Orion appears

[Timebandit]

 

Orion has been out of my sight for a long time . But due to great weather conditions yesterday evening and into this morning then the well known and easy to recognise constellations became apparent. The last few days weather have been terrible to say the least. Blanket cloud cover combined with drizzly rain and great big fog banks just rolling in to view. To say it has not been good observing weather has been an understatement and for those at this year's SGL 12 star party then unfortunately this was held on the worse weekend of weather that I think I have seen all year in the area. So yesterday evening it was lot more promising and with the nights drawing in earlier then I was hopeful of getting a bit of an observation session in. And as the  evening moved closer to mid night then the sky's where extremely clear compared to recent conditions and there was a cold and slightly damp feel into the atmosphere. But the constellations where coming into view in more and more bright sharp detail as the night got later. The old favourite Cassiopeia was in the zenith positio , Pegasus was slightly off zenith towards the south,  and  Cygnus, triangulum, Auriga, Perseus , Aries,  Pleiades to name a few. It was  getting to the point I was spoiled for choice with constellations every, I have not seen such a cloud free night and so many nicely visible constellations for many months 

I decided to get the 120 apo out and place it on the AZ4 mount. The William Optics diagonal was placed in and just a few eyepieces including the 32m TV plossl, the TV nagler and the Pentax 10xw and the Pentax 7XW were taken with me , I decided to keep it minimal on eyepieces☺.  As there are trees and hedges blocking part of the views the scope set up was placed in a gap to clear these obstruction. Orion now in full show and not a cloud in view ,all was looking good. The night was dark allowing the easy to recognise and great shape of Orion to be seen. It was in the north eastern direction and was now high above the horizon level, just right to get a full view. The 20mm nagler was placed in and the scope placed to Orion belt and alnitak ,alnilam mintaka . The views where pin sharp through the scope with the the bright stars against the dark contrast of the sky'. The scope was then put on the faintest at field of sigma orionis which is dimmer than the 3 main Orion belt bright stars  The scope was placed down to Orion sword area and the great m42 and m43 . The nebula of gas which I understand is some 1500 ,light years away from us, is just so immense and the vast space of the gas it is just so clearly and lovely visible through a decent refractor and a couple of quality eyepieces. My understand of this great Orion nebula is it is a mass of gas and dust that is compressed and collapse to ignite into new stars. Just a fascinating and distinctive site in Orion. With Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Saiph and Rigel forming the very bright and stand out elements of Orion body . The scope was then pointed to Rigel and this great blue tint super bright star was giving off a supreme view. This star I understand 775 light years from earth and is supposed to be around 70000 times more luminous than our own nearest star(what we call the sun). This blueish star is just so bright and clear due to the good atmosphere conditions that I was lucky enough to be enjoying. The scope was then placed further up and to the left of the Orion shoulder and located on Betelgeuse which is just unmistakable due to its size and orange tint. Betelgeuse is a brilliant shining red/orange star that reminds me of our own sun so much every time a see it .And this is why IMO that it is possible that there could be another form of life exists in this vast universe ,to which a lot of it we have not discovered or explored. As if earth can support life due to to its elements and the sun supporting our existence then I am sure there must be some form of life somewhere else that may have certain elements to support some type of life, even if it's just a type of bacteria life form or maybe something much more advanced?. Just my opinion and sorry if I have gone off on one with my views on other possible life forms out there☺. Betelgeuse was certainly not disappointing with its views but then again to to its massive structure then this is no surprise. Betelgeuse with it being one of the biggest stars known and I understand it has the comparable size of being as wide as almost 1000 times wider than our own sun. This great star is towards the end of its life and this is where the red/orange colour is  apparent . As time was pressing on and it  was well after midnight with work to get up for. It was time i had to pack up ,but what a great clear dark sky' night viewing and hopefully more to come☺

[Special K]

Nice report @Timebandit!  Orion is back indeed and a welcome sight. Glad you got the weather to take advantage of. I had set up outside before dinner under pristine skies only to emerge after the washing up to thick cloud 

[Paul73]

Good write up. 

It goes to show how much more you can get from a session by planning and reading first. Our wonderful climate gives plenty of opportunity.....

Paul

[alan potts]

Lovely report on the winter showpiece. Send me the rain, we are still on water restrictions which have been in place for 3 months, things are bad here.

Alan

[cotterless45]

Lovely report , it's "Tally Ho ! " For winter targets !

Nick.

[chiltonstar]

Nice report to welcome the return of Orion. For those of us who hate the winter though, it's a sad reminder that the summer has gone and we're due months of dark, wet/icy weather!

But on the good side, Orion does have many amazing sights - worth a try at some of the multiple stars like the Trapezium as well as the more well known objects.

Chris