1st Mar - A facepalm moment on a hilltop

[AndyWB]

So yesterday afternoon, with ScopeNights and the Met office showing clear skies until 0300, I headed out to my favourite local hilltop for some dark sky fun.

I opened play with Jupiter, which just wasn't as crisp as I'm sometimes seen it. Perhaps my scope was still cooling, and it was against a blue sky. I watched it for a while, and you could see some variation in the equatorial bands, but little of any other bands.

Next up, an object of some curiosity for me - NGC 2419, the Intergalactic Wanderer. This was a tough hop to get to, and tricky to identify when I found the right patch of sky, but eventually I did see it as a big, faint, fuzzy blob. I didn't resolve an stars - but with its distance, and strange location in galaxy, I wasn't sure that I should be able to. What 

Had a gander at the Christmas Tree Cluster, but couldn't see the Cone nebula. Then on to the Rosette Nebula. Using my 30mm and UHC filter I could make out a clear, bright ring around the NGC 2244 open cluster. There were even patches of sky without stars that were brighter than the black of the sky. I was surprised when I realised I was seeing it - I think it's size had lost me, and I'd maybe expected to see more shape, more structure to it, given some of the photos you see.

Then I decided to try my Maxvision 28mm. I'll be honest, I've been disappointed it - I didn't like that I had to move my head to see the full field of view of it, and it just seemed really awkward to use. Well, this was the facepalm moment - I thought "why don't I just not screw the eyepiece up all the way" … and suddenly this eyepiece seems so much better. Yes, the stars are a little stretched at the edges, but the field of view is HUGE, and in the centre is very sharp. And now I can see the whole field of view. What was I thinking that this didn't occur to me before?

Next up, M74, which was just a bright wee blob with 2 stars in it to me.

M42/43 - Wow! It looked huge! Easily my best view of the Orion nebula to date, and the Running Man nebula NGC 1975 was clear. And the 28mm - I could split 4 of the Trapezium stars and the 3 of Iota ORI at the same time! The field of view really helped on this. I nearly didn't bother looking at the Orion nebula again - I'm glad I did.

Next, I wanted to look at NGC 2301 - "Hagrid's Dragon". Ahem. I guess that's not it's traditional name? And yet … it does look like a dragon. It seems a fitting name - but who called it this in the first place? What a nice wee open cluster.

Finally, I had a quick look at M47 and M46 before the cloud rolled in … and in. I hung around for a half an hour, and the cloud was still a blanket to the horizon, so I gave up at about 2100. Not a bad couple of hours - but I think the Met office were off on that forecast...

[cotterless45]

Brilliant, some of my favourite targets. I always look out for "The Wanderer", best I've seen is a light globular sparkle , but it's distance is amazing. I keep on about NGC 2301 , from a dark site it is a winged dragon ! It's become this year's NGC 7789 !

Nick.

[AndyWB]

I think it might have been one of your posts that made me curious about it. Somehow "Hagrid's Dragon is the new Caroline's Rose" just seems a wee bit weird. Or possibly a lesson in Transfiguration.

[AlexB67]

Vey nice, glad to hear the 28mm is beginning to grow on you 

[AndyWB]

It is growing - very much so. It definitely does show distortion of the stars near the edge (like a stretching of the point of the star - what is that called?), but it doesn't bother me much. It's kind of like things not being sharp near the edge of the FoV of my eyeballs. And I'd rather have a wide view with a little distortion, than a narrow view (which, coincidentally, makes me wonder about BCO orthos - I believe they've a wider fov with the outer part not being sharp.)