Some Early Morning rewards

[Special K]

Hi folks, for what it’s worth, I thought I’d chime in with my limited astronomical exploits early this morning. Given half a chance with the cloud clearance, I put the scope out at midnight to cool, but didn’t actually begin the session till 4:30……..snoozed a little more than expected! I was dithering a bit before I got started and really wanted to escape the glare in the back yard caused by streetlights. I went for a short walk to the edge of the neighbourhood with the bino’s, and could see a lovely redistribution of constellations due to the early hour. Cassiopeia was a horizontal W that appeared magically over the rooftops and surrounding hedges. There’s something quite serene about that image, in my mind. The Big Dipper was very pronounced. Overall, I’d say the light pollution factor is equal to my back yard, but just missing the glare: I cannot see more than I can from the yard; so if I want truly darker skies, I’ll have to get in the car.

Back at the scope, the first project to resume was glorious Leo and his hidden galaxies: I really want to pick off NGC2903, by his nose was too far down near the horizon, and is dangerously close to the most annoying of streetlights I have to contend with in my back yard. However, knowing the location of M65 and M66, I was finally able to catch a dubious glimpse of these treasures. I couldn’t pretend to make out NGC3628, and of the two I could barely make out, M66 was the more prominent, but only by a smidgen. I didn’t go above 65x with these as I didn’t see much point.

Saturn was due South’ish but that is blocked by the house, or I would have taken a look. Spica in Virgo was looking particularly prominent, and I suppose I could have ventured into that vast galaxy-rich field but decided to leave that for another frosty morn when I know my way around that area more. The early risers in the East were very interesting, from Corona Borealis to Hercules, Vega to Cygnus. I remembered I hadn’t yet seen M13 yet, so got that in view, though it was just fuzzy due to a light dose of dew on my secondary (a common problem I have with my scope in not having a suitable dewshield). Do you ever have those “this is the best moment of the whole session” feelings?! I got that totally when I spotted M13 and just knew I had arrived! The view was lousy but given the size of the smudge, I’m sure I will be back for a proper look as soon as possible. The 5mm gave me 130x but it still didn’t resolve.

I took a break after that to warm up and point the scope downwards in the hopes it will clear the mist on the secondary (worked that way once, but maybe a fluke). After the break, the dew was about half gone and so I went after Vega which was bright as a button! Lovely view. I had read about the twin doubles in the area, Eta1 and Eta2 Lyra but had failed to resolve them in the past. At 130x there is a suggestion that the twins might be more than they seem but with dew and a lot of imagination it is hard to be certain. But I decided to give that seldom used (and blinking expensive) Barlow a whirl. At 260x those doubles are definitely split and that just made my session (again!). The left hand literally wouldn’t work from the cold, that signalled the end of the session about 6am followed by a quick recap at the star charts. Happy Hunting!

[cotterless45]

Lovely report, there's always a "star" of the session. I was up at 3am specifically to look at Saturn.

It was neat to see so much else, a full span from Vega to Arcturus and pitch black with no Moon.

The double double in Lyra can be resolved at x48, depends how sharp your collimation is. There's also a copy of the double double to the side of Lyra.

If you get to a dark site, you'll be blown away by what you can see,

clearer skies,

Nick.

[Double Kick Drum]

A nice variety of stuff in there.

Thanks for sharing!