07/11/2015 - A mediocre hour

[gooseholla]

I stepped outside when Strictly Come Boring started and set up my little 4 inch Vixen VMC110L. I use this with 32mm plossl and 20mm plossl at most. Sometimes I head for a 12m or 9mm but it is rare.

The view from my front garden is okay, streetlights to the right and left. Nothing too bothersome for objects about 15 degrees and above though. It started off with patchy cloud but about 30 minutes later was clear. However, just because it was clear doesn't mean it was good. Seeing was surprisingly average. For example, there were no stars visible in the middle of the Square of Pegasus. There was nothing visible to the south. Pisces couldn't be seen. A distinct contrast to my last observing session four days ago.

Andromeda M31

Viewing this in my 32mm plossl it was a surprise how bad it was compared to the 12" or 18" telescope. Despite a lot more fitting in the field of view, it was just a small core and faint hints of a elliptical shape of milkiness. Certainly it was a better view than binoculars but don't be expecting to find the dust lanes in a setup like this! M32 was visible but was stellar like. About the same size as stars nearby the only thing marking it out as a galaxy was it was slightly fuzzy. M110 was definitely out of the question. Changing to a 20mm eyepiece made the core larger but the galaxy shape disappeared into the blackness of the night sky. Everything was quite indistinct and unimpressive for someone who has been used to seeing structure in it for the past three years. However, on the whole it made a nice image as a lot of it was visible. I made a rudimentary sketch.

In truth it was a lot fainter than the image gives it justice - it had to be exaggerated just so I could get something on paper. Also, the edges weren't nicely defined, it could have faded into different areas had I of looked longer.

Pleiades

These just about fitted in the 32mm FOV. There were 8 bright stars on show and about 20 fainter ones. In some respects the 8 x 32 binoculars showed it no differently, just with more sky around it. But it was nice that it was framed and filling the field of view in this small telescope. A 20mm could only show small parts of the cluster at once.

I didn't fill all of the fainter stars in because I get bored easily estimating distances and angles...

The eagle eyed among you will know what constellation is coming next...

Perseus

The Spiral Cluster, M34, was seen in the 32mm. About a dozen faint stars in the centre with about a dozen more spread around the edges. If you wonder why it is called the spiral cluster well there definitely was a lot of empty space and sense the faint stars were spiralling out from the centre. The 20mm framed the central part and showed more stars and them more clearly. A 15mm had the opposite affect and seemed to make the central area's number of stars decrease.

There were lots of stars around Mirphak in the 32mm but it was less impressive than the binoculars because of the higher magnification and smaller field of view.

The Double Cluster was on display to the naked eye. With the 32mm both fitted just into the field of view. About a two dozen stars in each cluster were visible but only the very brightest ones. Again, it wasn't much different to the binoculars only just filling the FOV. The area wasn't a case of being a definite star cluster to my mind, such as it appears in a 12 or 18" telescope. There was a lot of faint stars kind of blending together to give a sense of nebulosity or fuzzy quality to the area. But in some ways the fact both fitted into the eyepiece gave it a more immersive viewing quality.

Triangulum

M33 wasn't visible. I searched but I couldn't find it. The secret seems to be, go smaller and look for it in binoculars, or go much bigger and find it in a mammoth telescope.

Star colours

Aldebaran was shimmering badly. It wasn't its nice glowing orange colour at all. I would have described it as a mild yellow colour. It was a sign of how bad the seeing conditions really were. Mirach wasn't showing colour and Capella, far from being its normal yellowish colour that I describe it as, was a white colour and not as bright as it normally was. It matched the other stars in Auriga quite well unlike normal. Auriga itself was too low to view so I didn't get to view the three star clusters.

Uranus

The star eta Psc was just becoming visible to the naked eye. At 32mm Uranus appeared as a small dot subtly blue to my eyes. It wasn't any bigger than a star but it obviously wasn't a star, it was more rounded than pin point shaped. A 20 mm made it harder to see.

At this point it was clear that the seeing wasn't up to scratch and I really could not be bothered waiting for anything else to rise.

John

 

[laudropb]

Nice report, even if seeing was not so good. Better than here. It has rained all day.

[gooseholla]

Went out again for few moments. Pleadies were higher and brighter but nothing new seen. Found one cluster in auriga but that was faint and not particularly great.

[FenlandPaul]

Nice report, John. M33 can be really tricky to pin down, particularly in less than ideal transparency. I've managed it in 20x80 bins a few times in what I thought were identically excellent conditions; on some occasions it's been barely perceptible and on others it's seemed really obvious. Quite a bliter.

[Size9Hex]

Enjoyed reading your report despite it not being your best session. It'll put all the good sessions into better context though :-)

It was good here for an hour or two after sunset, but when I popped out later it was very much like you described. The colours of the stars were very subdued, and there was a milky halo around each one. Although I was excited to see the Orion Nebula in the sky (which I've still never had a proper look at), I saw it, said "Meh..." and figured I'd leave it for a better evening.

Hope your next session is a good one.

[Mr Spock]

In small apertures a lot of these objects really stand out if you have true dark skies. The slightest bit of LP washes them away.

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

Even a mediocre observing session is better than having to sit through 'Strictly...'

 I hid in the bedroom doing crosswords while it was on.