Fast skyrun, Jan 06 - 05.05UT -> 06.15UT

[Spica]

Hi.

Well, I woke up bright n' early and decided to put the 5" Newtonian to the test within our small village. Primary this morning was a second glimpse of comet Garradd (my first light abt a week ago) & trying to split the double double Epsilon Lyrae. Garradd was successful at 05.06UT in Hercules at both 43X and 25X. The higher mag din't reveal any additional textures, it was all a fuzzy ball regardless. Made a half descent sketch.

Then I tried splitting EPS LYR, but I didn't manage, tried at magnifications 50x and 87x. Not to forget, at this time the telescope had only been allowed to cool down for apx 10-15 minutes. It was really cold outside, -3C, and I figured it would chill down fast enough, but it wasn't! I had difficulites getting any razor sharp images for another 20 minutes. The need- and time- for the telescope to level with the outdoor temp was clearly underestimated.

Anyways, the last 30 or 40 minutes of observing was beyond my imagination! I didn't expect much as there are quite a few streetlights on the streets outside, but it was absolutely stunning!

It also really makes a huge diference only to shade off the direct lights.

Here's what popped up in the EP after having run the GOTO in the "tour" mode (Magnitudes from "Stellarium" and Meade SP Series 4000 26mm Plössl used = 25x mag):

Messier objects, easy targets (fairly bright and in a darker area of the sky here):

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M57 - mag 9.0 Nebula

M56 - mag 8.3 Starcluster

M52 - mag 6.9 Starcluster

M67 - mag 6.9 Starcluster

Messier obects, harder targets (dimmer objects & more lightpollution here):

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M 95 - mag 9.7 Galaxy

M 96 - mag 9.2 Galaxy

M 105 - mag 9.3 Galaxy (Also spotted nearby NGC 3384 at mag. 10)

M 65 - mag 9.3 Galaxy

M 66 - mag 9.0 Galaxy (within the same FOV as M65)

M 98 - mag 10.1 Galaxy

M 99 - mag 9.8 Galaxy

Note: I found M99 hardest to see this morning, it was just a ghost blinking from time to time. Extremely dim! Much harder than M98.

To be sure I really saw it I made a sketch of its pos. related to the surrounding stars - and sure enough - it's confirmed by Stellarium. Great!

Other objects seen:

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*Horse shoe cluster - more looked like a faint ring to me, although quite large. Is this same as NGC 663?

*Tegmen (Zeta Cancri) - Double, sep by a good 5 aresec. Barely separated them this morning.

*Theta Cancri - double, easily spit at 25x. Sep by around 30.5 arcsec.

It was a truly great morning although I had to rush a bit to see as much as possible before our very own star put a period to the stargazing. I was surprised and amazed over how faint objects I could see here in the backyard - which perhaps will make me consider to permanently mount the LX200 here. It can never beat the absolutely dark sky, but when short on time its an excellent option.

Clear Skies!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. Big haul of DSOs in there. M99 is a tricky one. Though technically brighter than M98, it is a face-on spiral, and these generally have low surface brightness. M98 is edge on, and this yields better contrast in general.