most successful night of stargazing to date

[tomlines]

I didnt take my dob as i was unsure what the weather was doin, was looking very cloudy

me and my brother agreed we would have a walk around a new dark site we had come across and stuck the 130 go to in the car just incase

we browsed about for half an hour and found an ideal spot for a clear night and agreed we would come back some time soon

by the time we got back to the car we were so happy to see the skies were clearing

within 10 mins i was in the darkest site id ever used and the skies were perfectly clear, seeing was great! shame the moon was so bright though

by the end of the night we had seen in full glory the infamoud meteor for a good 10-15 seconds. that was worth every second of the travelling alone! i nearly cried

but we had also managed to tick a few off our messier list aswell

the M3 cluster, m82 and m83 which id never seen before aswell as getting some images of the orion nebula, the beehive cluster and also the pleiades. Considering i was on such a downer when the cloud rolled in early on it turned out to be my most successful night of observing to date!

very happy with tonight and vannot wait to try our new site without moonlight some time soon

just thought i woudl share my happiness this evening

night all

:-)

(my imaging is far from great but thought i would share them)

im only using a point and shoot camera so was not expecting miracles

[stolenfeather]

Wonderful capture of the Messier objects and a meteor to boot! These are the nights that you stand proud by your telescope! Thank you for sharing and clear skies!

Isabelle

[Nexus 6]

Great stuff Tom, looks like you timed it perfectly.

Dark skies are such a treat to observe from, guess the meteor must have looked outstanding from the location you picked.

[glowjet]

Looks like you have struck gold Tom. Our AS recently held a star event in a public open space in the City, compared to a reasonably dark, site there was only one way to describe it " shocking " but the public were quite impressed all the same, the Moon was, as ever, spectacular. Perhaps your little report may have been better off in one of the observing sections, as you have posted this in the welcome column

John.

[Bart]

Nice one Tom, great to actually find a good dark site (me still seaching) AND to get a go straight away. I bet yoy can't wait for a cloudless, moonless night. Bring the coffee and do an all-nighter. Fantastic!

Bart

[Catweazel]

Sounds like a great night Tom, pics aren't bad either, from a point & shoot

[Charon]

Well done Tom.

[Mr Spock]

Sounds like you had a great time

[Viv]

Hi Tom, Sounds like you had a really good night !

Where was the dark site you used ?

[todd8137]

hi and welcome from me

[en51nm]

Sounds great! I've never tried viewing a meteor, how do you go about doing that?

[gingergeek]

Very nice

[Tinker1947]

Lets hope there are many more..

[tomlines]

scarlet - we went to coombe abbey, without the moon out that could be a very very dark site, slightly distracted by a couple sneeking in to the woods though ;-)

en51nm- it was completely by accident, it wasnt even threw the scope. we were looking at a chart when a raging fire ball flew across the sky! naked eye and i reckon it was as big as the moon! it was the most amazing thing i have ever seen!

[Rusty Strings]

Hi and welcome

[Viv]

scarlet - we went to coombe abbey, without the moon out that could be a very very dark site, slightly distracted by a couple sneeking in to the woods though ;-)

Didn't see the Coombe ghost then ?!?!

Bet thats not a bad place at all ....... May have to try that ....

[JamesM]

Congratulations Tom on your expedition, looks like you had a great time and bagged a meteor as well! You'll have to have a good lie down now!

Bet you can't wait for a darker sky to enable you to search for more targets, including the moon when the terminator (the interface between sunlight and shadow) will reveal some interesting surface details.

Keep up the good work!

James

[Bizibilder]

Well done with those pictures.

[heathenwoods]

It does sound like a great night - nice one!

Out of interest, and as someone else trying hard with a point and shoot - how did you get those images? Ie. what ISO/exposure time/aperture? Cheers

[tomlines]

I use a Panasonic Lumix and under the scene settings there's one called starry night that can give you either 15, 30 or 60 second exposures

I also use the badaar click stop digital camera adapter. This is so helpful as you have no chance if holding the cam still for 15 seconds

I got it for £25 when I bought my scope.

I've not used it with my big dob yet so looking forward to that :-)

I'm sure for the Orion nebula it would show up in a normal single frame pic tho

Tom

[heathenwoods]

That's awesome, thanks. Which Lumix is it? I've got a FZ38 so it's good to know one of the default settings is useful. I'm waiting to get an EQ5 and then tracking for it. When the day comes, thi'll be super useful info. CHeers.

[tomlines]

im pretty sure its the lumix dmc fz10

if you go to mode, scene, and if theres a starry night setting thats what i use

15 seconds with plain tracking is fine

for anything more you would need an eq mount

its great just for taking wide angle constellation pics aswell

from the front garden on a tripod picked up every star in orion and ursa major

looks really nice too, different colours etc

[heathenwoods]

Cheers Tom.

[tomlines]

No worries, message me if you get any pics

[paul schofield]

Congratulations on what looks like a great night.