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ian_d

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  1. ian_d

    Open clusters in Cassiopeia

    By ian_d,

    After lots of being involved in public astronomy events this weekend, it was nice to just get out in the back garden with the Dob tonight for an hour or so. Nice conditions - good seeing, no clouds, although maybe not the best transparency. Certainly not a night for faint galaxies with the Moon dominating things.
    I decided to spend some time exploring the open clusters in Cassiopeia. First up was M103 - first time I've seen this as far as I can remember, and it's well worth a look - nice, compact cluster, marked out by three stars in a triangle and with one star in the centre being a particularly striking red colour. I had a go at sketching this object - will post it here once I've scanned it.
    Then I just started following my nose around from M103, and found the trio of clusters NGC 663, 659 and 654. NGC 663 the best of these; a nice view at x50 with lots of stars packed into the field. 659 much smaller but conspicuous; 654 not much to speak of!
    Hunting around further I stumbled across NGC 457, the Owl Cluster. Great wide field object this, and I had a go a drawing it as well.
    Finally, I turned the scope on Jupiter which looked excellent tonight in the steady air. Bags of disk detail. All in all, not bad for an hour (or so's) work!
  2. ian_d

    Comet PanSTARRS

    By ian_d,

    Well hooray! Managed to get a look at Comet PanSTARRS this evening, with 10x50 binoculars, at about 6.45pm - just before the clouds got in the way. Very nice it was too - looked great against the twilight background, with the tail clearly visible and a pretty bright coma.
    Glad I caught it this evening, because the weather prospects look rubbish for the next few days.
    That's the first comet I've seen since 17P/Holmes a few years ago, and the only naked eye one since Hale-Bopp. It's no HB mind - but pretty awesome all the same.
    :laugh:
  3. ian_d
    Well, must be on a roll! Got about 25mins of clear sky here tonight, and in that time I managed to get my 4" refractor out on the EQ3-2 mount, with my Canon 400D stuck on the end at prime focus. Pointed roughly at the Pleiades, and took some 20s exposures. Cloud came in. Packed up. Uploaded images to computer, did the "false flats" thing, and hey presto!
    Very poor by most standards, but infinitely better than anything I thought I'd be able to pull off with the time / experience / gear I have. Chromatic aberration in full effect, clearly. But hey, it's a reasonably deep image of a beautiful object.
    I was pleased, anyway!!


  4. ian_d
    Having attended the excellent BAA Deep Sky Section meeting today, I came away determined / inspired to have a bit of a go at taking some photographs of the sky. I've never really been into the idea too much, and largely assumed it was all a bit too expensive / tricky to be bothered with. But the talks today made me think I should have a go.
    As luck would have it, clear skies greeted me when I got home, so I grabbed my old Canon 400D, a little tripod, and set about fairly randomly shooting the sky. 15 second exposures. I then tried a trick I'd heard about today - using standard image processing software, I blurred the images to remove the stars, then subtracted this image from the original to eliminate light pollution.
    I have to say, for a first go, I'm pretty pleased! Managed to get Jupiter in Taurus, and also Cassiopeia. The Pleiades show up nicely in the first, and if you look closely you can see the Andromeda Galaxy in the second.
    Suspect this might be the thin end of the wedge....!




  5. ian_d
    After having to postpone our Stargazing Live events from January due to the snow and ice, this weekend saw the rescheduled public sessions in Shurdington on Saturday night, and Nature in Art near Twigworth on Sunday. Our luck was in hugely - Saturday was clear enough (but with some cloudy patches) to be worthwhile, and tonight's session was very clear indeed. Two decent nights on the bounce, coinciding with our public events....what are the odds?!
    In the interests of simplicity, I used my 4" refractor both nights to show people the Double Cluster in Perseus. This is a fab object in a widefield scope, and I got a decent number of "oooohs" and "aaahs" over the two evenings! We tried to be a bit more organised this year, and we made sure that all the telescopes were pointing at different objects so people got to see a range of things. This seemed to work really well, and got people to stay outside for a decent amount of time too to chat with us all. The ISS passed over on both evenings and was really prominent, so that was another very happy coincidence.
    We had an excellent turnout on both evenings, which was especially gratifying given how long past the actual BBC shows we ended up doing these events. With any luck, we'll have attracted a few more people to the idea of joining their local astronomical society - and a few of us got to help people get their own telescopes set up and working, which I guess is a real help if you're new to this stuff, got a scope for Christmas, and can't make head or tail of the instruction booklet.
    Overall, really successful and enjoyable couple of nights.
  6. ian_d

    V quick Dob sesh

    By ian_d,

    A bit of a brief observing session this evening - fairly knackered generally, but sky too clear to ignore!
    Spent a bit of time on the moon, which I wouldn't usually do but it did look pretty special at x50 through the Dob. Blasted my dark adaption though!
    Then on to Jupiter - some really crisp detail tonight, much better than the other evening. Lots of bands etc in northern hemisphere in particular,
    Pleiades next, and specifically wanted to see if I could make out the reflection nebula by using an Orion Ultrablock filter. Looked pretty convincing to me - definite signs of nebulosity around the brighter members, and I don't think it was just glare (although hard to tell).
    Finally had a bit of a go trying to find M108, but the northern skies from my house are pretty washed out - no dice,
    That was enough for me tonight - hardly a hardcore session, but definitely better than nothing!
  7. ian_d
    Whilst beasting myself on a 10km run this evening in the freezing cold (couldn't feel my toes until after 5km!) I couldn't help but notice the lovely clear sky overhead. So, once suitably refreshed, out I ventured once more with my 6" SCT for a quick look up.
    Clear it may have been, but steady it was not. Jupiter was a real challenge, even at modest power (x120) - dancing about all over the place, very hard to make out much on the disk other than the two most prominent cloud bands. It was a nicer view at x60, with all four Galilean moons visible (this was at about 2130UT).
    Given the conditions, pushing the magnification up was obviously not the smart thing to do, so instead I took a look at a few open clusters - ideal for low power viewing, and much less susceptible to wobbly air. The Double Cluster in Perseus was magnificent - such a rich part of the sky anyway, and the two clusters close enough to both be in my field of view at x60. Great.
    By this time, the combination of cold and sugar crash (from running) was taking its toll, so I went for just one more target - M37 in Auriga. Near the zenith, so well away from the murk, this was terrific. The more I looked, the more I could see - hints of many more fainter stars just beyond the limits of visibility, giving the impression of a cloud of light behind the brighter, resolved stars. Ended up staring at the thing for about 25 minutes, by which time I was in severe danger of falling over in a heap. So in I came!
    So, when it's clear but the seeing's rubbish, open clusters are a great idea :smiley:
  8. ian_d
    Couldn't resist sharing this here - while I was out the other night (see previous post) I had a go at snapping Jupiter down the eyepiece with my iPhone. Got Europa and Io as a bonus!
    You had to be there, really..... :smiley:


  9. ian_d

    A few quick double stars

    By ian_d,

    Just came in from a quick observing session with the Celestron 6" SCT - far from ideal conditions out there tonight, very murky really and a big bank of cloud drove me back indoors after about an hour. But I got some good stuff done.
    First of all, I was able to confirm that my recent clean of the corrector plate had gone well - nice sharp image, no smudges or other unmentionables. I was also able to get the GOTO all properly aligned and calibrated - last time I tried (admittedly in a real hurry) it was well off, so good to know that's all working as it should be. It is a really good setup, C6 SCT on CG-5 GOTO. Very good performance for the aperture.
    In terms of actual observing - well, started with the obligatory look at Jupiter which was nice - plenty of detail on the disk, despite poor seeing. Given the rubbish sky I didn't even try any DSOs - just went round a few nice doubles. Eta Cass was great - always worth a look, nice colour contrast and very easy to resolve. Then a couple of new ones for me - Gamma and Lambda Ari. Gamma was very striking - two almost identical stars (in colour and brightness) right next to each other, like a couple of white eyes looking down at you. Lambda Ari much more widely separated, and more colour - both yellowish, with the secondary maybe a little more on the red side.
    Only a short session, but some new objects for me and confirmation that I hadn't destroyed my optics when I buffed them up a bit. I'll claim that's a success!
  10. ian_d
    Well, I've not had much to write about in terms of actual observing for a while - wall-to-wall cloud, snow, ice etc has pretty much put the kaibosh on that. However, never one to be defeated by a little thing like the weather, I've found a few astro-related things to do in the last week or so.
    I took a bit of a risk the other night and finally gave my SCT a bit of a clean. I've had it since 2008 and not cleaned it once; and a quick look at the corrector plate showed that it was more than just a bit grotty in places. Never a thing to be taken lightly, cleaning optics - so I was a bit in two minds whether to do it at all. I guess the cloudy skies made me do it; in any case, I brushed it down with a Celestron lens pen and gave it a bit of spit and polish a clean with some optical cleaning fluid and purpose-made cloth. End result - looks sparkly new again, no scratches and the coatings intact. Looking forward to giving it a whirl soon. Phew.
    One other thing to relate - had the Annual Dinner of the Cotswold Astronomical Society last night, which was excellent as always. Great food, good company. Particularly good to see the number of new(isn) members coming along now - really feels like the Society is going from strength to strength. More observing events needed I think!
  11. ian_d
    A very clear (but very cold!) night last night saw a few of us from the Cotswold AS get together for an observing session in north Gloucestershire - a nice dark site, albeit a bit muddy. I took my Celestron C6 SCT along, and there was a good collection of refractors and reflectors present too.
    Various nice objects on show; I spent some time on M42 as it's hard to see from my garden, and it looked fantastic at x63 - with a decent dark sky it is amazing to see how large it is, and M43 was really clear too. Next I had a look at beta Moncerotis - lovely triple star. M1 was good as well - about as good in the 6" scope from this site as it is in my 10" from home, which says a lot about the importance of decent conditions as well as the size of your telescope.
    As is often the case when you go to a dark site, some of the best observing was just with the naked eye - picking out M31 and the Double Cluster, and the Milky Way overhead. We got a bonus too - a bright fireball which streaked right overhead just when a load of us were looking! Finally, another look at Jupiter before the cold and damp caused a lot of the kit to dew up.
    A great evening's astronomy, and a great turnout too. Unfortunately the forecast doesn't look great for our Stargazing Live stuff at the weekend - snow...??!
  12. ian_d
    Good meeting of the Cotswold Astronomical Society last night, with a very interesting talk about the solar system beyond Neptune. The current theories around how the solar system formed are fascinating. It's thought that Jupiter and Saturn, through their orbital resonance, catapulted Neptune out beyond Uranus and into the Kuiper Belt - causing several million years of chaos as comets and asteroids got deflected all over the place smashing into everything (known as the Late Heavy Bombardment - great name!) It's also interesting to see how many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) we know of now; and in particular, how Pluto is just one example of these things (and not even the largest).
    After the talk, a couple of us spent some time helping some folks to make sense of their telescope - which I think was the Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145P SynScan AZ GOTO (114mm f/5). A good beginner's setup, but as with all these things, if you're completely new to astronomy then still a bit baffling to get started with. Hopefully we got them a bit further along in understanding how to align it and use the handset - and got the finder scope a bit closer to where it needed to be :-)
    We've got a whole load of Stargazing Live events to run next weekend - three nights in a row at various locations around Gloucestershire. Fingers crossed for decent weather, as always. Should be good fun!
  13. ian_d

    A Crab and an Eskimo

    By ian_d,

    A less-than-hopeful gaze out the kitchen window at about 7.30pm this evening revealed the unimaginable - an unforeseen clear night! Not to be sniffed at, as you know. So out I went - initially just to take in the naked eye view, which was good fun in itself and something I don't do enough of, actually. Testing myself to see how many constellations I could confidently identify was a decent challenge - and I'm still a bit hazy on some parts of the sky, particularly the obscure bits around the Pole (Camelopardalis, anyone??)

    Anyway, I soon succumbed to the lure of aperture, and out came the 10" Dob. Conscious that time was almost certainly limited, I decided to go for just two targets - M1 (the Crab Nebula) in Taurus, and NGC 2392 in Gemini - the Eskimo Nebula.

    After a bit of messing around trying to locate M1 (schoolboy errors like lining the Telrad up on the wrong star, etc) I found it. Quite a conspicuous patch of light at x50, and the view caused me to reflect on previous failed attempts to ever see M1 through smaller instruments. Aperture counts! A nice object, this - averted vision hints at some faint structure in the smudge, and it's clearly oblong rather than circular. A good one to notch up on a less than perfect evening, conditions-wise.

    Next to Gemini, and the Eskimo Nebula - a really fantastic object, I recommend taking a look at this if you haven't before. It's amazingly bright and large for a planetary nebula, and at x171 the greenish circular halo around the central bright core is quite spectacular. With averted vision, I was pretty sure I could see two areas of brightness in the centre of the disk - I guess this is partly where the name comes from (a couple of eyes peeping out from an Eskimo hood...!)

    As predicted, the cloud returned after about an hour of observing, so that was that again. A great little session though, and for me this highlights one of the massive advantages of a Dobsonian - 10" of telescope, set up and observing within 5 minutes of getting it out of the garage. In the UK, that's what you need!
  14. ian_d

    Long-awaited observing

    By ian_d,

    Finally the skies cleared yesterday, and at last a chance to do some observing. It turned out to be a really good session - one of the best I've had for a long time - and I got through a good number of targets in just over 2 hours.
    I started off with the 4" refractor, hunting galaxies - the Andromeda Galaxy and companions, and M33 in Triangulum. These were really well placed at around 8.30pm, and despite a knackered red dot finder (!) I was able to get a great view of M31 with the 24mm Panoptic eyepiece (giving x20 magnification - ideal for large, diffuse objects like this). M31 showed a bright central core and an extended haze of light which stretched pretty much across the whole field. M32 was clearly visible as a small blob just to the south, and with averted vision M110 also came into view as a faint cloud off to the west.
    A quick star-hop through Andromeda led me to M33 - much fainter than M31 but certainly visible with averted vision. This gave an impression of being quite large, especially when I jiggled the scope around a bit.
    After a quick look at Lambda Tauri (to check it off the Moore Winter Marathon list) I had a look at M44, just rising out of the murky eastern horizon. A really lovely object this, one of the best in binoculars for sure - the 4" at x20 gave a great view too.
    Next, on to the undoubted highlight of the sky at the moment - Jupiter, by now high in the south and fantastically placed for viewing. At this point I rolled out the big guns - the 10" Dob got to work. This was probably the best view of Jupiter I've ever had - at times the seeing was crystal, and the detail on the planet at x171 using a 7mm BGO eyepiece was stunning. Lots of fine detail, especially in the northern hemisphere, with a prominent dark spot on the NEB and a white storm right next to it. Awesome.
    By this time the Moon was well above the horizon and the sky transparency was deteriorating a bit. So, one last target - M34 in Perseus. Very nice at x20, and some nice colour contrast amongst the group - one yellow / orange star in particular stood out.
    Overall, a really good session. Let's have some more of that kind of weather please....!
  15. ian_d
    Signs looking moderately positive for some clear skies here tonight, so the plan is to get round some more of the Moore Winter Marathon and to do a bit of compare-and-contrast between my three scopes. Would like to bag M56 and M33 tonight if I can; M44 and M67 in Cancer should be easy enough in the 4", and if I take it round the front of the house to get a better southern horizon then I might get M41 and M50 as well.
    All of this may, of course, come to nothing under yet more gloomy skies - watch this space!
  16. ian_d
    Not much chance of any actual observing in the coming days, so instead I've been thinking of targets to look for when the weather finally improves.
    I was browsing around on SkySafari on the iPad and noticed that there's a globular cluster in Cygnus - M56. I realised I'd never seen it, and I sort of wondered how I'd missed the fact that there's a glob so well-placed at this time of year. So, that's top of the list.
    I'm also keen to have a go at M33 through my 4" refractor - I've only ever seen it in binoculars before, and a few months ago I failed miserably to see it at all in my 10" Dob at 50x. I suspect it's just too large and diffuse to show up against the skyglow with that setup, so I'm wondering if the 4" at 20x will be a better bet.
    There are a few others I'm keen to see, mainly drawn from the Moore Winter Marathon which I'm about halfway through at the moment. Hopefully I'll be able to report some success at some point soon...
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