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Probably not the correct way to use a Dob

alan potts

By alan potts
in Observing - Reports

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alan potts

alan potts

Posted
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Two nights on the trot now, drop dead wonderful skies, we will pay for this!

Once I got the Dob set up and collimated I placed it where I could see the best southern sky, Thursday night I was really clever and set it up so the outside toilet was in the way, I knew it was a mistake building that thing.

I am sort of getting better at nudging these days and there is little doubt that the Ethos range helps no end but these two nights were 31mm Nagler nights. This is an eyepiece that just prior to receiving the Dob I was going to sell as it rarely saw scope time, I always seem to favour the 35mm Panoptic, there is no doubt though it comes into its own in the Sumerian and is my finder of choice.

I was sort of feeling a bit worn out after several days of heavy work so I put the old oak chair down which is older than me and probably older than any SGL member, made myself cumfy and started panning for what ever was there in an area between Scorpious and Sagittarius, starting just above the mountain tops. I think it was fair to say that the latter part was not the most intelligent, even on what looked like a super clear night it was still mucky at sub 10 degrees so I moved up somewhat and started to pan an area just below Antares to Nunki.

First thing of interest I came across was M62, no not the motorway from Hull to Manchester, stopping at this I reached for the 17mm Ethos (x134) to give a bit more power and it was nice to see it turned the patch into resolved stars, I imagine this is fairly low in the UK as it is not exactly zenith from here. I was really taken by how the largeish Sumerian really opened it out, I don't recall ever seeing this with the 12 inch Meade.

I did come across NGC 6304, 6316, and 6293 which is close to Messier 19, some of the NGC globulars in this area are rather faint and after trying a few of them found that a few more inches of mirror may well be required to turn them into the same sort of view that M19 was serving up, I even pushed to the 13mm Ethos (x176) with this and the cluster was pin sharp almost to the centre. I often wonder what these look like from somewhere like southern Mexico where they would be almost overhead as well as with a massive scope.

Just below Nunki was M54, M 70 and  M69, two I have not visited before, even from here you need quality sky, these though were not as well resolved as M19 and I rather fancy it was more to do with height above the horizon rather than the scope, very nice to see though nonetheless. There is no doubt though this mirror really does cut the mustard.

The next thing I tripped over was the M8 or the lagoon nebula, this was showing nebulosity even without a filter, so I picked the 21mm (x109) out and attached the UHC filter. Oddly many say and I have read many times Lumicon are the best filters which sort of makes me wonder why I bought Astonomik's. Good bad or indifferent the filter did make a fair difference to the view extending the nebula and really making it a fine sight. As hard as it is manually I removed and replaced the UHC many times and it is fair to say that these type of targets do benefit from the use of a filter but I really feel the size of scope has a greater effect.

Pan a bit futher and we came to one of my favourite ojects, M22, possibly the best globular in the sky, even the 31mm resolved the cluster to the centre but that didn't stop me doing a Clarkson and calling for, Power! The 10mm Ethos was offering a fairly high X228 and my oh my what a sight, at this point I wished for a motor drive as the dam thing wouldn't keep still so it was nudge nudge time, so much easier with the 100 degree field, I am not sure I could keep a similar focal length orthoscopic under control.

There were some lovely open clusters that I was seeing for the first time with this scope, M24 and more so M25 which is much tighter and fills the field of view.

By this time 2 hours had gone by and I for one had no idea where that went, I was now getting higher and some of the starting points had slipped below the horizon or behind one of my trees. M 9 was still high enough to turn up the wick on and that was a beautiful sight, again resolved very deeply, though not totally.

I was coming now to one of my favourite nebula, the swan and my oh my, there it was and it looked just like a swan, another first in this scope. It occured to me this scope was showing the image upside down and before I had only seen it the other way up in the Meade SC scope and as such it didn't look much like a bird of any sort, a bit like M11 the so called wild duck cluster.

I tried all my filters on this, Olll, Deep Sky and the UHC, the latter gave the best result and my what a sight, the shape of the swan just jumped out at you. I called the wife and asked her what does that look like and yes she said it, "a swan", I then had a stuggle to get her away from the eyepiece but the mosquitos did that for me, I was covered in repellent and she wasn't, being annoyed at me they were biting hard. This was truely the icing on the cake of the night and I visited it two nights on the trot as it was that good, I found that the 21mm Ethos was the best eyepiece for this object though the 31mm was not at all bad either. I think I preferred the bighter image as when you pushed to X176 it dimmed a little and sort of took the shine away from the what is a stunning target.

I finished off with M18 and M16 which were lovely and bright but I wasn't sure that I could see any nebula in the latter but there was something there, almost a darker pattern rather than a brighter one, a beautiful object in any case. To finish I was just able to catch M107 which is a difficult object as it is fairly faint for a Messier but in this scope it was simply stunning with the four 11th magnitude stars making a cross shape around it. It was now Midnight and I was in danger of falling asleep at the scope. A great night, so great I did the exact same thing last night.

There is nothing very scientific about the observation but it was very rewarding to visit so many clusters and faint patches, not nudging the Dob but Panning the Dob.

Alan

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scarp15

scarp15

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Very enjoyable and entertaining report and nice to read accounts of objects that are quite low lying in UK, I was observing M22 last weekend from a highish location with my 8" dob, good to see but clearly a bit distorted somewhat by its low lying situation. 

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scarp15

scarp15

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Yes some great concerts at the City Hall, BB King was one of my stand out favourites back in the day. Can be a struggle here at 55 degrees, so I pass on quite a few. From my relatively elevated moorland observing location, the Swan is great to observe. Was on a family holiday in Pembrokshire, I took my bino's along, though pretty spectacular and fully resolved from home, I was struck by how much higher, for example M11 is situated.

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alan potts

alan potts

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Some years back i was out in the wilds in Indonesia and that is just about on the equator, I couldn't make head nore tail of the sky, the one stand out was being in Jakarta and the Moon was just below first quarter which just looks like a smiley, there was also Jupiter and Venus making up the eyes, I tried a shot of it but didn't have a tripod with me, it didn't come out..

Alan

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John

John

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Nice report of what sounds like a relaxed but enjoyable session Alan :smiley:

There is a small gap between one of the neighbouring houses roofs and a large chestnut tree on my S horizon and I have to wait for these objects to appear in that gap to observe them.

They are worth the wait though and by moving the scope a foot or two sideways every now then I can keep the area of sky in view for an hour or so. There are some super objects down there :smiley:

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  • 2 weeks later...
mapstar

mapstar

Posted
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Nice read Alan.

I managed a few of the targets mentioned and at 51N they are a challenge with the atmosphere cutting off anything below M55 and Nunki, although at the time I was using a small refractor.

Glad that scope is also coming into its own.

Damian

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  • 1 month later...
Size9Hex

Size9Hex

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...the one stand out was being in Jakarta and the Moon was just below first quarter which just looks like a smiley, there was also Jupiter and Venus making up the eyes, I tried a shot of it but didn't have a tripod with me, it didn't come out..

Alan

Sorry to post on a slightly older thread. Really enjoyed the report, but your message above caught my eye in particular. I'll take a punt that you saw the following, and wanted to share it in case it brought back some nice memories.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/256216-smiling-face-planetary-alignment-from-downtown-bangkok-2008/

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