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Observing at Kelling Heath Star Party

Helix

By Helix
in Observing - Deep Sky

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Helix

Helix

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Kelling Heath Star Party. 
7-10/04/2016

This was the right time to bring the big "guns" :hippy2: 20" dob, f 3.5 set up and ready for actions. It was my proper time after some upgradings to play around the new toy. I was waiting only for one thing to happen - clear skies. On first two nights I managed to observe only for 1.5 hours. It was rather hunting for clear gaps between clouds  than observing :clouds1:. Anyway I managed briefly to observe IC 410, Tadpole Nebula and then Leo Triplet, Ring Nebula and its faint central star, I also looked at Double Double to check my collimation and see how my scope performs on doubles. I was quite happy with results. Pin point stars with clear separation.  

I was so pleased that @OneEyedSam with his 20" f 4 Obsession was observing near by so I could compare quality of my custom made scope with his dob. The only difference was that my background looked slightly brighter but it was rather minor difference. I have to remember that it is f 3.5. Thanks Simon and John with his 18" Webster Dob :hello:

The last night at Kelling we had the clear sky from 1am onwards. Seeing was relatively good but there is always 'BUT', a humid level was over 90%! Water was literally dripping from my scope. The mirrors were not affected at all. Thanks to a dew heater but two of my red dot finders and any of ethos eyepieces kept dewing up without delay. Eyepieces XW Pentax had longer life due to attachment around the lens. Next buy is dew heaters for the focuser and a finder 

So the last night and 3.75 hours of observing! Push limits! 

Abell 39, planetary nebula in Hercules. XW 20 + OIII. Breathtaking view. The east edge (dob orientation) of the near perfect round nebula was slightly brighter than west. It looked transparent and illusive. Averted vision added more brightness. Central star is visible as some embedded stars. I could not take my eyes of it. I tried to observe Abell 39 in 10" dob and I always had a feeling that I saw only a glimpse of it and now a queen of PNs :icon_king: so close and large and perfect. WOW.

Next stop:

Abell 2065, galaxy cluster, Corona Borealis, ~24" Dob (not mine), magnification above 400. 
One billion light years away!!!!!!! To start with you see nearly nothing except some stars and very faint fuzzy patch. After a few seconds of adaptation galaxies started to pop out one after another. I managed to count 5 face on galaxies and also I saw some streaks of light which I think some edge on galaxies. A few more minutes would help to gather faintest possible light but the queue was building up and I felt embarrassed to stay longer at the eyepiece. It was the most exciting view of something unbelievably distant from human civilisation. Human civilisation even did not exist at that point. I would spend a good hour to study this group of galaxies. But I definitely will come back to it with my new grab and go 20" baby. 

Back to 20":

Scorpius and Ophiuchus: M4, M80, M10, M12 etc globular clusters, WOW, WOW, and WOW. Cannot even describe how large and beautiful they are. Full of different colours of stars. It was like walking in the jewellery shop. Saturn and Mars were near by and of course they deserved a brief look of mine. 

Canes Venatici: 

 M 51 Whirlpool galaxy/ies. Obvious spiral structure. It was exactly what we see on the pictures! I could not take my eyes of it. So much structure. Another WOW.

M63, Sunflower Galaxy. Brief look. Spiral arms clearly visible. Just beautiful. 

M 94, NGC 4490 and 4495 and many other galaxies

Ursa Major:

M 101 Pinwheel Galaxy, ~24" Dob with thanks to owner, I am lost for words. 
Better than any known pictures. All NGCs are exposed to be observed. It is indescribable. It should be seen!  It was so close and bright. 

I came back to my 20" and was trying to find M 101 but could not. This was the point where you realise that sleep deprivation, cold feet, dewed up eyepiece and red dot finder against you. The moment where I could not think straight any more. I just decided to find the last object Comet 252 P/ linear in Ophiuchus. I stretched my energy to the limit and here we are! The comet! Pretty round blob. It was satisfying conclusion of my observing session. My battery was completely empty, brain stopped working just flashing 'Sleep, Sleep' but very happy I managed to find the entrance to my tent. I looked the last time at the sky and the Sun was on its way. Good morning and good night!

 

 

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Piero

Piero

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... THIS is the type of thread which causes serious APERTURE FEVER!!! :D 

Well Done Helix! :headbang: Awesome report!!

Very glad for you that the clouds eventually fled away leaving the universe accessible to the cannons, ehm telescopes, of your friends and yours! With similar apertures, under very dark sky, and years of experience, I bet you guys had A LOT of fun out there! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Davesellars

Davesellars

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Awesome report and inspirational reading what you can see with larger aperture.  Many thanks for posting this of the great night.

 

Think I may skip going to 12" aperture in the future and go directly to 20"+ ;)   .... Aaah, one can dream. :)

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jonstarrysky

jonstarrysky

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Nice report Helix and great to see some more big dob visual action at Kelling !  That night was special. I need to write up what I saw with the 18" Webster. Certainly got my dose of galaxies, using Argo to rapidly tour dozens of NGC galaxies to the South. Was useful to compare and see which ones stand out (many of the small/dim ones look similar). I guess the winner, probably surpassing M51 and its obvious spiral arms, was NGC4565 - so big, filled the field in my 13Ethos. Greatly elongated edge-on shape + dust lane was stunning. Much better than under my normal light polluted skies. Did you see M5 ? This was stunning, almost as good as M13. It was the first time I saw the M57 central star visually without doubt. At this time is was approaching dawn, I guess with moments of good seeing. To my eyes, a tiny diamond of a star fleetingly appeared, bang in the center of the ring, several times. 

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Helix

Helix

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@jonstarrysky Jon, I changed your name to John :D . I hope you do not mind.

It was a great night. So much to see. I did not want to concentrate on scientific/technical description of objects we have seen  but what we have seen was just WOW :D .  All globular clusters were just immensely huge. If honest I do not remember if I looked at M5 but M 13 was out of this world figuratively and literally. M 10 and 12 are full of stars and covering the field of view at 129x. Abell 39 is one of my favourites. I was hunting for it for 3 years. I saw just a glimpse of it in 10" dob and now it just was there with direct vision. As @estwing mentioned before 'big dobs made for big memories' .  Just WOW :D . So now I have to rename my report to 'Just WOW at Kelling Heath Star Party' :) . Not my kind of language but cannot overcome excitement. 

Thanks again for kind comments to all of you. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest

Guest

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Probably worth noting that trying to define galaxy types at the limit of vision is an issue. Certainly in the case of AGC 2065 the brightest ga;laxies are all ellipticals not spirals. I think I may have seen 4 galaxies when looking through the 24" but it was not the best night because of the humidity. Like others my Ethos eyepieces dewed up on immediate contact with the air and had to resort to using Naglers and Delos ones with the 22". :-)

Owen

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Helix

Helix

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@obrazell Hi Owen,

Abell 2065: I did not see any spiral structure or whatever structure either :) . 5 galaxies looked visually as face on galaxies with relatively 'bright' cores though and I think I saw a few extremely dim streaks of light, probably edge on galaxies. But I am not claiming anything....... :D except the honest personal observation.

It was nice to see your new 22" dob. I know you are looking for 24.5" now :D 

Regards,

TJ

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Guest

Guest

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No the 22 is as far as it goes :-) Even that is almost too big to handle. Actually had that for a few years now :-)

 

Owen

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