My difficult Christmas observation

[N3ptune]

I did a Christmas observation!

Two hours of observation, the temperature was about -8 at the end, from 18:00 to 20:00. The preparation went well setting up the EQ5 with no problems. I did a little preparation before.. my goal was to find Neptune and Uranus and look around Cephus and Lacerta for some star clusters and maybe some small nebulae.

There was no moon but the transparency was far from good.

VENUS

I started with Venus of course, the view was clean at 80x, but no details to be seen. I spent 15 minutes on this planet only because I wanted to find Neptune and Uranus.

MARS

Mars was small but clear at 212x I could see a darker spot in the middle and it seems, a part of the north pole. With it's rich red color, Mars is a nice naked eye star especially with Venus around, that part of the sky was great.

Here is a basic sketch upside down, reflector image. (Actually the planet was smaller then it is in my sketch inside 0.39 degrees tfov)

THE SEARCH FOR NEPTUNE

I searched heavily around the lozenge shape in red, exactly close to the nearest star, but I could not identify the planet at all. (Hopefully next time.)

The search was done at 40x with a 24mm eyepiece ?

CEPHUS

After, I pivoted the tube towards the large cluster close to the Garnet Star 1.1396, the very large Cephus cluster.  and finally I went to Lacerta to look for the Cocoon Nebula. Maybe I saw it in averted vision but the investigation remains incomplete, at this point, it was too cold to continue.

But--> The NGC7209 cluster just bellow the cocoon was a nice small and faint star cluster. At least I enjoyed looking at this one (:

And this was my difficult Christmas observation!

[mikeDnight]

5 hours ago, N3ptune said:

I did a Christmas observation!

Two hours of observation, the temperature was about -8 at the end, from 18:00 to 20:00. The preparation went well setting up the EQ5 with no problems. I did a little preparation before.. my goal was to find Neptune and Uranus and look around Cephus and Lacerta for some star clusters and maybe some small nebulae.

There was no moon but the transparency was far from good.

VENUS

I started with Venus of course, the view was clean at 80x, but no details to be seen. I spent 15 minutes on this planet only because I wanted to find Neptune and Uranus.

MARS

Mars was small but clear at 212x I could see a darker spot in the middle and it seems, a part of the north pole. With it's rich red color, Mars is a nice naked eye star especially with Venus around, that part of the sky was great.

Here is a basic sketch upside down, reflector image. (Actually the planet was smaller then it is in my sketch inside 0.39 degrees tfov)

THE SEARCH FOR NEPTUNE

I searched heavily around the lozenge shape in red, exactly close to the nearest star, but I could not identify the planet at all. (Hopefully next time.)

The search was done at 40x with a 24mm eyepiece ?

CEPHUS

After, I pivoted the tube towards the large cluster close to the Garnet Star 1.1396, the very large Cephus cluster.  and finally I went to Lacerta to look for the Cocoon Nebula. Maybe I saw it in averted vision but the investigation remains incomplete, at this point, it was too cold to continue.

But--> The NGC7209 cluster just bellow the cocoon was a nice small and faint star cluster. At least I enjoyed looking at this one (:

And this was my difficult Christmas observation!

Though difficult it was well worth the effort! I particularly love your Mars sketch! With a diameter less than 6 arc seconds and its low angle its great that you could detect any albedo features at all. I worked out the probable feature you saw by assuming a mid observation time of 19.00UT. That would give coordinates of 108° for the meridian and an approximate tilt of -24°. So the feature you most likely recorded would have been the Solis Lacus region. Though not the largest and most obvious feature it can often be quite dark. Earlier in the year the Solis Lacus region appeared through my scope to be very complex and on a couple of occasions considerably darker than Syrtis Major. Ive attached a amateure map that may be useful as reference. The sketch at bottom right of the second attachment shows the Solis Lacus region as it  appeared earlier in the year, when the northern hemisphere was tilted toward us. Its just a pity that Mars wont be well placed for a while. 

You've a very keen eye for planetary! 

Mike 

 

[Pete Presland]

A very nice observation report and sketch. I am sure you get Neptune next time, its not an easy target or particularly stunning through the eyepiece, but its nice to see nonetheless.

[alan potts]

Nice report. I was on all those objects last night and I did have a superb sky but it was very windy, for once it did not drop like it usually does. I was using the 12 SC which of course has goto and it found Neptune without any problems, I am fairly sure I saw Triton but I have not checked it so no claim at the moment. I also saw a dark patch in more or less the same place on Mars, maybe difference in observation time makes a difference between here and Canada.

Alan

[laudropb]

Very nice report. You had a very productive session. Well done.

[N3ptune]

@laudropb

Ahh, I don't know if it was productive or simply a GoTo user's nightmare! I feel I have to search hard for things on order to learn my way up there. But I saw may things still so it was productive.

@bunnygod1@mikeDnight @Dave In Vermont

Yeah next time for Neptune. But next time, I'll plot a precise map from stellarium and bring it with me to the field, to help me find the right magnitude 7.x blue point. Even If there is not much to see, there is the specific color too (and the moon)

Has for Mars, we used to have a tool during the opposition to map the visible face at a specific day / time. Is there another tool like that today? because that one is obviously obsolete and out of order. It's just for the sake of checking the patterns at a specific day / time, before a Mars observation.. 

http://astronomynow.com/2016/05/18/mars-opposition-2016-which-side-of-the-red-planet-is-visible-tonight/

Mike thanks for sharing your map also I used it this morning to understand the difference albedo features (for the first time) that's a tool ill be using (:

[Paz]

Nice report. I had three sessions yesterday - the first one after dusk exactly the same as yours- Venus, Mars, then a hunt for Neptune which was unsuccessful as I had to go in for tea before it was dark enough. I was only seeing stars down to around Magnitude 6.5 by that time so quite a way off for seeing Neptune which was 7.9 according to Sky Safari.

[mikeyrea]

Hi Mike, nice report.

Tonight was the first time I had my telescope out in ages, and I was looking at the same objects you were.   It took be ages to find Neptune but I eventually got there before the hypothermia set in..     On your diagram there are 2 stars close together to the bottom right of the planet, then one a bit further out.   Together they make a kind of elongated triangle and I was able to slew on from this to the target.   Only a small grey dot really at around x100, I sure there was a hint of green last time but I didn't catch it tonight.   Any higher magnification and it blurred out...   

I didn't pay much attention to Mars but will be sure to do so next time after yours and Mike H's sketches!

I did notice the current phase of Venus was half in shadow.....