Cotswold AS observing night, 4th March

[ian_d]

The <a href="http://www.cotswoldas.org.uk/cas/">Cotswold AS</a> held an observing evening at Bredon Cricket Club last night - here's a brief run-down of what I had a chance to look at with the 6" SCT.

First up - Orion Nebula, which was high enough above the light pollution murk to the S at about 2045 to be worth a peek. The Trapezium was easy to make out using a low power EP, as were the tenuous "arms" of gas extending away from it and the lane of dust separating M42 from M43. First time I'd seen that with my own eyes, so that was good

I set myself a bit of a challenge - could I see M76 (the "Little Dumbell" in Perseus), apparently the faintest of the Messier objects. Thanks to the wonders of GOTO I nailed it prettyt much straight away - just visible as a patch of faint light using a 32mm EP, with the star psi Per in the same FOV. Couldn't make out the dumbell shape particularly, although using a nebula filter (thanks Callum!) did improve the contrast a fair bit. Another M to check off the list!!

At this point some of the other guys at the observing evening were gathered around, marvelling at the magic of a properly aligned GOTO scope...I confessed to feeling a bit guilty about how easy things were to find ("like dialling a pizza", I think I said)... In any case, it was a good opportunity to do a quick whip round some famous bits and pieces including M1 (Crab Nebula) and M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy). M1 appeared as a fairly non-descript elongated patch of light covering a relatively large area; M51 looked really good though, the faintest impression of spiral arms was definitely there, and the accompanying NGC 5195 was also clearly visible at the edge of the main object. One of those objects that makes you wonder if you could get a decent photo of it one day....!!

Talking of photos, Kevin (aka BeyondVision) took a few really nice wide field pictures during the evening, which he's posted elsewhere on SGL - well worth a look.

And big thanks to Callum Potter who organised the event!

cheers

Ian

[Beyond_Vision]

Another good night had by all. The start of the evening didnt look to promising but fortunately the clouds cleared. Thanks to Ian I had a look at M76 for the first time and a few others through his Celestron 6" SCT which gave some fine views, it's a good balance between apeture and portability.

Regards

Kevin

[jgs001]

nice report and session guys

[Casus belli]

Excellent report. Thanks for taking the time.

Im amazed to read that M 76 is considered to be the faintest of Messier objects as it was the second DSO I found with this scope (After M57 ring nebula)