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Observation Report for 3rd September 2010.


RayGil

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Observation Report for 3rd September 2010.

Location Birkrigg Common.

I decided to attend the local FAS meeting, Furness Astronomical Society at 19:30, as this was the first meeting for the start of the year (Sept – May), it was a short meeting and it finished at roughly 20:30.

I was going to pop into their observatory in Dalton but as the sky was clearing I decided to pack my scope and head off to Birkrigg for my own observing session.

I arrived at Birkrigg at roughly 21:45 and started to set up my scope, I hate setting up in the dark, but on this occasion I had no time restraints as I’m on my long weekend off work.

Once the Skywatcher 200p and EQ5 was Level, Balanced and Polar aligned it was time to start observing, leaving the scope to cool down for roughly 20 minutes.

The sky conditions were excellent and the Milky Way stretched overhead and seemed to go on from horizon to horizon, a truly stunning view, helped by having no bright moon in the sky washing objects out.

Jupiter was rising in the East nicely, but left that until later, my first target was going to be M57 in Lyra as I missed this last time due to cloud moving in. A quick check with binoculars located M57 as a very small out of focus star, and once you find these DSO’s they are easy to locate in the future, the difficulty lies in locating them initially because I’m never sure what they should look like in binoculars.

Located Sheliak and Sulafat in my finder and fitted the 32mm eyepiece and M57 was only a small adjustment away, located very easily. Once the Ring Nebula was centred, it looks like a fuzzy disk in the 32mm eyepiece, I changed to a 10mm and the ring was more pronounced and easily recognisable as a planetary Nebula or smoke ring, and adding the x2 barlow just adds to the definition, This is one DSO I could spend hours studying, I love the fact there is an actual smoke ring in space. Now according to my research you need a 12” scope to see the central hot star in the middle of the ring, but I am sure that with my 8” scope it’s very faint but it’s there, unless it’s an optical illusion and my brain thinks it’s there?

Because the seeing was so good I decided to go and view M31, again location was easy, binoculars show the misty blob and the finder scope shows it about the same as binoculars, using the 32mm eyepiece to centre the galaxy it was without doubt an awe inspiring site stretching right across the eyepiece field of view, the spiral galaxy should be viewed with the widest eyepiece, the edge on arms seem to stretch forever, just getting more defuse the further out you go. Tonight I located M32 which at higher power looks oval but clearly seen and also M110 was located, it’s companion elliptical galaxy. I spent a good 20 minutes just enjoying the galaxies in these excellent seeing conditions, the distinct lack of moon light helped with seeing the smaller galaxies.

My next targets were clusters; there is something about clusters of stars that fire the imagination even on a cold desolate moor in the middle of the night.

The Cassiopeia Clusters are easy targets, NGC 457, 663, 129, 225 and 7789 are all superb in a widefield 32mm eyepiece. The 2 in particular I was interested in were in Perseus and are Open clusters NGC 869 and 884, these were located using binoculars and then in the finder, the 32mm allows both clusters to be viewed in the same FOV, these clusters are over 7,000 light years away from us and have a back drop of a haze of light behind them which gives them a fantastic effect in the dark sky, almost jewelled like, clusters of diamonds hanging in the night sky.

They tell me in NGC884 is full of red super giant stars and these can be seen clearly, but I think I am one of these people that cannot distinguish colour in stars? I have spent a long time hunting through this cluster and it’s difficult to say if I have seen the red giants, perhaps the haze shields them, or I need to use some kind of filter I’m not sure? But regardless of the colour, these 2 clusters are jewels in the night sky, really stunning to view and very bright in my widefield eyepiece.

After a short break for a cup of tea and a binocular trawl through the southern Milky Way, I decided to go and find my old favourite M13 the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. Binoculars show it as a hazy patch of light and same for the finder, so it’s an easy object to locate once you know where the constellation of Hercules is located and the keystones.

I’m hoping you will start to see a pattern? Binoculars first, I always use binoculars to locate objects before I train the finder to the position, binoculars truly do give a wide field of view and with steady hands can be very useful indeed.

M13 was it’s truly spectacular in the dark sky, even at 10mm with a x2 barlow fitted, the Globular cluster shows in astonishing detail, I personally think there is a list of top ten sights that every one should view and this is one of them, the amount of detail that can be seen with an 8” scope is astounding.

The central core of M13 is over 100 light years across? And is 25,000 light years away from us and is made up of over a Million stars tightly compacted from out perspective, the central core is just a diffuse ball of light, but either way it is truly stunning to view, again this is one DSO I can spend a long time on.

My other target was M92 which contains some of the oldest stars in the universe and is roughly 35,000 light years away from us, so a bit dimmer in the eyepiece. This tight compact ball of light is another jewel in the cluster list.

I was coming to the end of my observing time, but I enjoyed a nice view of M45 the Pleiades with Naked eye, binoculars and telescope, widefield shows in best I think.

My other highlight was of course Jupiter, the cloud belt was in fine detail tonight as seeing was very steady even at the highest magnification, and I was luck enough to watch Ganymede cross Jupiter’s disk and could see the black dot of the moon as it passed across the face of the giant, another fantastic observing night.

My target lists grows, targets to tick off tonight were:

NGC 884, 869 457, 663, 129, 225 & 7789

M13, 31,32, 57, 92, 110 & M45

I started to pack away my gear and dismantle the EQ5 for travel, also packed away the SkyWatcher Explorer 200p with great care.

I was home and twittering my exploits by 01:30 cold but extremely happy with tonight’s observing session. My only wish now is getting some drives so I can do some photography and share my observations with family and friends.

Thanks for reading my blog, feel free to comment on any aspect of my observing and feel free to suggest some other targets you think I may enjoy viewing.

Ray Gilchrist

4th September 2010

1 Comment


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hi ray loved the blog very interesting i guess i have a lot to learn iv seen a couple of ur pics amazing scope you have by the way mate

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