Second light ever

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

So a guy from my local astro group has lent me a 90mm frac and a handful of EPs to get on with until i can afford a scope of my own. My first light with it was at our dark sky site in the new forest, i forgot the counterweight and had no finder at the time, so spent most of the evening looking through other peoples scopes. Tonight however, i was at home in my back garden, with no help, no skymap, just me and a very hazy patchy horrible sky... Oh, and the scope..

Despite a low mist, high thin clouds, with fireworks and bonfire smoke in between, i had a great session!

Started off just hoping for a quick 10minutes on the moon, which i got, then it drifted behind a tree. The sky was looking patchy and jupiter was juuuuust edging up over my roof, so i moved to the bottom of the garden and took a cheeky peek, played around with some eyepiece/barlow combos. Ended up at roughly 160x, much more wasn't really working. Just checked stellarium and it turns out what i thought was the GRS was actually a transiting moon...

Enough of the easy stuff, i've got myself a red dot finder now, so lets see if i can find something a little more challenging. I go for andromeda since i can find it naked eye and in binos, but couldn't find it the other night without a finder. Despite my pegasus signpost being obscured i managed to find it from cassiopea alone. Conditions didn't allow much of a view, it was similar to the view i get in the binos on a good night. I kept looking behind me, since cygnus is a newly learned constellation for me, as is lyra (thanks to the bright stars in each). Hercules was just below the roof of a neighbors house, and beneath some thick haze anyway. I'm getting desperate to grab a look at M13, but it's looking less and less likely every day.

I lined up the scope with what i thought was a rough area for the ring nebula (semi guess, i just remembered it being in lyra, between two stars). I didn't find it. If you imagine lyra as a sideways kite shape, i was looking on the lower right straight, the ring is lower left. After checking in stellarium i tried again... I got it, JUST. Conditions were awful, as was skyglow (something i don't often see here). I just about got it in ring form with the 20mm EP and averted vision. The 12.5mm was just a barely discernible smudge even in averted.

I tried for a couple of globulars in the area since i've still never seen one, i failed to get them so i took a peek at alberio, tried epsilon lyrae and just about got the double split (only just). I swung around for a look at the double cluster, then plaedes, which just about fits in the 20mm. Finished up with some more jupiter before the sky completely disappeared.

Overall a good session despite some pretty awful conditions. Some pleasing easy views, a good trial for the red dot finder (which i LOVE), first double stars, and added the ring nebula to my biological goto.

[umadog]

Excellent stuff! You're doing very well indeed!

Here is a shot of what the GRS looks like at the moment.

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/attachments/4889931-j2011-10-29_12-31_rgb_tba.jpg

The GRS is in the paler sothern equatorial band. In this image it's located on the top right of the disk, but obviously Jupiter will rotate quickly and the GRS will move. It's very pale right now and you need quite good seeing to make it out. Recently I've noticed some quite large and dark storms on the northern band (the bottom one). That dark red thing in the middle of the image is a prominent storm which one of my friends mistook for the GRS. As you can see, the GRS is larger than this storm.

You can calculate when the GRS is visible here: Transit Times of Jupiter's Great Red Spot - Planets - SkyandTelescope.com

If you're after globs you could try M15 and M71. They aren't as impressive as M13, but they're still globs and they're easy to find right now (higher in the sky). Interestingly, M15 has a planetary nebula in it, although this is a really touch object to see. Also, stay up later and M42 will be visible!

[andrew63]

A really nice report. The 90mm refractor is a good start with which to learn your way around the heavens. M42 will be worth the late night too!

andrew

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Annoyingly, those globs duck behind a tree at any realistic times, i might get m15 but the moon is close at the moment. I could always nip down the local playing field to avoid the tree/house issue, but then finding stuff might get tricky.

I have around 10 or so targets i can find from memory in various sections of the sky, depending on the time of night etc, but after that, i'm limited to 1 or maybe 2 new ones per session, since i have to commit the position to memory before i go out there. I broke my Ipod a few weeks ago (literally DAYS after getting skywalk), and have no laptop or sky atlas. In a way i kind of prefer it with no technology though, although it's a pretty steep learning curve and tough on the memory, every target i learn, i learn EXACTLY where it is, not just which constellation or a rough area etc.

[andrew63]

This is something you could consider and is used by a lot on the forum it's excellent. Pocket Sky Atlas from amazon.

Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas: Amazon.co.uk: Roger W. Sinnott: Books

[umadog]

+1 on the S&T pocket atlas. Buy or make a *dim* red light to go with it. LCD screens and visual astronomy don't mesh well. I agree that you should wait until the moon has left before pursuing DSOs.

[Hypernova]

Very good report and a nice gesture from astro society to lend you one of their 'scopes to use. My local society did that for me a couple years back and I still have use of it as no one else has asked for it which suits me fine although one day I know someone else will have it

I'll +2 the S&T pocket star atlas, it was one of my first astro purchases and have had great use out of it, a great tool when out in the field and can be used in conjunction with a planetarium program if the target you are looking for has no nearby bright stars. The pages seemed to have stood up well to many a night's of being soaked with dew and dried out again so should last for many years yet.

Good luck with the 'scope.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I have had my best views of Saturn and Jupiter with a 90mm refrac on an EQ mount. Also so many faint fuzzies (galaxies) with averted vision.

M42 is also STUNNING.

There's a lot to be said for a 90mm refrac.

[Astro Imp]

A great report.

It really id a special feeling of satisfaction when you go out to observe an object and end up finding it.

BTW have you thought of printing off a chart from Stellarium. You can do this by selecting Print Screen from the keyboard and copying this to your graphics program, then invert the colours to black stars on white and print. This might be an idea to help you out until you get a star chart to use in the field.

HTH.

Good luck.

[Mike Hawtin]

Cracking report jimmyjam you are off to a flying start and have done exceptionally well for a beginner. It brought my own early days to mind when everything was new and exciting. I envy you.

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Got in a quick session earlier, and took the girlfriend along too. It was more about her to be honest, i knew we wouldn't be there long because she isn't a lover of the cold.

I gave her the binos whilst i was setting the scope up. She went straight for the moon and seemed pretty happy about it. I pointed her towards the pleiades, which were fortunately pretty washed out by the moon (I say fortunately, because by naked eye you could barely make them out at all). They got a "wow".

I started with the scope on the moon, she practically wrestled the scope off me for the first view, more wows, and this was just with the 20mm. I caught an eyeful of brightness from an unfortunate angle on the eyepiece, and suddenly remembered the picture i saw of "Eyepiece projection". I pulled a cigarette paper from my pocket and held it about 50mm off of the eyepiece, fiddled with the focus a bit and BAM! A crystal clear image of the moon, floating there in my hand! It was stunning. There was something about it i couldn't quite put my finger on, like the first time you see HDTV... You don't know quite why, but the image is amazing... The image was so sharp, so contrasty. I think the "Je ne sais quoi" was down to the lack of glare or haze around the image. Whatever it was, it was amazing, we both gave that one a wow.

On to jupiter, i wasn't expecting her to appreciate it, since to someone who doesn't know what to expect, it's pretty small. I warned her not to expect much, to which she asked "will it look better than the binos?". I smiled, and replied "yeah just a little bit".

I barlowed the 20mm, got it nice and central and let her take a peek.

Silence.

After about 10 seconds, she asked what the smaller lights were. I told her...

More silence.

I think after another 10 seconds or so it sank in. She was a tad quiet, but i could tell it wasn't through disappointment, more through shock. She just sat there and stared for a good few minutes, at which point i commandeered the scope for a personal vendetta - M13.

At this time of year, M13 disappears early, I love the pleiades and double cluster and i've been wanting to see what all the fuss was about with globulars. What better place to start than with the best globular we have in the northern hemisphere.

The sky was so washed out that i couldn't even make out the main stars of hercules. I had to get the binos out and make sure i knew roughly where i was looking. I got it within a couple of tries with the 20mm, but it was nothing more than a smudge. No resolved stars whatsover, i was rather disappointed. So i guess either the scope is too small to resolve anything of it, the sky was too washed out, or i should've pushed the magnification a bit. Looking back now, i have no idea why i didn't try a higher mag, guess i'l try again tomorrow.

Tried the ring, but again, far too washed out, could barely make it out in the 20mm even with averted vision, girlfriend wouldn't have seen it at all.

My lady was getting cold now, so did a quick tour of some of the more interesting stuff - the double cluster, pleiades, and finished up on andromeda. I didn't tell her what it was, but i also made sure she didn't expect anythign more than a smudge, a faint one at that thanks to luna.

I gave her a few seconds, and while she was still at the eyepiece, i dropped the G word. I explained it was our closest galaxy, that will one day crash into ours. She isn't too knowledgeable with the physics stuff, but after explaining that we're essentially looking back in time, that the light took 2.5million years to get here, that when it left that galaxy, we were living in caves and bashing rocks with other rocks, she was back at the eyepiece appreciating the smudge a whole lot more.

At this point the cold got to her though and she decided to go sit in the car while i finished up. I took another sneeky peek at jupiter through a barlowed 12.5mm ortho, nice and stable.

Jumped over to the moon again for a quick test - the barlowed 6mm showed some wobbling, but tonight was far better than the other times i'd been out. Annoyingly, i was feeling rushed so didn't go back to jupiter with the barlowed 6mm. Last thing on the agenda, try out the girlfriends camera. It isn't a dslr or anything fancy, just an average 50 quid click and go style thing, but i'd seen a guy at the astro meet get an AWESOME pic of jupiter by just holding a cam to the eyepiece, it showed the grs etc, nice colour, all with no processing or fancy settings whatsoever (though it was through an apo). I stuck in the 20mm and just held the camera to the eyepiece, it seemed to struggle to focus. I got a couple of semi decent shots but nothing worth bringing to the computer. I tried with just a barolw, and sticking the camera lense into it a bit, wasn't having none of it.

There are 2 things bugging me now - I didn't try the camera straight into the diagonal, or even straight into the scope, and secondly, i've just realized the blumming thing was still in "close up" mode.

It was a good session, we fueled each other as far as enthusiasm. Shame the cold got to her, i could've stayed there all night, although clouds rolled in just as i got into the car.

In hindsight, there are a few things i'd like to have tried, but thats all part of the learning experience i guess.

Next time: -

- I'l Check the highest mag the atmosphere allows earlier on in the session.

- I'l try higher mags on M13.

- I'l check the blumming settings on the camera

She now knows why i want a scope, and accepts that i want to spend around £300. However, she wants a DSLR if i get a scope. I'l let her think she's getting one over on me i guess, then after a month or so i'l "discover" that apparently there is some kind of adapter for fitting a DSLR to a scope...

[umadog]

What a good night! Excellent stuff.

I remember seeing M13 through a 63 mm and don't remember resolving stars. I doubt you'd manage it in a 90 mm, so don't get your hopes up. A 6" or 8" Newt should do the Job, though. There a lots of open clusters around Cassiopeia for you to try. Just look in a sky atlas.

I saw M42 through an 85 mm back in August and it's pretty impressive (although that was a dark location). At lower powers it looked fairly nondescript, but at higher powers quite a bit of detail was visible. Don't be afraid of cranking up the power on that one.

[rory]

thanks for ace reports . in my 90mm m13 is just another smudge under average conditions,albeit a larger smudge and bright centre.

i found m57 a week or two back also with a 90mm refractor,again under moderate l/p skies its dim grey small smudge. i couldnt up the mag as it was washed away with my cheap starter e/p's.

the fun is in the hunt eh jimmyjam, good luck.

p.s try the dumbell if you get chance, and like umadog remarked, m15 (which is another find of a week back) is actually quite a wow object,particulally if the shies are pretty dark.

clear skies...