Surprisingly clear skies

[Charlie_starz]

Last night the skies cleared after some very black clouds during the afternoon so I took the opportunity to setup the scope, allow it to cool (not sure if a refractor needs this but I did read you should do this anyway) and enjoy some of the night sky.

I started with the moon as it was still bright and could see with my naked eye that Mars was just above it which was nice in a wide-field eyepiece. I spent some time on the moon but didn't have my guide with me. After some time online today I decided to download the Lunar 100 to keep me busy while summer skies are still quite bright - I am very new to astronomy and this seems a very achievable goal and good place to start.

I spent some time on mars after the moon had moved off a bit from it but again it's more of an orange blob for me still, with darker patches but still quite fuzzy. I could see Saturn peaking above the treeline and that kept me busy for about 45 minutes. It is still my favourite site in the eyepiece. I spent time watching at 100x, 200x and once again even managed to push my scope to 400x, but I think seeing was better the previous night at 400x.

So it was getting a bit darker now and I could see more and more stars (nothing to do with a second bottle of Corona ). I started by looking at the stars I kew, Arcturus, Spica and Vega that made up the plough (big dipper). I learnt the name of a few of them online. I was delighted to focus on Dubhe and see it was actually two stars. Hooray my first "double". I particularly liked this as I hadn't known about it beforehand, so it was a nice surprise, confirmed by Stellarium.

Getting a bit more confident i decided it was time to try looking for my first messier. I decided that because I knew where Vega and Arcturus were I could use Stellarium to help me find M13. After 30 minutes of failing I thought I would try M3 given I had spent time on the M3 as I could see Cor Caroli and Arcturus. Again I tried pointing the telescope in the rightish direction then using the eyepiece to try and spot M3. Again about 45 minutes later I had no luck. I think I need more practice and to learn to use the maps properly, also maybe I should wait for darker skies and concentrate on my Lunar 100 for summer.

I have been using a 25mm eyepiece for looking for DSO's giving me 40x magnification. Maybe this is not enough, or I need a wider field of view eyepiece. Any help or advice is always appreciated. 

So next time I get out, Lunar 100 to keep me busy and I also think M109 might be a target after some Stellarium searching this afternoon. It is very near to Phad in the plough so I should have a good chance of locking it down.

Hope you all had a good night under the stars and a bit more success than I did.

[Charlie_starz]

So tonight, despite BBC website saying it will be overcast it actually looks clear so far (fingers crossed).

All going well, I will start my Lunar 100 project and get a good look at Saturn and Mars again. 

BUT.....

I spent a good bit of time today studying a star map of Ursa Major. I was looking at the main stars last night so I am confident I can find my way around the "plough" part of the constellation. I printed out the starmap of the constellation on 4x6 photo paper  and will have this with me at my scope. Also, I used the occular plugin from stellarium to print a page of how M97, M108, M109, M51 and M101 should look like through my telescope with a 25mm eyepiece.

Hopefully I can successfully locate one of these tonight.

Fingers crossed for clear skies to last till late.

[Paul73]

Hopefully I can successfully locate one of these tonight.

Fingers crossed for clear skies to last till late.

So. How did you get on?

Enjoyed pt1 of the report.

Paul