Wednesday 6th February 2013

[Jiggy 67]

Weather: Clear skies from 6pm- midnight. Not windy. Approx 2-4C

Seeing: Good

Had the best night for a long time last night, though it did start with a few problems, mainly with star alignment for the GoTo. Its weird, I can't explain it because I do the same thing/routine every time, but some nights take a lot longer than others, last night was a long one, for no apparent reason. It took approx 1hr to 2 star align using my new Ascension 23mm illuminated reticule. Gave up and reverted to using zoom lens….successful alignment. I'm wondering if my problem was down to the reticule ep becuase it took 5-10mins with the zoom, juries out, I'll give it another go. Began observing approx 7pm, ended 11.30pm.

Orion Nebula (M42)

First use of Skywatcher OIII Filter. Wow!!…excellent contrast brings out the nebula in good detail with defined dust clouds. All with a green hue. Hyperion 8-24mm zoom used.

Crab Nebula (M1)

OIII Filter with 8-24mm zoom. Very faint shadow, no detail

Owl Nebula (M97)

OIII Filter with 8-24mm zoom and Celestron 32mm Omni Plossi. Very faint patch of light, fuzzy white, no detail.

Bodes Nebula (M81) & M82

Baader Hyperion 8-24mm zoom with Baader Neodymium filter. At 24mm both galaxies in fov. Looked at both individually, both looked lovely, particularly M82, a lovely side on spiral (have I got them the right way round??)

NGC3077 (Galaxy close to M81)

8-24mm zoom with Neo filter. Large fuzzy galaxy, unable to see what type but has a bright core.

NGC2903 (Galaxy)

8-24mm zoom with Neo filter. Large galaxy but very faint. At high power (8mm, 125X) outer galaxy very faint but bright core visible. Not possible to distinguish type of galaxy.

M67 (Open Cluster)

8-24mm zoom. Nice open cluster. Benefited from high power (8mm, 125X). Approx 50 stars at high power. Cluster was not visible in finder

Beehive Cluster (M44)

Finderscope and Celestron 32mm Omni Plossi. OBJECT OF THE NIGHT!! Beautiful object, reminiscient of The Pleides. Large cluster requires low power (32mm/31X) or finderscope to fit whole cluster in fov. 100+ bright stars. Really impressed with the 32mm. Lovely sharp image with no coma or abberation.

M46 (Open Cluster)

Celestron 32mm Omni Plossi. Unspectacular loose cluster, not helped by being low

M48 (Open Cluster)

Celestron 32mm Omni Plossi. Nice cluster at low power. 200+ stars with more faint ones in the background

Not everything went well............................

..................Failures:

Pinwheel/Triangulum Galaxy (M33)

Couldn’t find it!?!??

Rosette Nebula (NGC2237)

NGC4605 (Galaxy)

Cone Nebula (NGC2264)

M108 (Galaxy)

NGC3184 (Galaxy)

Overall, a really good night. I was really impressed with the Skywatcher OIII filter, made a big difference to diffuse faint nebulas, providing contrast and definition. Also impressed with the Celestron 32mm Omni Plossi. Not really used this much before but as a lot of the clusters last night required low power, I used it a lot, and it was a real pleasure to use

Bring on the next clear night!!

[Double Kick Drum]

Nice descriptions and a fair few additions to your observation log, yeah?

M108 is near M97 and surprised it wasn't there as it isn't too dim.

NGC 4605 does take a bit of finding but with GoTo that shouldn't have been a problem. It has a medium to high surface brightness.

I have not managed the Rosette or the Cone nebula and believe both need quite a dark sky to be seen well.

M33 is large and has a low surface brightness. It is very easy to look straight through it. Binoculars are a good way of picking it up first and perhaps easier than using a scope .

Happy hunting!

[m_j_lyons]

From my recollection the Cone and Rosette are not standout targets to observe visually but are definitely visually observable. I remember the Cone being small and faint but obvious once on target. It's this also known as the Christmas Tree cluster? And the Rosette will be at best a faint nebulous region slightly more dense in certain areas (if I'm remembering correctly)...but unimpressive visually. The stars of the Rosette make identification easiest visually.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice report of very good session. The Cone and Rosette can be seen visually, but are very tricky indeed. You need very dark skies and averted vision (and see if you can spot dust lanes in the Rosette, these are easier than the nebula itself, I find).