Can astronomy cure a cold ?

[John]

..... probably not but the sky was clear so I put my 12" dob out anyway on the basis that the fresh night air would sort me out !

I've had a nice session so far starting with the Moon which was lovely and crisp. The Hadley Rille and Mount Hadley (Apollo 15 landing site) were really nicely illuminated and the rille snaked it's way along the edge of the Apennine mountains looping around the flat plain in front of Mount Hadley. At 200x I could see the sharp "elbow" in the rille which was one of the sites visited by the Apollo 15 astronauts with the Lunar Rover.

Moving on to some more distant objects I had a look at the great globular cluster in Pegasus, Messier 15. Easy to find although to some extent washed by moonlight tonight. 200x bought nice resolution of the cluster - a spray of tiny points of light.

With the moonlight in the sky, really faint deep sky objects would have been a rather futile pursuit I felt so I had a look at a couple of my favourite planetary nebulae in the Andromeda area. NCG 7662, the "Blue Snowball" is always worth a look. It's around the apparent size of Jupiter and does have a pale blue tinge, especially at lower magnifications. At 200x the nebulous disk looks quite large in the eyepiece and I could see signs of two arcs of brighter contrast within the disk, rather in the same arrangement that brake shoes sit within a brake hub !. Another nice planetary neb is Messier 76, the "Little Dumbbell" nebula, which has a double lobed structure which was fairly clear at 66x but got better defined as the background sky was darkened by increasing the power to 100x. I was using a zoom eyepiece at this point which is quite fun for doing immediate experiments on the effect of higher and lower magnification.

Nipping across to Perseus I had a lower power look at the nice open cluster Messier 34, AKA "the Spiral Cluster" I believe. And it did seem to have that form, rather like a spiral galaxy, with loose curved lines of stars radiating outwards, or so your eye would have you believe !

A few degrees away from M34 I found the nice tight magnitude 10.6 galaxy NGC 1023. Despite moonlite lingering even on this side of the sky, this galaxy was quite easy to find. It's the main member of a group of galaxies that are around 30 million light years from us.

As I'd found one galaxy (despite it not being a "galaxy" night !) I thought I'd try for another so back towards the M31 group and down to the star Mirach to spot it's "ghost" the galaxy NGC 404. It sits in the same field of view as Mirach but could be overlooked as an eyepiece reflection from that star. It's not though, it's a full blown galaxy around 10 million light years away. William Herschel discovered it in 1784 - he discovered a heck of a lot of things !!!

Final stop before I broke off for a lem sip and to type this, was Uranus. Easy to find in Pisces and well placed tonight. Easy to find in the 50mm finder and clearly not a star even at 66x magnification. 200x shows the pale blue disk. Encouraged by the sharp definition of Uranus I crowded on the magnification in the hope of spotting one of it's faint and elusive moons.

A rather daring 454x still showed a nice Uranian disk and after a couple of drifts across the field of view I was sure that I was starting to pick up a faint point of light just outside of the haze of the main planet roughly towards the East. I did a quick sketch showing orientation, direction of drift and approx distance from Uranus then went back to the scope and upped the power to 530x. I was getting the 1st point of light repeatedly now as the planet drifted, rather rapidly, across the field and then I started to pick up a further point of light, approximately to the S of the first pin point and about twice the distance from Uranus. Repeatedly allowing Uranus to drift across the field showed me this 2nd pin point again and in the same place in relation to the 1st point. I was using a mixture of direct and averted vision to see these - they were right on the edge of what was visible tonight.

Back in the house to add the 2nd point to my sketch then another short session at the eyepiece to satisfy myself that they were there and where I'd drawn them.

And then I powered up "Cartes du Ceil", centered Uranus, flipped the view both ways to simulate the newtonian scope view and zoomed in. Hey presto, as Uranus disk hoved into view in the software, with a number of moons buzzing around it, there were 2 points on the screen in just the positions I'd put the dots in my crude biro sketch. Clicking on them, the labels said the 1st one I'd spotted was Titania at magnitude 13.9 and the 2nd one Oberon at magnitude 14.1. These are the easiest Uranian moons to observe apparently although clearly at these magnitudes they are not a breeze even with 12" of aperture. This is the 2nd time I've spotted them and it was nice to repeat my earlier, rather hesitant, observation, noted here:   http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/253930-uranus-and-a-moon-maybe/

It's still clear but I think I'll turn in now. I'd forgotten completely about my cold while observing - funny how absorbing the night sky is 

[jetstream]

Great report John and congrats for capturing those moons. Nice heads up on this planet too, thanks.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report. NGC 1023 is a great little galaxy. Lenticular, I seem to remember. They often have good surface brightness. Congratulations on those Uranian moons, too.

[RobertI]

Lovely report and very entertaining read. I felt I was at the observing session with you!

[cotterless45]

Nice session, you had much better skies than here !

Nick.

[estwing]

Fantastic report...

[Mike73]

Just goes to show just how many objects are viewable even with the moon around. 

Hope the man flu improves John, theirs nothing worse!

[Mr Spock]

Great report. Sounds like you had a brilliant night's observing.

[laudropb]

Very nice report. A really enjoyable read. Hope your cold clears soon.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Great report and very good seeing the Moons. Ive not even seen the planet yet, not purposely anyway lol.

Matt.

[scarp15]

Good read and good going with those moons, amazing what can be possible.

[Roy Challen]

Excellent report John! It's times like this that I consider joining the Dob Mob!

[mikeDnight]

Worst case scenario, you die happy. :-)

Mike

[John]

Worst case scenario, you die happy. :-)

Mike

Thanks Mike

I seem to be pulling though ....

[niallk]

A great read

[Cjg]

Superb report and a great read on a grey, wet afternoon. 

Tio answer your question, I don't think so, BUT, since stargazing and spending lots of time outside, in the cld night air, I've suffered a lot less from the colds and flu that generally go around in the winter months. 

Chris

[Anthonyw85]

Great report and some awesome tips.

[Size9Hex]

Thanks. Really enjoyed reading your post. Not sure this hobby will cure your cold. Bit late by time you've got it! I'm feeling a lot more chilled out since starting though. Taking some time out to just stop and contemplate the universe in peace and quiet can only be a good thing for your health :-)