Observing with TAL on 6.2.13

[Planetesimal]

So this is really my second light report on my new 100mm refractor, but it turned into an epic observing session.

I've only been observing for four months now, but luckily I've got just enough experience to be able to recognise the high quality of the sky, so I stayed out untli I could take no more (which isn't easy when you're suffering from man flu - I nearly had to take the next day off! ). I was really pleased to note that the Beehive was visible to the naked eye, as was the Coma Berenices cluster, which boded well for the night ahead.

Anyway, having had the new refractor out once before, I knew I'd need my telrad, but the new base I'd ordered (and the new finder shoe for my RACI) would not arrive until the next day, so I had to improvise... I just held the telrad against the OTA and used it that way. It worked perfectly to my relief! I was amazed that the telrad never dewed up all evening, which either means the air was unusually dry or I wasn't breathing on it as much...

The reason I got the 'frac is that I've discovered I'm fascinated by actual stars, which I guess is relatively unusual in this hobby known as "stargazing"... The newt is all very well for DSOs but it tends to produce too much diffraction around the brighter stars for my liking. This is my first proper observing report so I'm going to try the old colour reference format, i.e. GREEN for confirmed first time observations, ORANGE for previously confirmed observations, and RED for unsuccesful attempts.

I started by setting up on the patio with a nice chair and my new Maplin's EP case at the ready, just outside the kitchen door in our back garden. All the neighbours' lights were off to left and right. The sky was clear in every direction and only slightly marred by a sodium street lamp that comes through the hedge from about two hundred yards away on the other side of the back field. Luckily where I set up the fence blocks any direct light landing on my eye or going into the telescope, and the local council turn it off at around midnight... I have a great view of the whole northern sky pretty much down to the horizon - a southern aspect would have been better for astronomy but beggars can't be choosers!

The first thing I noticed, given how little observing had been possible over December and January, how different the night sky has changed over that time - it was really quite unfamiliar! I commenced by looking for Herschel's Garnet Star in Cepheus, a really interesting stellar object - the Garnet star is a variable "runaway" red supergiant; the fourth largest star in the galaxy - its mass is 4 billion times greater than the sun, and it's much larger than Betelgeuse for example. Like Betelguese it's in the last stages of its life, and may go supernova at any moment! An initial attempt using the straight through finder and I found a nice orange looking star, but I wasn't convinced. Then I remembered that you have to go the opposite direction in a straight through finder (I'm so used to my RACI), so I recentred on Alderamin using the 25mm TAL plossl and slowly moved in the directon of Zeta Cephei. I needed to find 9 and Nu Cephei, which soon rolled into the field of view in the finder. A quick look in the EP and a nudge to the south brought the Garnet star into view. Having located it I realised it is actually visible in the sky from my garden as a 5th magnitude star. It really is a lovely sight in the EP: pin sharp, deep red and jewel-like set in a field of fainter white stars. I decided at this point to switch to the BST 18mm to give me slightly higher mag for better contrast but no real loss of fov - and stuck with this EP more or less for the rest of the evening.

Having located the garnet, I found the nearby Struve pair, Struve 2816 (a triple) and Struve 2819 (a double) - they're mag 7 or less but it was easy to split the companion stars from the primaries, with their distances being between 12" and 20" - nice to see a double and a triple in a single field though! While I was in Cepheus, it seemed churlish to pass up on the chance to observe the nearby original cepheid variable that Edwin Hubble used as the standard candle for measuring cosmological distances and ultimately to calculate the Hubble expansion of the universe that led to the discovery of the Big Bang theory and our current understanding of the age of the universe... Delta Cephei is another double star, with a primary 41" from the B star.

Looking around for what I could see without having to move the scope further up the garden, I noticed Orion had risen in the South West, so I took a look at the nebulas, M42 and M43. My plan was to take a closer look at the trapezium and see if I could resolve the "E" star, but even at my highest power (160x) I couldn't do it. I think I need a higher power EP to do this (and a better one than the TAL 6.3mm!). Still always fun to look at the great nebula - in the frac I could see filamentous detail within the curving gas clouds around the "fish's mouth"! While I was in Orion I took the opportunity to have another look at M78 just north east of Alnitak.

At this point I was on a roll with "star" gazing, so I though I'd take a look at another carbon star. Cepheus was getting low in the sky at this point so I slewed across the sky to that weird little two-starred constellation, Canes Venatici... The guide star is the brighter of the pair, Cor Caroli - another double. The B star is 19" from the primary so is easy to split but has a lovely colour difference: I found the A star to a be a pale blue colour with a fainter mag 5'ish star that appeared orange to my eyes. Both stars are bigger than our sun and they are a true binary pair. Heading almost due north about 2 deg is Y Canum Veniticorum, another deep red jewel of a carbon star. It's another variable that pulses between being visible to the naked eye (mag 4'ish) down to mag 6, about twice a year. It's a slightly strange, rare type of star that is has mostly Carbon-13 instead of Carbon-12: a "J-Star". It isn't as big or as bright as the Garnet star though - it will become a planetary nebula with a white dwarf at its core rather than go supernova, and it is a mere 4000 times brighter than the sun, compared to the Garnet which is 350,000 times as bright as the sun!

On route to this second carbon star, I couldn't help but take in M94, a barred spiral galaxy. Another Messier to add to my list - it is very easy to spot, nice and bright and almost glob-like in appearance at the EP. M94 gave me a taste for some galaxies, so I thought I'd see if I could find the Sunflower galaxy - M63. No problem with the help of the telrad! I was actually surprised to see it in my 4" frac, as I'd thought it would be too faint. I think this says a lot about the quality of the skies. Emboldened by my success with the sunflower, I remember another nearby galaxy that I'd yet to find: M101, the Pinwheel galaxy. This is a spectacular galaxy in photos obviously, but very faint and with low surface brightness. I've never been able to observe it before despite looking in the right place and using my reflector. However with a twang of the OTA, locating the telrad circle at the apex of a triangle with Alkaid and Mizar, it bounced into view! Very nice - it wasn't just a fuzzy either - it almost filled the fov and there were definite hints of structure at the edges. On the way I couldn't resist another look at the whirlpool galaxy - M51, which is always great to see, like too eerie eyes floating in the gloom.

At this point I decided to try my luck with the southern sky... This involved moving the scope on its mount down to the far end of the garden onto the grass. I've made the mistake of nearly losing the rubber feet off the tripod this way before, so I now use the remnants of the cardboard box my newtonian came in as a platform (until I come up with a more elegant solution!). Having failed to find the faintest galaxy in the famous Leo triplet, NGC 3628, I had another stab at it. Amazing - there it was, a thin line orthogonal to the messier pair, M65 and M66. All three sat very nicely in the 18mm BST fov (about 1.1 degree true field of view). Another victory for the TAL! I remembered someone on SGL mentioning a second triplet in Leo, nearly half way across to Regulus, so I scanned across. This turned out to be a much greater challenge. M105 was clear to see as a bright fuzzy blob. M96 was a bit more difficult but could be found with a bit of perseverance, but I just couldn't convince myself of M95. It's just too faint I think for the frac. Next time I'll get the reflector on the case...

I could now see the constellation Virgo - to my shame this is the first time I've ever looked Virgo and known what it was - at least now I know what this constellation looks like in the sky! When I bought my reflector in September I could name and identify Orion, Casseopeia and the Plough - now I can call up about 45 constellation names and identify a couple of dozen star names, just from needing the knowledge to be able to find stuff... I've just picked it up incidentally as I went along - my favourite kind of learning: by osmosis! But I digress. I thought it might be a chance to look for some of the Virgo cluster galaxies. There are tons of galaxies in there - at least 15 Messiers to add to my list apart from several NGCs. I made a start and found M49 by looking to the west from Vindemiatrix over to two mag 5 stars (which I could see without the 'scope). These are rho-Vir and 9-Vir. At the point of an elongated triangle, sitting between two mag 6 stars, was a very obvious M49. It had a nice bright core and fainter surrounding "nebulous" appearance. From there, I thought I'd take a tour through the Virgo Cluster, but I quickly gave it up for a lost cause... There are so many galaxies! I could see several of them, but by this stage I was getting very tired and it would have been a night's work to identify which was which. So I panned around for a few minutes taking them in and decided to leave it for another time.

The night was wearing on at this point, so I knew time was short. I stood back and just took in the sky. I'd enjoyed several meteors during the evening, even one through the eyepiece while I was scanning the galaxy cluster earlier, but I wasn't going to see any more... I then noticed a rather bright reddish star that I'm unfamiliar with. A quick check with the S&T Pocket Atlas confirmed that this was Arcturus, the second brightest star in the northern sky. Apparently also the first star to be observed during the day with a telescope (other than the sun). Makes me want to give that a try! I knew Arcturus is in Boötes, so I thought there must be some globs visible. It took a while, but with a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I managed to locate M3, which turns out to be very nice indeed. Finding it was easiest by making a triangle with Arcturus and rho Boötis. It's a bright classic globular cluster, full of some very ancient stars. Higher power introduced some definite graininess. Slewing back over to Coma Berenices I managed to find another glob, M53, next to the alpha star of that constellation. It was nice to see some globs again!

At this stage, I was getting very tired and cold, so it was time to pack up. But what a great night - literally my best night ever under the stars!

[twotter]

Not only a great observing session but very readable and educational too! Thanks

[John]

What a great report ! - very enjoyable to read

Stuff like this is a great incentive to get out and observe - thanks for posting it

Was this Wednesday night ? - I'm not too far from you and that was a great night.

[swamp thing]

Super report very interesting read, nice one

M95 should be visible in the TAL if you managed M101. M95,s surface brightness is higher making it easier to see. Give it another bash

[KevUU]

Really good report, thanks

Glad you had a good time of it.

[mdstuart]

Loved reading that.

I miss my old 100mm TAL!!!

Such an amazing mount..and finder...

Mark

[mdstuart]

Sorry mine was a reflector..but hey all TALS are amazing.

Mark

[Mike73]

Such a good report I read it twice!

[nightfisher]

An excellent night followed with a superb write up

[Marki]

An excellent and well-written report. Thoroughly informative and entertaining and as John said, inspiring too - if only the clouds would clear off for enough time for me to actually get aligned and cooled... .

I look forward to reading your next report!

[Planetesimal]

Thanks everyone!

That was an observing session I certainly enjoyed writing up... actually it took about the same amount of time to write as to make the observations in the first place.

[Planetesimal]

John - yes, it was on Wednesday night - I've not seen conditions quite as good as that before, here's hoping for more of the same in the next few weeks... I think we get our fair share of clouds in the south west!

Steve - thanks for the tip re M95... there was something there or thereabouts, but I couldn't convince myself enough to consider it a confirmed sighting. It was a bit like when you're feeling a bit faint, your vision goes grainy... I couldn't be sure if I was seeing something real or if it was just a lack of oxygen in the blood! I'll definitely try again next time the clouds clear.

[Double Kick Drum]

Thanks for sharing a bumper night's viewing.

I'm slightly surprised you were unable to pick up M95. Although it has a lower surface brightness than its two Messier companions, the fact that you could see the Beehive with the unaided eye would indicate to me that it should have been possible. Even more so, given you managed to tease out NGC 3628.

Definitely worth another go.

[Planetesimal]

Thanks for sharing a bumper night's viewing.

I'm slightly surprised you were unable to pick up M95. Although it has a lower surface brightness than its two Messier companions, the fact that you could see the Beehive with the unaided eye would indicate to me that it should have been possible. Even more so, given you managed to tease out NGC 3628.

Definitely worth another go.

I think you're probably right! A bit more research suggests that M101 is the faintest of all the Messiers, and since I could see that M95 should have definitely have been there. I just didn't quite know the right place to look... I'll get it next time though! If I'd been out earlier I probably would have been able to get my other nemesis, M74!