Mike JW

Excellent idea and professional presentation.

Hi Martin, NGC 2017 is a favourite of mine and an observing mate despite it being so low for us GB. Just love the group through a big Dob. As 3 of the obvious components are in the WDS catalogue I have also pointed smaller scopes at the group in my quest for doubles. Great to see it again. Mike

Hi Martin, I am thoroughly enjoying your Berkeley adventures. I feel that at long last I am "seeing them". I wonder if any body has published a book of them (paper or online) - your approach would make for a very informative "publication". Keep having fun. Mike

Hi, I have just found my Messier sketch and thought I would add it for comparison and also the notes I made to go with it and extra info about the change of name. Messier and Messier A are low angled impact craters as shown by oblong shape. It is likely that they struck at the same time. “A” is a double crater, the smaller one is older and thus mostly obliterated by the impact. The rays stretch for about 120km. Some folk have suggested it was one asteroid that did a rebound but the generally agreed suggestion is that a grazing impact of 1 to 5 degrees coming from the east excavated Messier and another part of the projectile ricocheted downrange to form Messier A and its rays. The craters are about 6 Km apart. Messier A was originally named Pickering, after the astronomer William H. Pickering. The name was changed to Messier A by the International Astronomical Union in 1964. They considered that Pickering's rather odd ideas about lunar plant life, in particular in the crater Eratosthenes, ruled him out to have a crater named after him. The crater Pickering near Hipparchus is actually named after William Pickering's older brother Edward Pickering. I must re-visit this pair. Mike

Paul - wise words. All too often I get bogged down in detail. Fraunhoffer - Rheita Valley - tricky to sketch this area as the valley does not readily stand out. Yet careful scrutiny reveals subtle features. I have only attempted the sketch once. Good to see your interpretation. Messier craters - nice and easy. Your naming has me confused. I thought the pair are now called Messier and Messier A. Pickering crater is elsewhere on the lunar surface. I think I remember reading that originally the Messier Pair were Messier and Pickering but somewhere along the route they got renamed and Pickering was used to name some other crater. Must track the info down.

Last night was very transparent so I sneaked along the edge of the nearly full moon, trying to have a "look over the edge" when some jagged mountains caught my attention. Totally unexpected, there was Mare Orientale. I had long wanted to see it. I was wowed by the sight. I did a rough sketch at the eyepiece and then just absorbed the details for 30 mins or more, checking against an image of the area. In real life the sketch is A4 in size. The details of orientale are reasonably correct as are the two obvious craters. The rest is artistic impression. Mike

Last night there was so many candidates for sketching. In the end I went for the Sirsalis Rille. I took a different approach last night. I downloaded an image of the area to match my view and simply compared my view to the image - spotting and comparing as many feature as possible, making mental notes as I went. Doing this is so much more relaxing and in some ways I saw more rather than my customary panic at the eyepiece trying to do a rough sketch of all the features. I had a very happy hour using this approach. Today I have then sketched it from the image - cheating really but very pleasurable. By not sketching at the eyepiece last night I was able to devote time trying to observe as many plato crate-lets as possible with the 15" Dob. A very absorbing activity. (Posted in lunar observing section as part of a bigger post) The first sketch from a few months back was roughed out at the eyepiece, the second sketch is today's efforts based on the downloaded image. Sirsalis Rille is 380 km long, 3km wide and 230m deep.It is strange in that is so straight. Possibly a collapsed lava tube that fed lava to Ocean Procellarum. However, it could be land that has slipped between two faults (a graben). I am fascinated by the way it cuts through the highlands. There are magnetic anomalies associated with the rille. Orbital photos show it bending through craters.

You have captured the essence of this fabulous area. I had to draw myself away from this area at the time you were sketching it. It was looking superb but I wanted to study elsewhere. Mike

Have fun. Cloudy here for me but working on a lunar sketch. Mike

Hi Martin, Tonight I pointed the Dob at V674 - definite orange colour. I also located "saturn", also showed a hint of orange colour but I could not see its "rings" - no idea of the mag of these stars but I am guessing mag 13/14. I should try again on a moonless night. As to Berk 95 - about 4 stars!!!!! Hence I have enjoyed your EAA shots of the Berkeley Clusters. Mike

Hi folks, Just come in from messing about with the Dob (15) and thought I would give Plato a serious look. Max useful mag was about x 245. There was no gain beyond this. Conditions were not steady enough to use higher magnification. As per my cloudynights link A,B,C,D, and E, were all easy tonight. With patience and looking in the right area and waiting for a moment of steadiness I manged to positively get f,g and h. At times I would get possible hints of i, j and p but I would not claim them as definite. A fun time. Mike

The area around Berk 95 is very lacking for doubles. I have noted V674, it will be interesting to see if I can detect colour visually with the 15 although its mag 10/11 status might make it too faint for clear cut colour detection. I might take a look tonight despite the moon. Mike

Here is a link with them labelled. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/34841-guide-to-plato-craterlets/ Here is another link which gives useful as to the size of a crater visible depending on the scope aperture. http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rhill/mincrater.html Looking at the info - a fifth craterlet is doable with a 8" scope. After that aperture is needed and perfect conditions to get to 11/12 craterlets. I have always felt I do well if I get to see "the big four" Mike

Hi Martin, the Saturn like star is TYC 3995-30-1. I was hoping it might be a double/multiple as I very much enjoy doubles. However it is simply a chance alignment. I shall add it into my double star list for Cepheus as a fun target. Mike

Hi folks, the key to spotting the plato crater-lets - seeing , transparency and illumination. If the seeing/transparency is not good enough no amount of magnification or aperture will do the job. Obviously high contrast scopes - refractors, mak newts, and some mak cas scopes - make the job easier. The other night I was using my 15" Dob and turned it onto the moon (instantly blinded!!). At x330 I was able to detect all four cater-lets but the hardest one was the smaller one of the "double". Only in moments of good seeing could I see it. In the past using an OMC 200 I have detected a 5th crater-let.

Thanks Martin, Your shots confirm why over the years it was a nightmare trying to positively ID the Berkeley Clusters in my 20" Dob. Mike

Hi Martin, just been checking the database out - very useful info. Re Berk 26, my SkyMap software does not have it in its database. Mike

Hi Martin, impressive work. Happy memories for me of looking at these with the big Dob but of course not the colour. Mike

Hesiodus lies next to Crater Pitatus. It lacks a central peak but in the centre is a small impact crater. Its walls are quite worn down with two ghost craters to the north. Rima Hesiodus is a subtle feature and runs SW. The sketch below was completed awhile back. Hesiodus A impacts on the wall. - bottom of sketch. It is one of the 58 craters with concentric rings. Such craters are likely to be due to lava welling up through fissures or cracks in the craters' floors. Exactly why the lava in concentric craters bubbled up to form donut-like rings remains unclear. A plug of molten rock beneath the crater may have lifted up its floor, which later deflated in the centre like a collapsed soufflé, leaving a ring. It's even possible that dense impact melt on the crater floor resisted uplift from lava pushing up from below. Whatever the specific reason, most lunar experts agree that concentric craters owe their formation to volcanic processes. Some folk have suggested it is a double impact but it looks too neat and tidy for that to be the case, in my view. Below is my sketch from last night when conditions were right for high power (x330) and also the illumination.

I too was looking in this area at the same time. Conditions were very steady so I was able to use x 330 mag - it felt as if I was orbiting the moon. Copernicus was magnificent - there was no way I could draw the detail of the terraces. Mike

Fascinating area, the more you look, the more you see. Thanks for posting. Mike

My basic procedure is the one described by Martin. After the 2 star alignment I then GOTO a third star in the region that I plan to do my EAA and sync on that third star. I then insert the camera, sort out focus and after that the objects will be in the fov. Sometimes I will re sync on an object with the camera still in if I feel things are a little off. I have also learnt the hard way that when using my equatorial mount it is always worth spending the time getting it level and then to spend further time getting it polar aligned (manually, do not have any fancy software to do it for me) as accurately as I can. If using my AZ mount, I make the effort to get it level, then 2 star align, off to the third star and just as before. Mike

Don't tempt me - I have thought about it..... I use a Starlight Express - ultrastar guide camera. Other folk (Martin, Bill) use the Lodestar v2 guide camera - both work very well for EAAV. Mike

SHK 90 (circled) has 12 members. The brightest is mag 17.5 (not the star in the circle). Just outside the circle is UGC 4214 (mag 15.3 and 480 mly away). I used UGC 4214 as the GOTO reference so this group was easy to find. The two Quasars are labelled - 5504 is 8.15 billion ly away. 5509 is a mere 1.5 billion ly away. There are other galaxies in the shot. Using the 15" Dob means I get a result very quickly - in about 6 x 5 sec stack or quicker. This shot I used a stack of 7 seconds. SHK 87 has 7 members, the brightest is mag 17. This time I used the double star as the reference point. I looked at this double visually before popping in the camera - a lovely sight - mag 8 and mag 10 separated by 1.7". Mike

Thanks Bill, the skyview site will make a useful backup if I lack a suitable image of the area on my various programs.