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Tell us your best visual observation!

Pingster

By Pingster
in Observing - Discussion

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Pingster

Pingster

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Hi there!

Winter is coming and im sure crisp dark skies are on our way.

What your best visual view to date! You are only allowef one item so pick carefully xD

Format:

Location: Mid Wales

Sky: 7VLM but due to haze about 5.5VLG. Clear.

Experiemce: 3months

Date of observation: Sept 2011

Observation: Andromeda. High up in the zenith. Was the clearest and most detailed i have ever viewed. Normally i am able to see the steller core and the main oval "dust lane", plus what apears like half of a dustlane. And usualy one side of the main core is less visible than the other.

On my best session i saw 3 full bands of dust lanes with both sides as clear as each other. No "cludy dust lane look yet", but i am sure on a day of good "seeing" and less moisture they will show. An amazing sight. M110 and M32 were extreemely bright next to it. Infact M110 was brighter than M31 viewed from my back garden in SE London. :)

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Pingster

Pingster

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Seeing Jupitor for the first time too was my first OMG! moment. That was thru a rubbish sungar zoom bins i got from argos. I had viewed it many times, and suspecte it as been a planet, later i found a camera tripod, mounted it, and saw it with 2 moons. I'll never forget that winter day, the sky was so clear... and that was before easyjet ruined it all :)

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jimmyjamjoejoe

jimmyjamjoejoe

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Location: Birmingham

Sky: Clear.

Experience: Months

Date of observation: Jan/Feb 1997 ?/?

Observation: Hale Bopp

I really wish i was into astronomy back then. I mean, i have always been interested, and i appreciated how special Hale Bopp was, but even though i spent many hours staring at it, i still don't feel i did it justice.

Now i'l (probably) never see it again, i just wish i had been able to get a scope on it, or take some photos etc... :)

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Veracocha

Veracocha

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I really wish i was into astronomy back then. I mean, i have always been interested, and i appreciated how special Hale Bopp was, but even though i spent many hours staring at it, i still don't feel i did it justice.

Now i'l (probably) never see it again, i just wish i had been able to get a scope on it, or take some photos etc... :(

If you are around in 4000 years you might get a look but it'd be cloudy anyway :) I wasn't into astronomy then but even I knew it was something special.

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Nexus 6

Nexus 6

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Location AstroAdventures North Devon

Sky VLM 6.44

Experience 4 years

Date of observation 17/09/11

Observation the whole sky!( is that allowed?) :) it was a beautiful sight seeing so many stars albeit for only a very short time, our visit was almost completely ruined by the weather but a break in the cloud was enough to see why they have a prime location for observing/imaging the night sky.

Personal observation from home approx VLM 4.6, this year....Saturn. Celestron CPC 925/Televue 13mm Nagler = 180x power.

A stunning sight, I spent a long time at the eyepiece and was rewarded with some amazing views of the jewel of the solar system, on the odd moments of steady conditions it was almost photographic in appearance.

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spaceboy

spaceboy

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I really wish i was into astronomy back then. I mean, i have always been interested, and i appreciated how special Hale Bopp was, but even though i spent many hours staring at it, i still don't feel i did it justice.

Now i'l (probably) never see it again, i just wish i had been able to get a scope on it, or take some photos etc... :)

Ditto! Although I think comets like that are best appreciated by eye anyway.

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John

John

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Really difficult to pick just one :)

I guess it would have to be the view of M51 with a 13mm Ethos in a 20" David Lukehurst dobsonian at the 2010 SGL Star Party. Nice dark skies and the galaxy looked huge at 153x

It really did look like the photos with a full on "whirlpool" spiral structure, the "bridge" to NGC 5195 clearly defined and dark markings within that smaller galaxy clear too.

A simply amazing sight :)

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Revs

Revs

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My 'WOW!' moments were observing Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and the double cluster NGC884/869. People rarely mention the Moon in these threads, but on a good night the Moon is spectacular eye candy.

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Orion_the_Hunter

Orion_the_Hunter

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I have seen many great things over the years, ORION draws me in big time every Winter but the single observation which comes to mind was The Lunar Eclipse 15 June 11.

It was so spectacular; I wrote this at the time:

I am sat here being blown away.

The Moon just 'appeared' out of the darkness as a moody dark red ball; well, almost black on one side.

I just scrambled to set my scope up but the Moon is a bit too low so I can't quite get the scope angled through the window.

Oh well, I'm having to make do with the stupid back-to-front SW finder scope instead.

Just bwfore, about 2% of the Moon was bright, the rest still red. Some spots of cloud are also making some great 'horror movie Moon' effects (I know what I mean ).

Now as the Moon is about 30% lit up as the eclipse is on it's way out it looks amazing.

One of the most beautiful spectacles I have ever seen!

Ed

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Pingster

Pingster

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Wow! Readin your observations is really exciting! Maybe we should extend it to our best 3 obervations as one is just not enought!

Just had to update my viewibg of Orion last night!

Location: River, near Camber.

Sky: Low moisture, good visibity. Clear sky.

Experiemce: 3months

Date of observation: Oct 2011

Observation: Orion, 21deg fron horizon. 16in flextube.

Had seen Orion in my 8se in Norfolk, was amazing sharp. But at x100mag it started to get blury.

I had a suprise clear evening with low moisture. Moon due to set at 1.30am, perfect as i knew orion would at a good height by 2.30am.

With the naked eye the constellation looking amazing. So bright it darkened the area of sky around it. Orion Nebular thru the scope it was stunning. Looks so different to a photo as innitially only the brightest parts of it capture your eyes. Looked with an angry dragon flying in the sky with its mouth open. The 4 stars within the neb were spilt perfectly and as a clump visually looked like the eye if the dragon! At 56mag it was crisp! Every star within the neb resolved to fine points, with the bigger ones clearly looking like small balls. Stars around the remaining 50% of the nagler FOV ha comma. At 100mag using 17ethos again starts pin point, much sharper thrughtout the FOV conpared to the Nag and sky darker. The structure of the dragons whispy details enhaced further. The wings of the dragon looked like fjne whisps of smoke, while its "face" had a bumpy cloudy texture to it. For the first time i saw real focused/sharpe detail in a nebular, and woth a fairly strong hibt of blue/purple. I thought androm looked good, but Orion takes visual obervation detail to another level.

And as it rised, the details got better and better. To the point where finer neb details become stronger, it stopped lokkinh like a angry dragon and lookedore like a trilobite.

As i move around it, i realised how many parts of neb that part of the sky contains. Fine fainter details of neb splattered the sky, the stronger stars around Orion have glowing nebs around them. Infact they look like the pleiades, but how it looks in photos. Thats how strong the neb glowed.

And the view go better and better as it rose higher an higher. I speant almost 1.5hrs on just this object alone. This was from at beast 5.4VLM, i cant wait to get it later in the year, hopefully from norfolk.

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laser_jock99

laser_jock99

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Got to agree on the Saturn rings experience. I remember I was just a kid using a Tasco 60mm refractor - but the first sight of those rings in that small telescope held an enormous WOW factor that got me hooked. First impressions really do count.

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John

John

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Got to agree on the Saturn rings experience. I remember I was just a kid using a Tasco 60mm refractor - but the first sight of those rings in that small telescope held an enormous WOW factor that got me hooked. First impressions really do count.

My 1st Saturn view was with a 60mm Tasco as well - back in 1982. I stayed up until the early hours to see it and I simply could not believe how it looked in the eyepiece of that little scope :)

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philhas

philhas

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Location: Birmingham

Sky: Clear.

Experience: Months

Date of observation: Jan/Feb 1997 ?/?

Observation: Hale Bopp

I couldn't agree more, night after night I remember watching Hale Bopp, its only now I realise how significant a comet it was....and is it my imagination or were there many more clear nights in those days:)

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