Post work session in the backyard, 18/19 January 2014

[cathalferris]

I had a long and great post written, nearly ready to go and managed to hit backspace and went back a page and lost the lot. Oh well! Lesson learned - write elsewhere and past in after completing it..

Sunday night looked good for a bit of stargazing, so I put the 12" dob out to acclimatise.

During my "lunch" break, I went out and took a peek at Jupiter with Io's shadow (and terrible seeing) and a look at Comet Lovejoy. I could trace the comet's tail out for somewhere about 5 or 6 degrees, with some semblance of structure in the tail.

After I finished my shift on-call, I disappeared back into the back yard with a warm jacket and hat, ready for a good look up and around.

I first wanted to take a whistlestop tour around the sights I regularly look at, so I went through M1, M35_NGC2158, The Eskimo nebula, the Flame nebula, a quick look at M42. After a quick look at Rigel at higher magnification, and seeing the companion as easily as I did, I went to Alnitak, and I could easily split that, so I went to see if I could see E and F in the Trapezium and they were pretty easy. So I went south to Sirius to take a look, to see if I could finally bag the Pup. Surprisingly enough given how the seeing earlier in the evening it seemed to have calmed down a fair bit. After a fair bit of looking and trying various filters I was fairly sure that I could see a definite something between the diffraction spikes and within about ten degrees of following. It did look bluer than Sirius did, but it was a stelalr point and not a diffraction or seeing effect. I thought I had seen it previously, but after this I can be very sure that I have finally seen Sirius B.

Given the seeing had improved, I moved up to Jupiter to see Ganymede's shadow transit and transit. Jupiter looked very detailed, with lots of fine detail and in colour too, bluish festoons, pale ovals in the finer belts to the north of the NEB, a distinctly orange GRS and a defined white line between it and the SEB. As Ganymede was approaching the limb, Europa was behind it. Comparing the two I could see a distinct size difference between then - I was resolving the Galilean moons into their disks! I could easily discern that Ganymede was about twice the angular extent of Europa.

I then shortened the tube by dropping the UTA down about 10cm to allow my binoviewers to reach focus without any barlow attachment. This gave me a field of view of just under a degree. I had wanted to compare the visibility of galaxies in mono and bino configurations to give me an idea where I should upgrade in the future. I took a quick look at the Leo Triplet, and was pretty amazed at the brightness of the three galaxies. I then went for a random sweep through the Virgo cluster, just randomly sweeping up unidentified galaxies, and was amused to sweep through Markarian's Chain. I went for NGC 4565 next, and the spindle shape was very evident through a large portion of the field, and the dark lane was also spotted. M53 was looked at, and resolved to the core with the binoviewers. I took a quick look at M13, and it was as spectacular as always. Sweeping through Canes Venatici, I glanced at M63, M94 and NGC4490. Last on my list was a look at M51, to see if I could see the spiral structure there, and I could, but just barely.

Some clouds were beginning to come through. I packed up, and brought the scope in, dripping with dew and beginning to dew up on the secondary as well. Looks like I've to organise some form of secondary mirror heating. I also noted that my body heat and breath majorly interefered with the seeing - so I'll be getting a shroud of some type to minimise that in the future.

[FenlandPaul]

Great report of a fun-packed night! Thanks for sharing.

Paul

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[cotterless45]

Great report. I've deleted so many of mine, I now scribe them on notes, then copy and paste,

Nick.

[Bart]

Cathal

good report. You must work somewhere reasonably dark as you got some good views there. I could just make out a tail in the comet, and that was with my 16", so you did well there. I have found the seeing terrible recently and jupiter has been hard work. Of course, I haven't got out many times in the last 3-4 months for one reason or another, but had an excellent session on Sunday.

Have you no shroud on the 12"? I'd have thought your primary would have dewed up quicker than you describe. Glad you got out.

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[cathalferris]

I'm lucky where I live in that I have fields to the rear of the house I'm renting, so it's countryside dark to the south. I've got a tiny back yard, with trees to the SE, and Sirius is as far south as I can see with the scope, and I've no north visibility with the house getting the way. Limerick City is 2km to the west so that light dome does get in the way.

I'm also lucky enough to have the opportunity to work from the house at times, which minimises the travel time. Thankfully this 12" dob is effectively a grab and go for me as I can fairly easily lift and manoeuvre the 40-something kg of the scope around from the kitchen into the yard.

I only have it about a month, so still figuring what next with it. Telrad, Wixey, setting circles, shroud, complete the flocking, secondary dew countermeasures, counterweight, better eyepiece tray, an adjustable observing chair, and eventually an equatorial platform. That's the last identified so far..

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