Jump to content

another report 17/02


Andrew*

Recommended Posts

got out at around 10pm. After a quick set-up without polar aligning or anything, went straight for saturn. At 167x with the 6mm ortho, Saturn was very clear. I thought I could spot 5 moons, but their positions weren't the same as shown in Starry Night. There must have only been 4 - Titan, Rhea, Lapetus and Enceladus. The last one is apparently mag 11.5, and indeed was very faint, but I could not clearly make out the "brighter" Dione and Tythus nearby. I think I mistook other points of light in Saturn's vicinity as stars, because Starry Night shows no moons bright enough where I saw dots. Seeing seemed very good - there was no wobbliness going on at all at 200x.

No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make out the cassini division or any variation in saturn's atmosphere. So I decided to up the mag! a 15mm barlowed 3x (200x) showed little more (for some reason I had misty patches showing up - it must have been condensation in the eyepiece). I decided to be silly and barlowed the 6mm, giving 500x magnification. As expected, Saturn was racing for its life across the FOV and it was tricky to keep it in view long enough to see detail past the inevitable fuzziness.

I took a quick glance at M42 with the 32mm. I saw lots of detail that I don't usually see. Later on I decided to do a neodymium filter test. Using the 25mm plossl, I noted what I saw without - a clear bowl shape swinging out from the core, evidence of wisps, and a bright patch of M43. I could not see the running man. With the filter showed little extra. I noted more of the bowl shape, more wispiness and a little more contrast. All these details were best shown with averted vision, used consciously!

I gave the 32mm a test run. The FOV was large enough to encompass the entire Pleiades, and stars were sharp across almost the entire FOV. A quick glance at M31 showed very little - no shape to speak of, no neighbouring galaxies, just fuzz. Mind you, I didn't try the filter and there was much LP in the area. I tried again for M1, and managed it! Though it was faint, I made out a small bright round patch. This was very rewarding.

By now it was only 11.30, but it suddenly got seriously cold, so I went in for a foot-warmer - that lasted over an hour! When I came back, frost bit me. I had to bring everything in - scope, finder, eyepieces - for a blow-dry. One object later, the finderscope was unusable again. I brought it back in for defrosting, re-set it and tried again.

In between, I managed the globular cluster M53. I didn't see any separate stars - just fuzz. Are they usually like this? It was very small, so I tried on the ortho again. Little more detail was shown. I tried to find M64 - the Black Eye galaxy, but failed. Saturn again showed a little more clarity somehow (I left the ortho in my case, so it was still usable). I noticed a dark band where the rings come in front of the planet. Otherwise, it was very bright, and no cassini obvious.

The frost and cold got too annoying and I'd spent too much time making things usable and too little time using them. I decided to call it a night, ending at 3am, shortly after failing to find M51, which was directly overhead.Overall it was a very rewarding night - it's a great feeling to tick a few fuzzies off the list.

Next time I'll get an image of Saturn for ya!

Andrew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thanks - it was good fun, and I had a good mix of visually impressive objects and the fainter, but more interesting objects.

What I failed to mention was that I made good use of the crayford focuser. The extension tube made focusing and changing EPs much quicker, and the crayford was silky smooth throughout. Thanks a lot, Daz!

Andrew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like you had a great night, mind you, you must have had frost on your frosty bits by 3am.

Excuse me if this is obvious but on the software I use for finding the position of saturns moons, the view is as is, you then have to invert to get the view as seen in the eyepiece, could this explain the positional irregularities?

Nice to find a few more targets and do a bit of background reading on them, mind you that pesky ISS will have to wait till next time!

Gary

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like you had a great night, mind you, you must have had frost on your frosty bits by 3am.

Excuse me if this is obvious but on the software I use for finding the position of saturns moons, the view is as is, you then have to invert to get the view as seen in the eyepiece, could this explain the positional irregularities?

No, I took a sec to work out how they looked in opposite and worked out which ones I saw. I should really have made a quick sketch to be sure.

Andrew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think seeing was all that bad. 4 moons seemed to indicate good seeing, but maybe not... I thought that saturn was simply too bright to make out the CD for lack of contrast... it was quite disappointing, and I tried very hard to make out as much detail as possible.

Andrew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.