Quite a long, cold and varied session

[John]

I had a couple of scopes out in the early part of yesterday evening. I used the Tak 100 refractor to catch Venus and the Moon forming a nice pair. Venus showed some flaring from it's low position in the sky but some convenient clouds formed a rather effecitve filter which provided crisp views of the phase of the planet. I then turned the refractor onto the diminutive disk of Mars and at 220x some surface features could be made out plus hints of a small polar cap.

Moving over to the 12" dob I visited galaxies M31, M32 and M110 which were nice and high so well defined with traces of the dust lanes of M31 visible on the M110 side of the galaxy. M33 was looking quite good for my location and the giant HII star formation nebula of NGC604 within M33 stod out very well alongside the main galaxy. I also took a peek at NGC404, "Mirach's Ghost" which I've enjoyed observing through a number of different instruments over the past few months. The 12" really does show it nicely though. I was using a 24mm Panoptic eyepiece for this galactic interlude.

The sky was properly dark by now so I thought I'd have a stab at widening my visual horizons, so to speak, by trying to spot the Quasar CTA-102 which has been in the astro news recently and was highlighted as a potential target for modest scopes by Nigel Wakefield at the Bristol AS meeting on Friday (thanks Nigel ). It's normally a 17th magnitude but's been flaring recently as bright as 12th mag. I use the finder charts provided in this Sky & Telescope article by Bob King: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/quasar-cta-102-historically-bright-violently-variable/

I found the final stages of the star hopping quite challenging and some care was needed and quite high magnfication (150x in the final stages) to ensure that the right dim spark of light was being observed but I was reasonably confident that I'd spotted it. Nigel later confirmed that he had found it at around 13.1 magnitude so it was faint but within reach of my 12" dob. Only a faint point of light but so, so far away at 8 billion light years . Thats almost certainly the most distant object that I'm going to observe and it's beaten my next best (3C 273 in Virgo) by over 5 billion light years !

After a warm brew I returned to the scope and came back within our Solar System to observe Uranus. I got some really nicely defined views of the pale blueish disk even at 300x and with found that I could make out it's moons Titania and Oberon mostly with direct vision. I think they were around mag 13.9 / 14 ?. Further from the planets disk though than when I last observed them.

Taurus was well up by now so I got the Crab Nebula (M1) into the eyepiece. Using the DGM NBP filter the nebula seemed both brighter (relatively speaking) and took on some texture and form across it's surface. I often find it a rather dull sight even with my 12" scope but last night it was definitely looking more interesting than usual 

I had a quick look at the galaxies M81 and M82 in Ursa Major but they were not as well defined as they can be probably due to LP eminating from Bristol in that direction.

I decided to take a break then to warm up and to let Orion rise a bit further into the sky. When I resumed observing the sky seemed darker (more folks gone to bed I guess !) and Orion was looking really splendid. I spent a long time drinking in M42 / M43 of course. The glowing structure around the Trapezium stars was striking and the long curved, sickle-like, tendrils of nebulosity filled the field of view. The dark rifts in M43 were well defined as well giving this overlooked nebula some real character for a change.

For the sake of completeness I had a look "above the belt" at the reflection nebula M78 which glows around a couple of stars. In many other constellations this would be a major attraction but Orion has so many riches that it has to take it's place a little further down the pecking order in that part of the sky, poor thing !

Then I turned the scope onto Alnitak, the lowest of the belt stars and noticed traces of the Flame Nebula were visible even without a filter. This led me onto a hunt for a long held ambition as I've already reported in this thread in the deep sky observing section: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/282570-nearly-but-not-quite-a-horse/

In the end the Horsehead did not, quite, reveal itself but overall I can hardly complain with the session having lasted several hours and spanning from 250,000 miles to 8 billion light years and a very wide range of lovely objects  

[Chris]

Congrats on bagging the quasar! An excellent read, John

[nightfisher]

Very nice report John, sounds like a very pleasing session, every time i read about people viewing the outer planets it makes me more determined to track them down myself 

[cotterless45]

Lovely report, we've been blessed with some decent sky ,

old Nick.

[scarp15]

Very fine session with much variation as the night progressed, enjoyable read. A good reminder for myself, as I also enjoy observing Mirach's Ghost yet have not engaged with it this season.  This time I would like to observe with my 20mm or 25mm plossl.

[YKSE]

Very nice report, John Thanks for the heads up, that quasar will be on my list for next trip

[Mark at Beaufort]

Great report John. I have never heard of the quasar CTA-102 so I looked in my various atlases and its not recorded in any of them. I am therefore grateful for the link. Must give it a go with the 12".

[Stu]

Excellent and very varied report John. A very nice collection of different objects.

I find myself limited to old favourites currently for time reasons but really should give some others a go soon.

[John]

16 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Great report John. I have never heard of the quasar CTA-102 so I looked in my various atlases and its not recorded in any of them. I am therefore grateful for the link. Must give it a go with the 12".

It's normally way below what our scopes can show us Mark. I doubt if I would have known about it myself if Nigel had not done a very useful "heads up" session at our club meeting.

[Size9Hex]

That's a great report of a a brilliant sounding session. I remember you inspired me with talk of 3C 273 in a post not long after I started star gazing. Hooking something at 8 billion years though... just wow...!

[Davesellars]

What an interesting report and a great variety of objects, John! Really enjoyed reading this, many thanks for the great write-up and congrats on bagging that quasar!  You must have had some pretty good transparency last night.

[alan potts]

Always a joy to read reports from you John and congratulation on your new record. The crab made for a source of angre the other night, whilst I could see M33 I couldn't locate M1. Giving up I thought well maybe the sky was not as good over that way, after all M1 is not exactly as bright as Sirius. The following night using the goto on the Meade I found I was in fact looking in the wrong place, I too viewed Uranus but didn't pick up on the moons. Must try it again with more power.

Alan

[cloudsweeper]

A marvellous read, John, and an eloquent indication of what can be seen and how to see it.  

Many thanks!

Doug.

[Beulah]

Great report, John. It seems you have some good skies to be able to see structure in M1.

I do like reports that are inspiring - hope you bag the HH soon. 

 

[Paul73]

8bn LYs !!!!

I'll have to give it a try as I'm still struggling for the Horsey a well (even with the Hb filter). Haven't had really good seeing here yet. The Flame has either been very faint or AWOL completely, so I shouldn't be surprised.

On the subject of seeing "indicators". For the Ursa Major area, I use the Coddington Nebula (IC2574 Galaxy) near M81/82 as a test. I that is showing clearly, I start to get excited!

Paul

 

[John]

11 hours ago, Davesellars said:

What an interesting report and a great variety of objects, John! Really enjoyed reading this, many thanks for the great write-up and congrats on bagging that quasar!  You must have had some pretty good transparency last night.

Thanks Dave

The transparency on Saturday night improved as the night progressed. It was noticably better by the time that Orion was decently high in the sky (around midnight) than it had been earlier. It's not always that way here by any means 

 

[Saganite]

Thoroughly enjoyable and interesting report John, and well done getting the Quasar ! 

[laudropb]

Very nice report John. Well done on finding the quasar.

[John]

Thanks for all the comments folks

I've not had the opportunity to try again for quasar CTA 102 since Saturday evening due to cloud cover.

I did find out that this object has an interesting history since it's discovery in the early 1960's including being thought a possible extra terrestrial communication at one point. It achieved enough prominence in the media for The Byrds to record a song about it in 1967 which included signals from the quasar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1mXIiM9QjA

Very 1960's I think

 

[cloudsweeper]

8 hours ago, John said:

Thanks for all the comments folks

I've not had the opportunity to try again for quasar CTA 102 since Saturday evening due to cloud cover.

I did find out that this object has an interesting history since it's discovery in the early 1960's including being thought a possible extra terrestrial communication at one point. It achieved enough prominence in the media for The Byrds to record a song about it in 1967 which included signals from the quasar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1mXIiM9QjA

Very 1960's I think

 

Very interesting John.  And I do love to hear musical signals from the 60s!

Doug.

[Paz]

Great report. CTA-102 sounds really interesting - I'm printing off a finder map for it!

[mapstar]

Nicely wrote viewing report John.

I'd not seen the hh until recently but it is an object that is elusive. I think the h beta is the key although mine (1.25") seems darker than a 2" one I used which was the same make. 

Once you've spotted it you'll wonder how you missed it, like many faint objects.

Keep at it, the 12" will reveal it no probs.