josefk

The sky wasn't thrilling last night but this is a relaxing way to spend the time nonetheless - sitting comfortably capturing PA and separations for double stars and multi-star systems in M44. Now i'm sitting comfortably at the scope adjusting a chair to achieve the right height instead of sitting at a fixed height and rotating my diagonal to get comfy (which is what i was doing till recently); West is consistently placed - a brilliant side effect of the BB chair - it makes it much easier to achieve consistent sketches in a series when West is always pointing off in the same direction...

A rather hazy, milky and bright moonlit night last night but i still managed a couple of hours just on M44 trying to sketch double stars within it. Transparency was awful and seeing was pretty bad - an early session attempt on Tegmine had it hopping, skipping, and jumping across the FOV. No chance. Still another night grabbed against the odds. Sketch over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421375-messier-44-with-double-and-multi-star-systems-21042024/#comment-4480381

I'm quite pleased with this this morning... 🙂 I've had the intention for a while to get after a few double stars within Messier objects [open clusters]. i have a list for M44 and a list for M37. M37 is incredibly daunting (dozens and dozens of groups within groups) but M44 is a bit simpler so i started with it last night. The sketch below is a tidied up composite of four field thumbnails for the star groups plus one larger "map" done at the eyepiece for M44 itself. By the time i came to make the map for M44 (at lower magnification than i'd been using for the groups) the sky had turned really milky with high haze and only the very brightest stars of M44 were breaking through - in some ways this made laying out the open cluster simple (fewer stars) but on the other hand sort of spoilt the point of the exercise which was to appreciate the parts in close up the step back and wonder at the whole of them together. Still - good fun and surprising hard to keep track in the field of what star is related to what - i've checked Stella Doppie this morning and my thumbnail sketches are actually more useful than my field notes to piece it all together: BTW i've just realised my sketch as photographed omits West and North. West is pretty much directly towards the lower left corner and North to the upper left corner. Painstaking thumbnails below:

A very effective technique @IB20 . Super.

Very very nice @SwiMatt. Travelling pretty quick at x200 was it? 🙂 Just teasing...

Not the postman and not new - not even new to me - but returned to my care at the weekend. 29 years ago this year "my" first scope was a 4.5in Newtonian i bought my wife on an early anniversary. About 15 years ago "my" second scope was this 120mm achro we bought our son for good exam results. Spot the theme 🤣 It's returned to me while he does some house renovations and generally makes a mess for a bit. I have permission to spend money on it and repurpose it as a white light solar scope if the fancy takes me... This scope saw quite a bit of use so when my son fully reclaimed it after finishing uni I finally did have to buy my very own scope for the first time. I found the Celestron Omni a and GEM mount a bit tedious to carry up to the local park so i "downsized" to the ~9kgs of Cassegrain and ~11ks of Berlebach Planet i still use now. I'm not sure i thought that through properly.

I don't know what it is but nevermind the actual utility of it - a big finder is aesthetically very very appealing to me. Weird (or weirdo maybe). Two finders screams SERIOUS intent! 🙂 That bracket is exactly to fit an accessory ring snuggled around the OTA - a nice concept because it means you can get the finder quite far forward and out of the way easily. The rings also take a handle so quite useful even if a bit pricey.

Not to answer facetiously but have you seen John Boorman's film Excalibur? There is a pivotal scene where Arthur "escalates" a circle of victorious knights stood on hill to Camelot in about three steps...( i will build a round table for you my knights to sit around (yay) and a hall around the table (yay) and a castle around the hall (yay) and take a bride to join me in my castle (yay)!!! 🤣 The analogy would be escalation of pencil and pad with simple alt az mounted small scope to 36" dob in a 5m dome under an SQM22 sky - you need to see the film to get the joke. So far i have resisted! I understand the driven mount though - that has crossed my mind a few times too (sp. for Lunar).

Absolutely this Mike! I tracked the apparition last year and it was absolutely terrific as a project from April till August. This particular observation at conjunction -6 (or 7) days (this is the 6th August, i think Inferior Conjunction was on the 13th) and the Venusian crescent at just 2.4% was probably my highlight and best observation of the year: The weather then over the next few days didn't allow an observation closer to the Sun until it was too late a day or two before conjunction - too late for me to find Venus (manually) safely. A definite bucket list item to get closer. Utterly beguiling at even this thin crescent a few days before. No ashen light for me here.

Spain here too - lots of options in advance for where to stay and mobility options in the immediate time frame of the event too if local cloud cover is an issue. Northern Spain (Galicia and the Costa da Morte in particular on the NW corner of Spain) are fabulous locations anyway - the Coast of Death as you can imagine from the name (its named such because of the number of shipwrecks) is like a wild Cornwall but nearly totally empty of tourists/tourist pressure. Super.

Thanks for the Venus transit pics above @Roy Challen - i appreciate that.👍

Lunar 100? An Astronomical League observing challenge?

You picked a nice group to “apply your training” 😃 A fascinating and aesthetic area of the lunar surface Ann lovely sketch.

They are lovely pictures Paul. I know that area well (in the daylight). 👍

I will remember this one for a while @SwiMatt for sure - i'm so glad i kept my concentration up (and recorded everything) by sketching everything in the first half of the session too - priceless really (for me) as a record of the night. An interesting "after the fact" artefact as well is that, as i sketched everything using the same EP and on the same night, the "collection" i have now is a nice set of comparable visual records of these beautiful objects on this night - this one brighter, that one longer, those two together, and so on...👍

Under more ideal skies @lunator and with household logistics that facilitated owing a VERY big scope they would be my favourite DSO to pursue really systematically - i enjoy all sorts of things aesthetically at the scope but galaxies and their characteristics and evolution and interaction in groups and so on are the astro topic that excites me most away from the scope when reading and following up etc. When you start to list NGC this and that its a bit blah blah but when you stop to consider what that little grey smudge is (and several of them sometimes in one go) it is mind blowing... 🙂

Thats exactly the technique @SwiMatt - very conveniently Markarian's chain is quite linear West to East so you can start at the western end and then go hands free. Depending on your EP FOV you would have to do it in several horizontal bands (which is more or less what i was doing)... I would make the joke that William Herschel used this technique because he didn't have the benefit of slo-mo controls on his scaffold mounted scope but actually he kind of did - it [the scope] was a bit loose in its mounting and he could kind of swing it a little bit by pulling on ropes even in between resetting it more significantly for each horizontal [altitude] change 🙂

Hi [wrong tag] - i posted them over here but missing June and July - i must have not prepared them yet - probs for obvious reasons. If you use them just upload September first and check it - i'm not sure if exporting lists exports the whole list in its native state or "my" current view of it. If September is empty it's my current view in the export (all observed). just let me know and i'll try again with the filters off. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/294168-member-contributed-observing-lists-and-links-to-others/page/3/#comment-4468432 Cheers

I hope i am not breaking any intellectual property rights by posting these lists - they are a simple transfer to Sky Safari of the monthly lists Steve O'Meara presents in his excellent book "Herschel 400 Observing Guide: How to Find and Explore 400 Star Clusters, Nebulae, and Galaxies by William and Caroline Herschel". In any event i recommend the book. I did realise only today i haven't listed June and July though... Herschel 400 - January.skylistHerschel 400 - February.skylistHerschel 400 - March.skylistHerschel 400 - April.skylistHerschel 400 - May.skylist Herschel 400 - August.skylistHerschel 400 - September.skylistHerschel 400 - October.skylistHerschel 400 - November.skylistHerschel 400 - December.skylist

There's a more descriptive observing report over here for the session that enabled these sketches: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421050-galaxies-galore-in-sextans-leo-virgo-and-coma-berenices-09100424/#comment-4477013 This post is the tidy version of 11 out of 12 thumbnails made at the eyepiece (in the cold) on the 9th and 10th of April. I've enjoyed drafting these tidy versions just now as nearly as much as the actually observing - that's another win win from sketching - you get twice the pleasure of the event. Small proviso - taking pictures of pastel on card nearly always heightens the contrast versus how the sketches appear in real life and definitely versus the actually view at the scope. The Intergalactic Wanderer, NGC 2419 and Herschel I-218 It's been on my spring target list since being discussed on here: NGC 2683 a spiral galaxy in Lynx: NGC 3227 & NGC 3226. A spiral and an elliptical galaxy pair in Leo. two weeks ago in a 130mm refractor at x70 these were a single smudge. With a bit more "gain" using a bigger scope they were very satisfying indeed. This FOV should also include another NGC galaxy NGC 3222 to the west but i couldn't detect that: Another pair here, NGC 3193 and NGC 3190. There are two "missing" undetected galaxies in this FOV too - One of them (NGC 3185) should have been available to my aperture but i couldn't see it: The Spindle galaxyNGC 3115 in Sextans. These next few were at lower elevation/altitude and i suspect were diminished by atmospheric extinguishing. I suspect i was only seeing the very brightest part of their cores. I wanted to make sure i captured something this season though before they are fully rotated out of view: This one is interesting - NGC 3166 and NGC 3169 - two softly glowing balls. There is another NGC galaxy in this FOV, NGC 3165 but it is Mag. 14.5 and i almost certainly can't observe that with 185mm of aperture and almost certainly NOT at this altitude BUT - there was suspicious soft star exactly were it should be (preceding this pair to the west). I'm not counting it in the bag 🙂 ... NGC 3521, also at quite low altitude and suffering for it i suspect: NGC 3640 and a Herschel 400 target (as are some of the others in this session): Messier 95 and Messier 96. Very strange that these two and the sort of nearby M91 are Messier discovered objects because i found these to be dimmer than other very nearby galaxies on this night. M91 particularly so - i wonder if these really get bigger and better in darker skies? ...and finally a very pleasing group, M105, NGC 3384 and NGC 3389. NGC 3389 wasn't detected with the Delos at x141 but was detectable some of the time with slightly higher magnification (x174). I also proved to myself again the value of sketching the star field as carefully as possible because it really helps with confidence in the observation when following up after the fact... if you got this far thanks for looking - fingers crossed for more clear skies this weekend. Joe

how about solar transits of Venus and Mercury? I've never seen one and won't be able to see a transit of Venus now in my lifetime. Mercury transits next in 2032.

That looks pretty accurate @YogSothoth - i took the liberty of identifying a coupe of double star targets in M44 if thats your thing - i'm identifying the primaries with the arrows not identifying you drew them with their secondaries already 🙂 - sounds a bit left field i know but i am currently compiling a list of targets in targets (double stars in Messier open clusters basically) so these were top of mind this morning... Top arrow is 38 Cancri (possibly), and the bottom arrow is 41 Cancri (possibly)

nice report Peter - "galaxy season" seems fleeting indeed, like the clock is ticking and the clear amenable nights few and far between...👍

So desperate times call for desperate measures and this is a summary of six hours or thereabouts on the evening of the 9th April into the late early hours of the morning the 10th April. I don't think anyone noticed my lack of sleep at work the next day 🙂 . I wouldn't normally entertain such a long session on a "school night". The moon had set about 21:15 and sky SQM was 20.66 so this was a perfect night for my larger scope (the 186mm Cassegrain) and a purposeful attempt on galaxies in the constellations of the title [plus the globular cluster -the Intergalactic Wanderer]. NB i know SQM 20.66 isn't great in the bigger scheme of things but this is a local dark site not a million miles away from house. Nearly all observations are with a Delos 17.3mm EP for 141x/30'/1.3mm exit pupil or a new to me Meade 14mm UWA for 174x/27'/1.1mm exit pupil. I would not normally use a 1.1mm exit pupil for galaxies but somehow it was supremely effective tonight. A great eyepiece. Notionally i had a Herschel H400 list open for the session but not everything is a H400 object. I am super happy that i DID add 16 new H400 DSO to my meagre ongoing list though and galaxies in the list (and in general outside of the bright Messier ones) are rare beasts were i live and the skies i live under so i'm quite chuffed. NGC 2903 was a repeat observation (i observed it two weeks ago with my 130mm refractor). I had come back because i wanted to try and secure NGC 2905 (a bright star forming region) within it. I still don't think i have I'm afraid - not definitely. NGC 2903 itself is relatively bright and "rough" i.e rough edges and with patchy brightness gradients. It has bright star like spots in it but these are very difficult to lock down for precise location... Unbelievably the galaxy remained observable even at x300 and an exit pupil of 0.6mm as i ramped up the magnification step by step to try and find a magnification that shook NGC 2905 lose. No joy i don't think yet. NGC 3227 (w/ NGC 3226) was also a repeat after a first observation w/ 130mm two weeks ago. With 130mm this was a broad smudge w/ variegated brightness and i logged it as NGC 3227 and called NGC 3226 a miss. With the larger Cassegrain (and at twice the magnified scale versus the 'frac, and at x141 and an exit pupil of 1.3mm) this was clearly two close galaxies. NGC 3227 is the larger and brighter. Together they lie in a NS orientation, both are soft glows without bright cores but with brighter centres if tap makes sense. Like a soft snowman with a slightly leaning head. NGC 3227 is the body, NGC 3226 is the lopsided head. NGC 3222 should also be in this 30' FOV but i couldn't see it tonight (its a very faint - probably out of reach for me Mag 13.7). NGC 3190/3193 are also available together in the same FOV. These are quite large soft glows (5 or 6 arc-minutes) and occasionally with averted vision NGC 3190 was obviously elongated at (i haven't checked yet) 135-degrees (i.e NW/SE). NGC 3115, 3166, 3169, & 3521 are all lower down and in a direction were the sky on this evening was quite a light grey relatively speaking so all were poorer observations than others this evening. NGC 3379, 3384, & 3389 are another nice group observable together in the same FOV. 3379 and 3384 are "obvious" softly glowing balls. I had to shake NGC 3389 out with a slightly higher magnification (than 140x) and consequently smaller exit pupil (sp. 174x and 1.1mm). It was a marginal observation and needed averted vision. I could secure the star field though so a definite spot nonetheless. For the first half of the session i was also sketching and this helps me immensely to maintain concentration and ensure the observations are secured: I'll be tidying a few of the 12 thumbnails up for my index card records over the next few days. While sketching is super helpful, on this kind of dark night chasing these (for me and my scope/sky) fainter targets the red light (even a dim one) starts to get bothersome. I was also getting a bit cold and that was effecting my concentration so when i moved up to the Markarian's chain area i tried something i've been wanting to do for a while - i simply sat behind a relatively static scope - eye constantly at the eyepiece - and let the sky scroll past to the West. This was incredibly enjoyable and productive - i have new observations in this area i think due in part to this method. It really enables uninterrupted eye time at the EP and maximum dark adaptation in the circumstances. NGC 4374, 4406, 4388, 4459, 4474, 4473, 4477 were all observed in this (relatively) fixed scope fashion and in that order of incrementing RA. Some of those are new observations to me. No averted imagination required - either a smudge is detected preceding west and its ID checked (with one eye in SSP) or it isn't (detected) and it sails by unseen. I should add the method is facilitated for me by using SSP and having a spot on aligned push to set-up. I am going to rope my partner in on "Caroline duties" watching SSP for me while i observe uninterrupted in the warmer spring weather. NGC 4473 and NGC 4477 in that list are H400 objects and have adjacent Herschel numbers II-114 and II-115 so though i haven't checked them yet i wonder (and like to think) William Herschel actually discovered these two objects one after the other stood at his fixed scope using the same method. 🙂 Anyway - observing log here with metrics (and a penultimate lollipop obs):

...forgive the over exuberance this morning - it's been a while :-)... Initial notes looks like 19 new observations out of the 31 (the ones in orange at the left hand side of this table). I'm guessing a good bunch of those will also be H400 objects. Ding dong. Fuller report now added over here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/421050-galaxies-galore-in-sextans-leo-virgo-and-coma-berenices-09100424/