Happy New Year

[spike95609]

A promising start to 2017. My skies have been reasonably clear over the Christmas period but the seeing hasn't been brilliant, however last night looked a lot better. I planned to put the 10" scope out later on, but I found myself thinking about Comet 45P which will soon be leaving us and, awkward place for it to be down on the horizon before it's actually dark, I thought I'd better have a little go. So I took the 15x70s out to see what I could see, having looked at a few charts and kept a mental note of where the comet was. Due to being in a little bit of a dip and surrounded by houses and trees, I've never looked into the area of Capricornus before, but luckily my view to the West-South-West is about as close as I can get to seeing clearly to the horizon. I had my S&T atlas with me, and it took a minute or two to orientate myself before finding my way to where the comet was, and once I'd shielded by eyes from the lights of the enormous christmas tree standing directly over my right shoulder I could just about see something where I expected it to be. Very faint and slightly fuzzy. I had to check S&T to make sure there wasn't a star in that position, and a later look at Stellarium confirmed that it was indeed 45P. While I was there I had a quick look at Venus, Mars and the Moon all in a lovely alignment. Not much to see at 15x but the brilliant white of Venus and the red dot of Mars was pleasing all the same. A pity I didn't know that Neptune was next door or I would have got that as well.

I was back out with the scope at about 9:30, my main hope being to bag another comet, C/2015 V2 Johnson. This was very low on the horizon at this time of night, and there are a few gaps amongst the trees and houses in the North-West which I was trying to exploit but even so it took three attempts and an hour and a half before I could finally get right on the area. But no cigar alas. I've been looking for Johnson for several months and it's yet to reveal itself to me. But it has a long way to go, late May, before it gets really close to us and it's getting a little brighter every day.

Over the Christmas period I'd tried to find a few galaxies in Aries and Pisces but failed due to the seeing. I had better luck tonight though and got NGC 772 in Aries, 488 and 524 in Pisces, and after a quick glance at M34 found 1023 in Perseus. I might have glimpsed three other galaxies besides, but if they were there they were so faint that I couldn't call it with any confidence. I then added to the night's planet bagging by looking at Uranus, and saw a particularly lovely meteor (a Quadrantid?) which blazed quite brightly in the West and lingered a little longer than most.

Then I had some festive silliness. Despite trying to put the cap on the finder scope as often as I could, it fogged up while I was doing my second search for Comet Johnson. I put it inside to dry out, and to fill in the time I started wondering how hard it would be to find the Owl Nebula without a finder or any navigational aid beyond looking over and across the length of the scope to line it up on the rough area of a star and then try to move my way over from it at 38x. It turns out it's not at all easy, but five minutes later I'd got the OIII filter on and was looking at the Owl. I had my obligatory quick glance at the Double Cluster, easy to find without a finder, which by now was clear and ready for round two. I was thinking of packing up all the same, yet I noticed Orion was high overhead in the South and I wondered if I could possibly get down into Lepus, another place I'd never been before, to see M79. Sadly it was not to be. I couldn't quite get back far enough in the garden to take my neighbour's roof out of the equation. Though I got agonisingly close, finding the star next to it in an extremely tight gap between a roof and a tree, but with no room to manoeuvre. I reckon if I'd been there 30 minutes earlier I would have got it. A mental note has been made.

All in all a good start to 2017. And I am hoping to see plenty of Comets this year. I looked for several in 2016 but didn't find any.

[estwing]

A very good start to the year...well done, clear skies!

[FenlandPaul]

Great stuff.  Comets - something I need bear in mind more this year!!  Thanks for the inspiration!

[Size9Hex]

Nice one! I need to pay more attention to comets!

[andrew63]

Great start to the year.  Spent several fruitless nights with Comet Johnson also.

 

andrew