Frozen extremities - 16/1/2012

[Hypernova]

As the title says tonight was really cold and I was totally under-dressed for it, thin socks with trainers and just jeans and a hooded jumper were not enough for the cold outside! Next time will be different. Despite the cold I managed a good 1-2 hours out there with the dob and binoculars after SGL had finished on the tele. The dob was out cooling from 9:45 onwards so was suitably cooled when I started observing which was around 11:00. I was lucky not to be plagued by dew this evening despite low temperatures, all of my eyepieces and finder remained dew-free.

Obviously there was no moon until 3am so the skies were nice and dark, local light pollution wasn't as much of problem as last night because next door had decided to turn off their light inside the conservatory, which last night had mucked up my viewing for a good half an hour.

Even though the skies were clear there was a tiny amount of swiftly-moving high cloud, this did not do much to destroy the transparency as it was so few and far between.

NGC 2022 - PN, Orion. My first object of the evening and one that I had not observed before. Located between Lambda Orionis and Betelgeuse it was a fairly easy star-hop to its location. The PN is situated a round 0.25 degrees east of a fairly wide double star, which itself is visible in the finder. Not sure what I was looking for exactly I was expecting a stellar-looking nebula but instead I found an arc-minute-sized patch of fuzz. Fairly easy to see even with direct vision with the dob, the nebula was a featureless ball at all powers up to 200x, no central star was visible.

Jonckheere 900 - PN, Gemini. An oddly-named PN that should be in reach of moderate-aperture telescope, not well observed due to its non-standard catalogue name. Supposedly a fairly easy object to observe, given that it has a magnitude of 11.7. The location was pinned down with a bit of trouble close to Alhena in Gemini. The nebula should have been in my FOV bu I could not for the life of me see it. I put this down to its small angular size of around 10". Previously I have seen objects (PN) with a slightly larger apparent size but obviously tonight was not a repeat of those nights. I will try again once I have a better idea of where to look within the field.

M35 and NGC 2158 - OC, Gemini. Observed just before going off to look for J900 nearby, A lovely pairing of open clusters in the "foot" of Gemini. Seen at medium power with the 14mm SW the main cluster fills the FOV with a sprinkling of bright stars. The fainter companion is visible a somewhat more compact and hazy glow with some resolved stars off to one side.

SN 2012A - SN, Leo. I decided to have another crack at it after my failure to observe it the night before. The triangle asterism of three stars was found easily below gamma Leonis placemarked by a relatively bright mag 10 star at one point. The faintest of the triangle stars was visible at magnitude 13.1, which is close to the current brightness of the SN. I cannot positively confirm my sighting but I did detect a very faint, fleeting star-like point a few arc seconds east of the bright star at 200x mag. It only came and went a few times. If I could confirm this sighting I would be elated as I would've been able to see down to mag 13.6 from my suburban back garden, a new record for me

Mars. Nicely placed but fairly low down the east close to some houses. The seeing was pleasantly steady which made for some good observing. The disk of the planet was relatively large at 200x in the 6mm SPL, the bright north polar cap was immediately visible as well as a few dark markings across its surface. This was a first for me with any telescope Most notable was a dark region along the western limb of the planet.

Currently I have no name to pin to this feature, it is plainly visible in Winjupos. My best guess is Syrtis Major. I always thought that SM was mainly concentrated in the northern hemisphere and tapered south but I may be wrong.

M48 - OC, Hydra. For this, due to its low declination, I had to use the binoculars. The rear of the garden, which also gives me the best chances of low-down views because of the house in the way, was inaccessible to the dob because of a dismantled shed laying across the patio. The cluster lies around 4 degrees south of Zeta Mon. Visible easily with the binoculars and similar is size and brightness to M35.

I went to this object to tick another off of my Messier checklist, which I hadn't added anything to since April last year! I am now upto 75/110

NGC 2244 - OC, Monoceros. I stumbled upon this cluster accidentally while sweeping the area below Gemini with my binoculars. The cluster immediately stood out from the background due the brightness of its stars. At first I had idea as to the name of the cluster and I set about trawling through my star atlas to find out what it was. Panning my tripod directly clockwise with no change in altitude brought me to Betelgeuse. I only then had to draw a line in my mind and put that onto the chart to find the right area. I managed to find out which one it was by matching up stars around it. The surrounding nebulosity of the Rosette nebula (which this cluster illuminates) was not visible in either the binoculars or the dob.

I packed up everything as by 1am my feet were extremely frozen and my hands were numb. If I had been prepared properly I would've stayed out longer but there's always going to be another night.

Targets still to track down:

* J900

* SN 2012A (For confirmation)

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice report. I will have a go at SN2011A shortly, weather allowing.

M35 and NGC 2158 make a nice pair. Just a bit further away from M35 in roughly the same direction as NGC 2158 lies IC 2157. This is about the same brightness and size as NGC 2158, and could be held in the 1.25 deg FOV of my C8 with the 31T5 Nagler. Well worth a look.