Under the Lighthouse

[Scooot]

I've just stayed at the Lighthouse on the Trevose Heritage Coast where I'd read the sky is a limited magnitude of about 6, so I was keen to look through my scope. I'd picked a spot at the nearby public carpark, at a point where I couldn't see the lighthouse, so I'd at least be shielded from its direct glare. It had a fantastic vista in all directions. Last Wednesday was the first clear moonless night, but it had been blowing a hoolie since we arrived and although it had dropped a bit, it was still too strong to set up at the exposed site on the headland carpark. So not to be beaten, I decided to set up in the sheltered courtyard of the lighthouse itself. I took the view that some stargazing under a dark sky was better than nothing, even though the Lighthouse was working with two beams, one high, one low, sweeping the sea. The Lighthouse was shielded land side, so the beams didn't really affect me much at all, although it would have better without them, but was infinitely better than at home.

Unfortunately my time viewing through the Sumerian was very short lived because of cloud and the incoming fog, very atmospheric but not so good for astronomy. I looked at M13, M57, Bodes Nebula and M5 in this order. I must have been absorbed because I was observing for over an hour without noticing the time. I knew the two globulars would be fantastic, because they were good from home. I started using my Delos 17.3mm, through which the contrast suffers a bit at home with the light pollution, but here it was black. The stars were dazzling. I didn't increase the power at first because I didn't want to waste the limited time I'd guessed I had switching eyepieces, but when I got around to m5 I couldn't resist changing to the 13mm Ethos. At the centre of the cluster was a tiny bead of stars running across the middle, so tiny and jewell like that it reminded me of those delicate specs in the double cluster.

M57 is a favourite of mine and it was a good height to view it at sometime between midnight and 1am. The blackness enhanced the ring but strangely it also seemed to make it appear bigger to me. Other nearby stars were so bright, each were a fantastic view in their own right.

M82 was my wow of the evening, I can't usually see much more than fuzzy patches when I look at galaxies. This however was a complete view of the Galaxy as opposed to just the core and a bit of the edge. It's elliptical shape filled a good portion of my FOV. No colour of course, but I'm sure if there'd been any spiral arms I'd have seen them as well. I can now understand why Galaxy viewing is so popular with big Dobs under dark skies and I now wanted to look at some others after this. The clouds however were coming in quickly, and even when I looked at what seemed to be clear patches it turned out I was looking through high cloud, so I reluctantly had to pack up fairly soon after.

I had one other short spell of clear skies Saturday night from 11pm so I walked up to the exposed carpark to see what it was like. Apart from the distant sound of the sea it was completely silent. I had a great all round view, the few lights of St Merryn were shining in the East, and I could see a small brighter dome of light further west, which I presumed was Padstow. The bright moon was straight ahead reflecting in the fairly calm sea with jupiter shining brightly not far above it, to the right Venus looked exceptionally bright. Saturn had risen just to the right of St Merryn and although it was still quite low it looked higher from my viewpoint on the headland. It was still, but the moon was bright and it didn't seem properly dark, so I took advantage of the time with my naked eyes and the bins. I could pick out many more constellations, all of Ursa Minor easily, together with some tiny stars near to the main ones. I could see the whole of the great bear instead of just the saucepan. Star hopping with the bins was easy, so I searched out the fuzzy patches of many globulars. A line from zeta bootis through Arturus helped to find M3. Lyra was clear, the double double easy to see, and I also had a go at M57 but that was expecting too much from my 10x50s. As the moon began to sink and the darkness increased, the sea mist also came in again so I packed up at midnight without setting the scope up. It was a very enjoyable spell in a lovely setting, I'm very envious of people who live under such great skies.

[cotterless45]

Lovely report, you just beat dark sky. Certainly makes galaxies come to life,

Nick.

[swamp thing]

Coming to Wales again then Richard?

Once that Galaxy bug hits.........

Nice report

[niallk]

Nice read - just saw your report: I was wondering how you got on with your Sumarian on your trip Sounds like a nice spot!