5th October 2013 - A mixed bag

[David Smith]

A fantastic clear sky, the first moon-free clear night I have seen in a few weeks. As it was forecast  I had a bit of an idea what I was going to look at as I had spent an hour in the afternoon looking at possible targets. As usual I got some of them but not all. This is the first chance I have had to try the ES18mm 82*.

First on the list was Neptune. Took a bit of hunting down as it is in an area of the sky with few bright stars but managed to jump in with the rdf at theta Aquarius and hop from there with the new ES18 mm. Once in the area I moved to the ES 8.8 for a closer look. Appears to show a bit of elongation with the ES 6.7mm? Tried the TMB 4mm but could not get a clean focus, still shows an elongation of the out of focus disk. Could just be some optical aberration but Stellarium shows Triton close to the planet tonight and it could just be this is what I am seeing!

Next up was Uranus. Very difficult to find a start point as virtually none of the stars of Pisces are visible to the naked eye. Eventually managed to find a start point from the bottom of the square of pegasus (using the finder scope) and from there it was relatively easy to find Uranus. Disk colour is distinct from that of Neptune, the latter being pale blue-white where Uranus is white with just a hint of pale green. No evidence of moons or otherwise on this one.

Went over to M45 next to see how the ES18 performs - impressive. The field holds almost half of the cluster and the stars are very sharply defined. Drifted up from here through Perseus to the double cluster. Again this is impressive with the sharply defined stars punctuating a black background.

Swung around to Cygnus next to try and have a look for some of the nebulosity around 52 cyg. Although a bit of a half-hearted effort I was aware of a whispy structure leading away from the star. Need to come back to this area now I have a good quality wide field eyepiece.

From here I had a look at M57, initially just with the ES18 but eventually put the 8.8 in as well for a closer look. 21:14 - Spotted a slow moving meteor heading north through Cepheus, approx mag 2, no discernible colour.

Ended the night by looking for (and finding) asteroid 89 Julia. Currently in the square of pegasus, upsilon and tau peg provide a nice easy jump point for the rdf. From here it was a fairly straight forward hop with the ES18mm to Julia.

A cracking night and hopefully tonight will be clear too. Intend to make the most of it!

[Steve Ward]

Nice report , glad you were able to get out too .... 

Given myself a day off tomorrow to get some more in tonight , like you do - if you can ... 

[Special K]

Great report David and hope it is clear again. I'm still missing Neptune but plan to bag it soon. Totally agree about the appearance of Uranus. Come pare this to Mars at low mag: so red! Amazing we see uranus as a disk really as it is so far away.

[David Smith]

@ Steve - difference is I will still have to be up for work at 6 tomorrow. Still as long as I get 4 hours sleep I will survive the day.

@ Special K - I found myself missing Neptune last night, turned out it was one of the "stars" I was trying to use to hop to the planet

[Special K]

@ Special K - I found myself missing Neptune last night, turned out it was one of the "stars" I was trying to use to hop to the planet

Easily done, Steve! This one certainly is s challenge. Funnily enough I was there last night spending a lot of time hopping (after the most stubborn cloud ever decided to shift). I found an asterism of a W that helped and got what I reckoned is Neptune. But I'm just not sure! Higher mag than 130x was useless given conditions so couldn't confirm the disk. I need another shot soon and maybe it will have moved. I need to find a picture of it with a 1* FOV.

[Special K]

Oooops, sorry David, meant to say David and not Steve and cannot seem to edit the last post.  Apologies!

[David Smith]

No worries

Neptune was not obvious as a disk at 69x (ES 18mm) but very obvious at 142x & 187x. The attached shows the hop I used from Theta Aquarius at the top. I was able to see Theta with the naked eye and so pointed the rdf at this to get things started. From there I worked my way down the three star chain forming the base of the triangle with Theta at the apex and then onto the box asterism. From here the two stars leading towards Neptune were quite obvious in the eyepiece.

The original chart was created with Skycharts, annotations done in GIMP. Unfortunately due to it's distance from us Neptune does not move a great deal. Good luck with your hunt.

[Special K]

That's excellent, and confirms I was on target! I flipped your chart upside down and sure enough can see the W asterism with Neptune at about 2 o'clock to the middle star. Your star hop is much easier I have to say and will refer to it for next time, thanks very very much.

Here's hoping your next mixed bag is as full as this time. Great time of year!

[Special K]

Confirmed last night, that Star Hop to Neptune is by the far the easiest to use!  I got befuddled again looking for my W and due to atmosphere one of those five stars wasn't even visible!  I referenced your chart (at the risk of blowing my adaptable by using the iPad, who cares?) and then felt 100% sure.  Very windy so couldn't bumpf up the mag but its definitely a planet

Next time, would like to pick off the Helix while I'm in the neighborhood!

[David Smith]

Well done Sounds like you need to get a copy of Skycharts, that way you can setup some charts for your target objects before you go out. You can either save the chart of print to a file. Get yourself some red acetate and cover the ipad screen so you don't trash your night vision and you will be well away.