Milky Clusters - the exciting new cereal from Kellogg's!!

[Andrew*]

Suburban Leipzig over Christmas. I brought the binos along so I took them out onto the balcony and had a whizz around. This was superb fun actually, and of course would have had the scope out had I been at home, but I had to keep it simple and enjoyed the lack of pressure!

Conditions:

High bright moon > milky sky, faint liney clouds, local light pollution, messy seeing

Objects found:

Cassiopeia - great constellation!

- owl cluster

- M103 (open cluster?)

- a few other patches

- lovely neo-milky-way star fields

Perseus

- Holmes - barely noticeable even in binos

- double cluster - simply the best OC out there 8)

- small cluster about the same distance from Mirfak>Holmes further along ????

Taurus

- Hyades - lovely bunch of stars, complemented by the colourful Al.

- Pleiades - fantastic cruising ground. I like how many stars are revealed in binos that don't appear naked eye

Orion - very high up in the sky

- M42 - Very little nebulosity discernible in binos in the milky sky, but definitely a-glow

- The Sword - brought to mind it's mythological identity - the glowing sword of the hunter. Interesting star field to study.

- had a cruise through the entire constellation - fantastic shape!

- Mars - wonderful colour and very bright. Dominated the sky

- the moon - slight detail seen along the terminator. Didn't dally long.

- the Dogs. Sirius was dancing about like a hyperactive puppy. Searched for M44 and the like, but nothing visible at this altitude due to a very milky horizon.

I also had my film camera with me, so I took some handheld moon shots with a 600mm f/11 lens (1/500-2000 sec), and some widefield shots (orion, Perseus, Cassiopeia, mars, M45) with a 50mm f/1.7 lens. I had no tripod, so I tried balancing the camera on the balcony, propping it up with the strap, lens caps, gloves and took M42 in this manner We'll see! :?

Was a very enjoyable evening. Had I brought a scope, I would have tested my new CLS and variable colour filters and my new AZ3 mount, that were waiting for me here. I've got to get me one of those WO66s!

Cheers for reading!

Andrew

[Albireo380]

Good report Andrew, It is always fun do do a little "casual astronomy" when far from Home. Being a few degrees South always puts the constellations in a different perspective.

Interesting that you could still see Comet Holmes. About a week ago (Half Moon) I could barely see it, using 15x70 bins, from a dark sky site 25 miles north of Glasgow.

Hope you are having a good Christmas.

Tom

[Andrew*]

Thanks Tom,

yeah, Holmes was merely a slightly elongated smudge. It's moved over quite a bit. I'm very surprised that it was barely visible in your conditions (better sky, bigger aperture, earlier)

- small cluster about the same distance from Mirfak>Holmes further along ????

I reckon this was M34

Cheers

Andrew