Short meteor-less BIN session, with a messier-first!

[FenlandPaul]

I'd planned for a long session with the bins for a few days as ClearOutside, ScopeNights, BBC and accuweather all agreed that it was going to be a good night. Had hoped to do some nice observing interspersed with some Geminid watching.

In the end on Friday night our youngest had a terrible night's sleep, which of course translated to us getting no sleep either. So by 5pm yesterday I was smashed. Managed to get out in the day with the Baader filter on and did a sketch of the Sun, as well as showing some neighbours the sunspots - always good fun. 7 clear active areas and my sketch managed to resemble the white light pics posted on SGL!

Went out after putting the kids to bed and, instead of going to a darker site outside the village, just crossed the road onto the village green (my garden is darker but with very obstructed horizons). The Christmas lights were up on the far edge of the green and our new street lights are a bit invasive, but it was still reasonably dark, with the milky way and M31 clearly visible and limiting magnitude well in excess of 5.

My main target for the evening was M33, having read a lot recently about its low surface brightness and being a test of conditions. I'd never looked for it in the bins before, and realised I'd only seen it once in the 8" (thanks to the recent SGL "how many messiers?" thread). As it was quite high up in the sky, there was no way I'd be able to see it with the bins on the tripod without breaking my neck. Instead I lay down on the children's slide, and then the picnic table, to take a look. Thank goodness no-one was watchingg. I got my eye in first with M31, which was tremendously bright. When I panned to M33 I was struck by just how big it was - a huge diffuse disc in the field. It must have been a degree across at least, and really rather faint - easily overlooked. It was clearly brighter at the centre and was nestled between 4 moderately bright stars that formed a trapezium around it. I couldn't discern much in the way of features on the nebulous disc, partly I'm sure because of the awkward viewing position.

Next up was M81 and M82, back on the tripod. The sky seemed a bit hazy towards the handle end of the Plough, but the pan end was higher up and out of the murk. I first tried a star hop from Alpha UMa, but failed completely. So instead I went from the neat isosceles triangle of Sigma-1, Sigma-2 and Rho UMa, via 24 UMa. This was a much easier hop and not one I've done before. Both galaxies were easily visible in the field and surprisingly bright. O'Meara talks about them "glowing weakly like two spirits fading into the distance" through binoculars, but to me they seemed more prominent than this suggests. M81 was clearly more round with the central third noticeably brighter than the periphery. M82, to the north and slightly tangential to M81, formed the lower right apex of a trapezium of stars. It was definitely irregular in brightness and distinctly linear compared to M81's disc.

By now I was a bit miffed that I hadn't seen a single Geminid! Don't get your hopes up because I was meteor-less for the whole evening.

Then over to M1, which was very faint in the same field as Zeta Tau. It had a slightly irregular shape, with an indentation on the right hand side, so it was almost "C" shaped.

I'd recently printed off the Deep Sky Hunter atlas and had brought it with me this evening to get used to it. So far I've only laminated about 2/3 of the maps, so sadly I didn't have the Orion nebula region with me this evening. This had been the area I wanted to explore. Instead, after looking at the wonderful M42 in the bins anyway, I spotted M78 on the atlas (I had the maps north of the equator but not south). I couldn't remember anything about M78 so wasn't really sure what I was looking for. But I used the atlas to hop from Zeta Orionis (the left hand star in the belt) northwards too the area where M78 purported to be. I saw....... absolutely nothing. But I waited a while and let my eyes relax and then scanned around the field. Eventually with averted vision I could detect a very faint haze which stayed fixed against the stellar background when I moved the bins around. No details were visible at all, but I was pleased to add this often-overlooked object to my binocular-bagged list. This diffuse nebula is listed as being around magnitude 8, so I was pleased to see it under less than ideal conditions. I've also just realised that I never saw this in the 8", so it's a first for me - pleased with that!!

Then the obligatory ogle at the Pleiades before heading back in for a glass of wine in front of the fire and (another disturbed!) night's sleep.

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[Stu]

Sounds like a good night Paul. Sometimes binos are the best answer :-). I've inky ever seen M33 and M101 with binos from a dark site, lovely to see still.

I had a bit more luck with meteors than you, but the secondary on my dob partially froze over so my views of Jupiter were not what they could have been :-(

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[FenlandPaul]

I've inky ever seen M33 and M101 with binos from a dark site, lovely to see still./quote]

I think from my usual site at the allotments outside the village it would have been more prominent. M101 had been on the list too, but it was far too murky in that neck of the woods I wouldn't have had a chance.

P

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[Stu]

Not quite sure how 'inky' crept in there ;-), only, of course

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