26th Feb - galaxies, double star and Saturn

[ian_d]

Starting to get the hang of my new telescope now (C6-SGT), and had a really good night's observing the other night.

After getting myself polar aligned using the polar finderscope (seem to have that sorted now!) I was ready to start hunting for some small and fuzzies. Began by locating M81 and M82 in Ursa Major - two spiral galaxies which are quite close in the sky, but very different to look at. M81 appeared as a distinct patch of light at around x60 magnification, with M82 just about in the same field of view but looking like a pencil-shaped object (we see this object edge-on, hence the odd appearance). Very nice to be able to squeeze them both into the same FOV.

Next I took a look at the open cluster M67 in Cancer. A few weeks ago (in my pre-telescope days) I just about found this one - just a faint blob in binoculars. But with a 20mm eyepiece (-> x75) I could clearly resolve it into at least two dozen individual stars, surrounded by a faint glow (presumably more fainter stars). A particularly bright one stood out off to one side of the cluster.

After that, I had a quick look at M45 (Pleiades) at low power (x47) - amazing to see this familiar object so close up! The sharp blueish colour of the stars was very apparent, and I thought I could make out some slight nebulosity around a couple of them (but it was a bit low in the sky, so could just as easily have been atmospheric murk I suppose!)

Finally, on the galactic hunt, I found M65 and M66 in Leo - another nice pair of galaxies, a bit like M81 / M82 but fainter and closer together. Easy to get into one view at low power, with M66 appearing the slightly brighter of the two, to the east of M65.

I then took a look at a famous double star - Cor Caroli (Alpha Canum Venaticorum). This was a really good sight using a 15mm EP (-> x100) - the two stars were very easily separated, the primary being a blue / white colour and the companion star a definite orangey-brown colour. It was actually quite spooky to think that these two points of light are actually massive stars orbiting around each other. I think I might become a bit of a double star hunter!

Last of all, I couldn't resist another peek at Saturn, which looked fab as ever. I was able to resolve four moons (Titan, Dione, Rhea and Tethys), which was a definite record for me!

Still need to sort out a couple of things with the kit (e.g. get the finderscope better aligned!), but all in all another great evening.

cheers

Ian

[lunator]

Ian

Very nice report

Welcome to the double star club.

Cheers

another ian d

[cygnusx1]

Nice report, i myself not being a particular avid observer , managed to see the distinct irregular shape of M1 the other night high in the zenith through my C9.25.

I was mighty chuffed, didn't expect to see anything as on previous occassions the ep showed nothing.