was taking photos through her scope with her iPhone. These devices are opening up astro-photography to a wide range of people, require limited equipment and can be very exciting to use... well done, Justine for leading the way on this!

Final observations...with the sky at 80% cloud cover by 01:08....there weren't any....by the time I asked for these 80% had become virtually 100% and then 100% cloud cover! Time to pack up - session finished at 01:30.

Final thoughts of the observing group: Damian, "we have made the best of the opportunity of clear skies, and before you buy a scope make sure it fits in your car so you can take part in these activities!", Justine, "don't know, still enjoying finding Saturn before anyone else," Damian, "which means she won't be invited again!", Paul, "nice cookies, peewee! Could have been a lot better but still great fun!", and Andy, "I am excited about my new scope - that it works - and it is great to have made Damian* jealous for a change."

*Damian will be keeping stumm in future if he finds any other nice things on UK Astro Buy and Sell after Andy bought the DL when he also wanted to buy it...! ;-)

Andy & Damian

Thoughts from Paul regarding this session: "I just wanted to say my real highlight of last night was the friendly banter, cooperation and sharing of views and equipment between all of us. Collimating your new scope was interesting as well. Must get a laser pointer! I wonder where the Owls were this week?"

[TractionMan]

Quite a bit of Reading, but very enjoyable. Thank you very much for sharing.

[swamp thing]

Nice report, sounds like a great night. Love being out with others, sharing views of the cosmos. It's what it's all about for me

Thanks for sharing.

[athornett]

Thanks guys for your comments

Andy

[athornett]

Observing Log 11/8/13 @ 00:25-00:35

Andy in Lichfield

As I was going to bed after watching Stepanie Meyer's "The Host" with my wife, noticed a break in the clouds near Cassiopeia. Shot outside with my trusted pair of Revelation 15x70 binoculars. However, in even the two minutes it took me to do that the break had nearly filled up with cloud.

There were a few spots and I had tempting glances of clear sky and stars

- so many stars in the binoculars! You may wonder why I seem so desperate to get a good star-gazing fix this weekend. It is the peak of the Perseus meteor shower this weekend and I have been hoping to see a few meteors.

Lessons learnt tonight:

1. It is really worth having something that you can take outside quickly for a brief glance at the sky, when you don't have the time or inclination to go for longer session.

2. I find it incredibly difficult to recognise which part of the sky I am looking at when all I can see is a small area between clouds.....need to improve my sky knowledge.

3. I am sure I could see a great open cluster in Cassiopeia.....but through the binoculars it was difficult to tell for sure in a cloudy sky

- might also have been a small patch of cloud. Again, better sky knowledge will help this....or if I had had a star atlas with me or laptop with Stellarium. Note,I do have Stellarium on a laptop but for some reason runs slowly outside but OK inside - I am trying to find out why this should be.

4. Even 15 x70 binoculars can be quite unsteady when hand-held.

5. In spite of all this, I still find even just five or ten minutes under the stars to be a fantastic experience. I can't wait for more!

Longer sessions even better- don't care how much I see. Even better with a friend and a couple of scopes but me nd my binos will do too.

Andy