Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b83b14cd4142fe10848741bb2a14c66b.jpg

My little observing session last night.

8kids

By 8kids
in Observing - Deep Sky

Recommended Posts

8kids

8kids

Posted
Posted

A good session last night it has re-kindled my love of observing again, (I was wavering slightly).

I bagged some usual suspects and a few new ones, I even managed to keep four of the kids interested for 30 mins until the cold got the better of them.

Jupiter, the skies were quite steady and so I settled in for a prolonged view of the Io transit and the GRS. Staying at the scope for over an hour really gave me the best views I've had of this beauty, after 30 mins I began to see subtle cloud details in and around the GRS and numerous banding. The highlight for me though was watching Io move towards the planet as it seemed to pierce the planets limb, awesome!

M42, what can I say, awesome.

Double Cluster in Perseus, beautiful, best part of both in the field of view with my pan 26mm, I know at least one of my kids was actually observing properly he commented on the "little red stars", lucky boy they only look orange to my eyes.

I then had a go at,

M51, the two galaxies easily seen with my pan and with averted vision and a bit more magnification I would swear I could see the bright core and a whispy spiral arm.....maybe.

M63, a new one for me, looked bright and elongated, I shall come back to this one and see if I can use any magnification on it.

M94, another new one for me, I could make out a bright centre with a faint haze around it. I did use the baader zoom on this one and it did handle some higher magnification.

M3, another new one for me, I like it when the target is so obvious, this one was very bright, low power showed lots of grainy stars they were nicely resolved with higher power, simply stunning.

M53, anothe new one, I got cold and stopped taking notes, as I remember it had a bright centre with a faint disk surrounding it.

M64, couldn't find it.

The evening was starting to get a little damp so I finished with the Leo trio, they sat very nicely in the 26mm panaview.

What I realised was I need to take better notes, I also need a slightly lower power eyepiece, maybe a 28mm Nirvana. Having looked at Jupiter for so long I need some dedicated ortho's maybe a 7, 8 or 9 mm or probably all of them.

Gary.

Any typos or mistakes are because I never type this much and I was getting bored. :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mr Flibble

Mr Flibble

Posted
Posted

Nice report.

That's a lot of goodies bagged in one night so it must have been a pretty thorough session. I use a 28mm Nirvana and I find it excellent as a widefield EP for locating DSOs. Wish I could give you some tips on finding M64 but I can't because I haven't bagged it myself yet!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
8kids

8kids

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Nice report Gary, what kit were you using?

The black eye galaxy is definitely worth another go, it sure does show exactly where it gets its name in amateur gear. :)

I have a 300pds on a home made dob mount, 26mm panaview does the job but not quite wide enough field of view and runs out of puff 50% from the centre. 16mm nirvana very nice eyepiece gives me a taste for a nagler at some point, and my trusty baader zoom and barlow which gives me very nice views and is helping me finalise my eyepiece list, some orthos and some more 82 degree eyepieces methinks.

Gary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.