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Early To Bed And Early To Rise

Drop Of Sun

By Drop Of Sun
in Observing - Reports

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Drop Of Sun

Drop Of Sun

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I had been really looking forward to the clear skies that were predicted for last night, but on the way home from work I noticed the moon was very high up and fuller than I was expecting.

Too fussy maybe but I got the impression it would be best conditions for DSO's closer to midnight. Embarrassingly considering this hobby, I am not much of a night owl. Tired, I wimped out! I was asleep by 9pm.

I woke up nice and early, 4am, feeling fresh. My first thought was, "Jupiter will be nice and high!" So out I shot.

He sure was! I kopped some decent views at various magnifications. I also tried the Tele Vue planetary filter, which I think it is fair to say has had a mixed press!

In my more alert than usual state, I had no doubt I could see finer details in the banding more clearly with the filter in. My impression was that the filter gives more colour to the bands and it helps the bands to stick out more. For me, at least.

I found that the filter worked best for me at higher mag. At about 100-130x mag I didn't feel the filter added much. At about 200x mag I could see the finer details more clearly.

I was then eager to see the other sky jewels on offer.

M51 was the best I have seen with my 10 inch job, with the spiral structure clearly evident. I did not have to try very hard, it was just there as soon as in view. What a difference high in the sky can make. If it has been any higher I would have been going round and round in circles trying to reach that almost impossible straight up view with a dob. This beat my view with 16 inch dob two weeks ago, when M51 was much lower down earlier on.

Encouraged by the view, I though I'd tackle M101. Assuming I found it and not something else, wow, the core was so bright! I could not make out much structure beyond the core though, I have only managed that a few times in the past, with my 16 inch dob I think.

I was happy to see that Hercules was a reasonable height, so headed to M13. What a nice view it was, there was a good crispness to the view. The Ring Nebula in Lyra was showing up nice and clean also, a crisp, erm, ring shape.

I considered waking up the Mrs as she does love the globular clusters, but thought better of it. The last time I woke her up in the wee hours was to view a mystery comet, which turned out to be a slightly less exotic rocket fuel dump.

:iamwithstupid:

As luck would have it, I could hear stirring from inside. So the Mrs and our son, already awake with no banging noises made on my part, came out to view M13 just before the skies lost too much of their darkness. Our son saw his first globular cluster :happy7:

We took in quick views of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Not a lot to see for us on Mars and we didn't push the mag. Conditions were worsening a little, but we were delighted to see the rings of Saturn, and to admire the nice line up of these three planets plus Jupiter using the Mk1 eyeball, with Spica I think nestling midway and pretending to be a planet.

The session reminds me that some nights, I may be better off to go to bed early and get up early.

I hope plenty of other folks had a good night/morning/allnighter!

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scarp15

scarp15

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The discipline for rising so early is clearly and under the current circumstances, a very rewarding venture, based on your account and other recent reports. I managed something similar on New Year's day morning. Great and incredible that your family got up to join you to.

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DRT

DRT

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Nice report!

I did something similar but wasn't so lucky. I came out at around 11pm and had a look at Jupiter through the 16" Dob but it was still a bit low and mushy so went back in thinking I'd have a sleep and get up at around 4am to catch the forecast clear skies. I woke up at 4:45am and went straight out. The sky was as clear as a bell and I started on Jupiter, which was bright and clear. Ten minutes later the first cloud appeared. Another ten went by and there was more or less a blanket of cloud across the sky :-(

I stayed up until 7am but it never cleared enough to persuade me to go out so headed off to bed.

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estwing

estwing

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Got up at 4, Catalina was right overhead. A lovely crisp morning to fill the lungs with frost.

Thoroughly enjoyed M13, but not as much as getting back to bed again !

Nick.

King of the early mornings.... Nick

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Drop Of Sun

Drop Of Sun

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Thanks everyone!

I shall have to get some training in before SGL 11 for the late nights! :icon_biggrin:

Very nice report. A very enjoyable read. Got to say the moon was not that much of a problem last night.

That's good to know, I think I was a bit thrown as in my mind it was going to be a slither glued to the sun! With all this cloud I have lost track of where everything is :icon_biggrin:

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