lunator

Observing Session 01/10/22 The sky was clear in the evening. I had a couple of extra targets to view. When I managed to get out around 8pm there was some high cloud to the south obscuring Jupiter and Saturn. It appeared mostly due to contrails. It was clearer at zenith. I estimated the transparency as 3/5 and seeing was a bit in and out. At best it was 3/5. As Cassiopeia was clear my first stop was V1405 Cass it has faded slightly it is of fainter than HD220770(7.81) I estimated Mag 8. RS Oph is still around Mag 10. It is fading slowly. I moved onto Aquila. My first stop was STF2636 it was tricky split at x80 with no colour noted. My next stop was one of my double discovery CSR3 it is fairly wide double and more easily visible at x80. I was also able to split it at x32. Both appeared yellowish. The secondary is slightly fainter. The primary is the variable V1477 Aql a cepheid variable. It is listed as magnitude 9.6 but it appeared slightly brighter than this. It was brighter than HD192171 which is listed as 9.61 but is also a yellow giant which is not listed as a variable in Sky Safari. I checked the AAVSO but the data is limited to a short period in 2010. The data on this star does seem very sparse. The final target STF3008 a fairly close 7th magnitude yellow/blue pair with a small difference in magnitude. I had a quick look at Saturn + Titan. Titan has moved to the 10 o’clock position. I have followed it for about ¾ of it’s orbit. A quick final look at Jupiter 4 Moons clearly visible and 5 bands could be resolved. Cheers Ian

V1405 cass looked about the same as HD220770 last night. I estimated mag 7.8 Cheers Ian

Hi Swoop nice report . It s nice to just do a bit of visual observing mow and again. cheers Ian

Nice report 🙂 In my experience Almach is a good large scope double. Albireo looks best in a small scope. Cheers Ian

Observing Session 29/09/21 The weather had looked promising for last night. I had a plan to return to my usual targets and also have a crack at a couple of tricky doubles. When I got up at 5am for work it was slightly surreal seeing Orion high in the South. Not a sight I see until later in the year normally. I managed to head out around 8 pm after doing all the necessary domestic chores. 😄 Conditions weren’t great with Seeing about 3/5 and Transparency about 3/5. Ok check my finder alignment on Jupiter and then went straight to RS Ophuchi. RS Ophuchi is around Mag 10 it is clearly fainter than HD162449 (9.81). I moved onto V1405 Cassiopeia it appears Slightly fainter similar to HD220770 (7.81) so I am happy to go with mag 7.8. I wanted to have a look at WZ Cass. I haven’t looked at it in quite a while. It is a double star of red and blue easily split in a small scope and on quite a Richfield. At low power you could get Alpha Cass in field. Definitely worth a look of you are in the area. I moved South to see if I could split the doubles of Rho and Pi Capricorni. I started with Pi Cap. It is 3.6” but quite uneven at magnitudes 5.3 and 8.5. After a while at x100 a foint dot would appear a short distance away. The primary was white, the secondary grey. Moving onto Rho Cap. This is a much closer pair at 1.9” but more evenly matched at magnitudes 4.8 and 6.9 at first I had no joy the the secondary just started to become apparent at x100. It was Intermittent and mostly looked elongated but popped out occasionally. I was running out of time with another early start so I finished with a quick look at Saturn and Jupiter. Saturn + Titan. Titan had moved to 8 o'clock position. It has been interesting to watch Titan’s motion. It has done close to half the orbit since I first noted Titan’s position. Jupiter had 3 moons visible. IO was in transit but was not clearly visible. Cheers Ian

I hope to return to them soon. I think Pi might be doable in the ST80, but Rho at 1.9" and a Delta M of 2 might be pushing my luck even at x100. I will have a crack though Cheers Ian

Nice report glad you got to see some good detail on Saturn and Jupiter. Cheers Ian

Observing report 26th September. I had noticed the skies were clearing and although a weather front was due in later it looked like there would be a bit of a gap. I got the ST80 out and set up at the end of the garden. I had a quick look at Jupiter and the was seeing was quite poor about 4/5. Transparency was fairly good around 2/5. The milky way was beginning to appear at zenith. AT x16 magnification you could see 3 moons, but pushing the magnification to x100 4 moons were visible with Europa and Callisto were very close together. I moved over to Saturn and although the seeing meant the view wasn’t the best it was clear that Titan had moved significantly. Whilst looking at Saturn I noticed a triangular asterism. This is made up of Pi/Rho/Omicron Cap and near To Rho an Orange star HD194960. These stars show a subtle colour contrast of (Pi)blue, (Rho)yellow and (Omicron)white. Omicron is also a double (SHJ324) with small difference in magnitude and are both white. Moving onto RS Oph it is still around magnitude 9.9. I moved quite quickly onto V1405 Cass. It seems to be maintaining it magnitude. It was fainter than HDHD229770 but brighter than HD220057. I estimated magnitude 7.4. A very fast Meteor also passed through the field. I could see M52 in the 25mm (x16) and thought I would use the 12.5mm to get a clearer view. This started to show individual stars. Pushing the magnification to x100 and averted vision I could see approximately 20 stars I was also able to split the wide double BLL58. The primary is white, the secondary showed no colour. The cloud was beginning to roll in so I decide to try for a “how low can you go’ in magnification. I went to ETA Cass an excellent colourful double. With a 3.5 magnitude primary and 7.5 magnitude secondary separated by 13.5 arcseconds. I could not split the pair in the 25mm but in the 18mm x22 magnification the pair was fairly clearly split. Cheers Ian

Hi Mark In my small scope the colour difference isn't noticeable but it was interesting to watch them change their relative positions. Cheers Ian

It is ideal. You can just pick it up and be out observing in 2mins. Cheers Ian

Go for it it was easier to find than I thought. Cheers Ian

Hi Dave, I hope this helps. Cheers Ian

Hi Peter It is a pretty easy find. If you use the Shedar (Alpha Cass) and Caph (Beta Cass) as guides it is a straight foward target. Start at Alpha and follow the line through Beta extend this line the same distance agsin and you will be on 4 Cass. At low power the Novae will be in the same field of view. cheers Ian

Hi Stu My 12.5mm ortho is a brilliant eyepiece, the 4mm is pretty good too. I am sure the OMC250 would beat the ST80 Hands down but the ST80 allows me to see parts of the sky I can't see from the obs. Cheers Ian.

Hi Stu I was using my ST80 with my range of orthos.25/12.5/6/5/4mm Cheers Ian

This my plot as a jpg as not everyone will have excel. The gaps really show where the weather and work get in the way Cheers Ian

RS Oph plot.docx Here is my plot. There did seem to be a plateau for about 5 days from the 23/08. Cheers Ian

It is always good to try and grab some time for viewing between the clouds. Cheers Ian

Observing session 23/09/21 I managed a quick observing session on the night of the 23rd. Transparency was fairly good, but seeing was mainly 3/5 with occasionally more settled periods. I took up my usual spot and started with Jupiter, the GRS was clearly visible and the 4 Moons and also visible with 3 on one ] side and one on the other. I pushed the magnification up to 100 (4mm ortho.). The 2 closest moons Europa an Ganymede made an almost straight line pointing at the GRS. This was at 8pm. Also the belt that contained the GRS has a stronger colour in front of the GRS than behind, I had never really noticed this before. I moved onto Saturn and Titan. The view was ok but the variable seeing made it less enjoyable than usual. I decided a quick check on RS Oph was in order. I last checked RS Oph on the 21st and in the 2 days no real changes could be detected. It still appears around mag 9.9. It is hanging in there....:). Moving onto V1405 Cass it had faded again. It was clearly fainter than HD20819 (6.61) slightly fainter than HD220057 (6.94) and brighter than HD220770 (7.81) so I estimated mag 7.3. In the 12.5mm (x32) I got my first glimpse of M52, a faint sprinkling of stars. I wanted to revisit the M2/Saturn Nebula/M73 area from the 21st as the moon was not affecting the sky too much. Also the GRS should be fairly central on Jupiter. I moved the scope back to Jupiter and the GRS was visible when the seeing settled but what really caught my eye was the relative change in the positions of Europa and Ganymede. In the 30 minutes I had been looking elsewhere the distance between them had halved. I pretty much forgot to watch the GRS and spent the next 30 minutes watching them belt past each other. By 9pm Europa appeared further from the limb than Ganymede. I am used to following orbital motion as a double star observer, as I have observed Porrima and Zeta Cancri but this this takes years not minutes to observe. About 9.15 I decided to move onto the other targets. Found M2 and the 12.5mm ortho showed it very well. Push the mag to x100 but the view was not great. Moved onto the Saturn Nebula and at x100 I could clearly see the elongated shape. M73 & M72 I couldn’t see as the Moon was beginning to have an effect. I made a final return to Jupiter and could see that the GRS was disappearing and Ganymede was getting close to being occulted, with work tomorrow. I called it a night around 10.15. Cheers Ian

Hi Stu I was watching the Moons last night and saw Europa and Ganymede belt past each other. It was interesting to watch the motion as the way their relative position changed in minutes was quite an eye opener. Io was on the other side of Jupiter and Callisto was a lot further out. Cheers Ian

I had another better look last night, using the ST80. Using x100 mag did begin to bring out the shape more. It is nice to see stuff which I can't see from my observatory. Cheers Ian

I had a look last night as well. It has definitely faded from a couple of days ago. I estimated about Mag 7.3. Cheers Ian

Nice report Despite their low altitude the views of Saturn and Jupiter have been pretty good recently. Good luck with the Messiers. Cheers Ian

The sky was looking ok last night. I knew the Moon would be washing things out later but as other members of the house would be watching bake off I thought I could get a hour or so observing in. 1st stop Saturn. Seeing quite poor so a quick look then move on hoping things would improve later. Next stop was Jupiter. 3 moons on one side and the GRS just visible on the limb but disappearing fast. 42/44/45 Cap made a nice line almost perpendicular to the moons. Seeing wasn’t great so I decided to move on again. I decided to look at RS Ophuchi. It was as faint or possibly fainter than HD 162499 (9.81) in the 12.5mm it is being to take averted vision to see. I would estimate mag 9.8-9.9. Moving onto V1405 Cassiopeia. First look confused me for a moment as it was bright. I stared at it for a while and was certain that it was pretty much the same brightness as HD 220819 (6.61) so I estimated Mag 6.6. The Nova is not stopping yet.:) . The seeing appeared to have improved so I went back to Saturn. The view was much better this time with the Cassini division visible at x100 and Titan quite obvious. Continuing my circuit I went back to Jupiter, at x100 the bands were clearly visible when the seeing settled. Despite Jupiter’s fairly low altitude I have had some fairly decent views recently. I had set up in a slightly different part of the garden, just in front of the observatory. This meant I had a better South view than usual so I had a look at SkySafari and thought I would try for a couple of new objects I can’t normally see. M2 and the Saturn Nebula were my targets. Both fairly bright so would hopefully cut through the haze and moon glow. I started at Enif and moved to M15 just to ‘get my eye in’ in the 25mm (x16) there was a clear smudge within a triangle of stars. Tracking south about ¾ of the way to 22Aqr I found M2 a Globular Cluster slightly smaller and fainter than M15. The bright stars HD206058 (6.65) and HD205765 (6.21) point towards it. Moving down to 22 aqr and then across to Mu and epsilon Aqr gets you in the right area. If you draw a line from Mu aqr and double that distance you come to Nu Aqr. It you just move just a bit back towards 7 Aqr you will have the Saturn Nebula in the field of view. At x16 it looked like a small faint blob with a hint of blue. By now the Moon was fully up and washing things out so I decided to end the session. I plan to return to the Saturn Nebula to get a better look. Cheers Ian

The Nova has brightened up again it was very similar to HD220819 (6.61) I was surprised and checked the AAVSO data when I came in and other observations gave a similar magnitude. Cheers Ian