Double report :)

[Piero]

What a lovely day today!  

After lunch (...late lunch!) I took my telescope and cycled to Grantchester Meadows. Could not hear Pink Floyd in the air ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grantchester_Meadows_(song) ), but all the natural noises were a good reminder of them! The Sun was quite nice to observe with a far better seeing than the last week. Unfortunately I forgot my everbrite diagonal at home, otherwise, there was a chance to observe the Moon in daytime too. Well, another time! 

And what happened this evening?! Again, nice sky..!  

So, I decided to go out for a brief session just outside my house. Definitely not the best place to observe due to the nearby house lights and the very small amount of sky accessible from this location. Never mind!   At least a slice of sky was visible and luckily Auriga and Gemini were there.

 

Date 13/03/2016a
Time 14:10-16:30
Location Grantchester Meadows, UK
Temperature 10C (E 10 km/h)
Seeing 2 - Slight undulations
Transparency 5 - Clear
Telescopes Tele Vue 60 F6
Eyepieces Nagler 7, Vixen SLV 5, Nagler 3.5
Filters Lunt solar wedge, Green filter n.58

Sun - Star 51x, 72x, 103x +/- GF58
A nice day for observing the Sun. 4 dark spots, 3 of them were surrounded by a distinct penumbra region. Granulation was visible up to 72x, whereas faculae were detectable at 51x around the Sun border. Two sunspots were quite close and showed an intricated structure formed by sub sunspots with elongated penumbra regions. The larger sunspot which was located at West from the previous pair, had a more regular structure. Lines in the penumbra region were visible when the atmosphere was particularly steady at 72x. At 103x, the detection was easier.

====================================

 

Date 13/03/2016b
Time 20:30-21:40
Location Cambridge, UK
Lunar Phase Waxing crescent 26%
Temperature 3C (NE 10 km/h)
Seeing 2 - Slight undulations
Transparency 5 - Clear
Telescopes Tele Vue 60 F6
Eyepieces Delos 12, Delos 8, PM2.5x
Filters Astronomik OIII

M42 Ori Neb 75x, 112x
E and F invisible. Some new ideas though. At 75x the trapezium is a bit better than at 112x. If it is possible to see E and F on this 60mm telescope, I think it will be at 75x. Need to test this under a darker sky.

Beta Ori Dbl Star 45x, 75x
Rigel. The companion was detectable at 45x and obvious at 75x. Airy pattern clearly distinct for Beta Ori, when in focus. Lovely double star.

Nu Gem Star 45x
Casually found. This is not a double star, but a gorgeous blue star accompanied by a white friend. The two makes a nice couple.

M35 Gem Opn CL 45x
Majestic! The Delos 8 gave me a wonderful view for this target. I believe an exit pupil between 1.8-1.4mm is a good match on very small telescopes for this target. I think I counted about 50 stars, although some were a bit faint.

M36 Aur Opn CL 45x
In the Auriga trio, this is my favourite. 20-30 stars were counted. Lovely open cluster with a good size for small telescopes and containing stars with mix brightness.

M37 Aur Opn CL 45x
Possibly the most difficult to see in the trio. Stars are a bit dimmer. Not easy to count them under this light polluted sky, but I would say 15-20.

M38 Aur Opn CL 45x
The largest of the trio. Its stars are not as bright as those making M36, but it is a nice open cluster located in the centre of Auriga.

NGC1893 Aur Open CL 30x
I was just observing the "parallelogram", the asterism near the centre of Auriga formed by two blue stars (IQ, 17 Aur) and two white stars (18, 19 Aur). This cluster with associated nebulosity is located at East of this parallelogram (and at South of the vertical chain of stars in the middle of Auriga, another great asterism). I could just see 3-4 packed stars, one of which was considerably brighter than the others. From wikipedia, there are about 10-12 stars around 12mag.

IC410 Aur Neb 30x + OIII
Tadpole nebula (from the Italian version of wikipedia - https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_410 ). Ambitious target. According to wikipedia, the nebula is an emission nebula invisible with small telescopes. As I did not know this, I tried to view it with an OIII filter and did not succeeded.

NGC1664 Aur Opn CL 30x
Located at the West end of Auriga, I star hopped from Epsilon Aur. Cluster made of dim stars. I think a 200mm aperture is required for starting appreciating this target.

 

[Pondus]

Nice report.

The auriga clusters were the first dso`s I really spend time observing when I got my first telescope.

Cant pick a favorite though, maybe M37...

Rune

[jetstream]

Excellent report Piero, you had some good observing in there. M37 is one of my favorite clusters, you 8" will show you why... I like the Wild Duck too...and...lol!

I see you touring Auriga! This is a great hunting ground- did you try the UHC on IC410 as well? The Flaming Star might actually show easier (UHC) because it is bigger in the EP, worth a try, actually throw everything you have at these!

I see your using a 2mm exit pupil on these, would a lower mag work better possibly? The OIII is mag limited, the UHC more flexible for sure- time for the 24 Pan...

My 90mm will show some of these tiny little patches between 5mm-6mm exit pupil/UHC/Hb. Lets us know more Piero!

Congrats for the fine session, Gerry

[alan potts]

What am coming to expect from you now another top quality report! A nice day there maybe, we have just had 48 hours of rain and it still dont look like anything is going to change any time soon. I have a feeling if you are going to get E and F with the 60mm it is going to take something around the 90-100 mark, I fully intend to try the 70mm on this target if I ever get a clear sky. I will be using the Nagler 3-6mm zoom to try for the best power, I think this would be a really good one for you to try and collect.

On an aside I have not long since got back in touch with my best friend from school, he lives in Cambridge, I have forgotten where but it is the only hill for miles. Many of Floyd's early songs were writen in that area as Syd Barrett was born in Cambridge and I believe some of them went to the University.

[FenlandPaul]

Gorgeous day it was, Piero!  We had an impromptu visit to Grantchester ourselves as Barton Road was closed trying to leave Cambridge at about midday.  Didn't see any shifty looking chaps with telescopes, though!

Great report - I admire your persistence with the E and F stars and look forward to the day you get one of them.  

Paul

[Piero]

3 hours ago, jetstream said:

3 hours ago, jetstream said:

Excellent report Piero, you had some good observing in there. M37 is one of my favorite clusters, you 8" will show you why... I like the Wild Duck too...and...lol!

I see you touring Auriga! This is a great hunting ground- did you try the UHC on IC410 as well? The Flaming Star might actually show easier (UHC) because it is bigger in the EP, worth a try, actually throw everything you have at these!

I see your using a 2mm exit pupil on these, would a lower mag work better possibly? The OIII is mag limited, the UHC more flexible for sure- time for the 24 Pan...

My 90mm will show some of these tiny little patches between 5mm-6mm exit pupil/UHC/Hb. Lets us know more Piero!

Congrats for the fine session, Gerry

No idea what happened with the format.. Anyway.

Thanks Gerry! You are right about the pan 24, but my home location is quite light polluted, so a way to reduce this is to decrease the exit pupil. Not ideal but a compromise! My new place should be better, hopefully! Thanks also for your suggestions, I will note them!

 

 

3 hours ago, jetstream said:

56 minutes ago, FenlandPaul said:

Gorgeous day it was, Piero!  We had an impromptu visit to Grantchester ourselves as Barton Road was closed trying to leave Cambridge at about midday.  Didn't see any shifty looking chaps with telescopes, though!

Great report - I admire your persistence with the E and F stars and look forward to the day you get one of them.  

Paul

Thanks Paul! 

I was there in the afternoon, but, my fault, I generally hide from people to not get too much distracted. So I'm not surprised you didn't seem me as I wasn't on the main path. 

The air was quite stable at that time of the day, much better than yesterday morning or midday.

I also saw a couple of planes flying in front the Sun, and that was quite impressive I have to say! 

[Cjg]

Great report Piero.

Have just had three glorious nights (out of five) here in Fance at the AstroFarm B&B  (http://theknowledgeobservatory.com/astrofarm-3/ ).

My report will not be anywhere near as well written as yours, but I managed 68 Messier Objects with my Tak 76 and lightweight Manfrotto, so well up from the 39 I had managed before coming to Colfolens. You can imagine how delighted I am. Have yet to look at the fainter objects in Auriga, but am inspired to do so now. 

 

Thanks

Chris

[laudropb]

As always lovely reports Piero. Total cloud cover and rain here for the last few days, so I am starting to suffer from withdrawal symptoms.

[Helix]

I love to read your reports, Piero. Excellent as always. 

Thanks for your effort to share it here. You and my observing friend Cjg inspired me to buy a Tak or Televue refractor. My grab and go is 10" dob but with the weather like in England smaller aperture is more beneficial but not less enjoyable

 

Tatyana

[Piero]

@Cjg Thank you  It seems that you had a great time in France! Looking forward to reading your reports, which I am sure will be very interesting! 

@Helix Thank you Tatyana!  I must admit that I miss aperture a bit! On the other side, to me, what these short refractors are great is to show proper wide field views with a relatively light setup (light tripod, light wide field eps, light diagonal, no need of a finder).

A few people correctly say that most DSOs are within 1 deg, but quite shockingly nobody says that most of the wide field targets are actually among the most beautiful targets out there. For instance, considering the double cluster, the alpha persei moving cluster, the plejades, the veil, or the north america, a short tube wide field frac shows these targets wonderfully as well as the context where these lie. A kind of painting of a person with a nice landscape behind!  This context is something which always intrigues me as it reveals a sort of representation of modesty existing in space. We look at those targets and often think how large they are, while that context frames them and show how small those are too! And all this thought comes back to us with the idea of how very very tiny we are compared to these small targets. To me, this seems a great lesson from Nature. Curiously, despite our brain is capable to catch many of these abstractions, which is quite remarkable, it seems that we, students, are not so good at learning that simple lesson of modesty!  

[Size9Hex]

Outstanding as always.

I've been using the Dob and the binos recently, and started to get a niggling feeling that there's a unfilled niche for a small refractor between the two. Your reports are not helping...

If I recall correctly, I caught NGC 1664 recently in the 10 inch. I was surprised how faint some of the clusters are once you're off the beaten path. From memory, this one had reasonable detail compared to some, but wasn't up there with the Messier clusters for example.