Out and about in the middle of the night - 4th September report

[Andrew*]

I was "conveniently" awoken by the baby at 2.30, so I decided to get up and capture those iridium flares I was talking about.

Although I wasn't successful capturing BOTH flares, I observed them clearly. They appeared to be of equal magnitude, although they were said to be 4 magnitudes apart. Heavens Above as usual was spot on with their predictions except possibly for the magnitude. Just as the second flare ended, a meteor (around 2nd magnitude) flew down Cygnus almost at right angles to the direction of the flare.

Another brighter meteor was observed earlier to N just as I was walking out the house.

A lot of hassle with empty batteries and stuff ensued, but I got some widefield shots against all odds and then unwrapped the scope for some observing. This was about 3.45am.

First, I had a look around for the Triangulum Galaxy, M33 - a large, bright galaxy (low surface brightness though) I'd never looked for seriously before, but would never have found anyway because it's mostly buried in LP. It only took a quick look around before a - wow! - very large! - smudge was centred in my 21mm Orion Stratus. Searching my averted vision for a while revealed nothing of M33's spirals, but most of its spreading halo. The core was brighter than the halo and also quite large.

Then, another object I'd never found before - the Pegasus Cluster, M15. The excellent pocket sky atlas guided me right to the spot. The best view came from a 9mm ortho (111x) in which I resolved stars almost down to the core, which I found to be very small and bright. More than being truly resolved, the central area was more like a very finely mottled texture, becoming finer via AV.

I then decided to have another crack at the western veil nebula, this time using the CLS and UHC-S filter too. Easily the best filter for this is the OIII, where the nebula stands out prominently and is visible under direct vision. In the CLS it is also visible, but is much fainter and invisible with direct vision. Least of all was the UHC-S, in which it was only just visible. Again, I saw some widening of the veil to the N and S but it wasn't obvious which end I was viewing.

Keeping teh OIII filter in my 21mm Orion Stratus, I went to view another object I had never considered - the little dumbbell nebula (M76) in Perseus. I found this without problem and it does indeed look a bit like a mini-M27, as if viewed at low power. The edges are a bit better defined and it is slightly elongated. I can't say I saw particular detail in it. Removing the OIII strangely seemed to help and I got the best view at 71x with my 14mm UWA. I should have tried the 9mm ortho.

Although I had vowed M76 to be my final object of the night, I really wanted to try the Blue Snowball. This is a tiny but bright planetary nebula in Andromeda. Now I KNOW I saw it, but I didn't identify it! This may sound stupid, but I searched exactly the right area for 15 minutes or so examining every "star" for non-stellarity, but I couldn't make out something of this description. I missed it

I packed up at around 4.15am for about another hour of sleep. It was the latest/earliest I'd ever observed, but it felt just like observing in the evening. I was chuffed to bag three new objects, but what stood out most was this mysteriously bright "flash" I observed and what it could possibly be. I may never know...

Goodnight.

Andrew

[Andrew*]

Ooops - forgot something.

The Pleiades!! I hadn't viewed this sparkling cluster for aaages, so I got a good view of it and studied it in some detail. I think I got some hazy nebulosity around Merope, but this could ahve been dew on an optic.

What struck me most was the star next to Alcyone appeareed to be a double in my 21mm (48x). I distinctly saw a much fainter secondary star very close to it. I can't find anything to confirm this, so I'm very confused as to what I actually saw. I consulted the detailed chart on M45 in PSA but it didn't help me.

Andrew

[jgs001]

Great report Andrew sounds like you had fun

[Sam]

Excellent report Andrew,

I've had a couple of veiwing of the Little Dumbbell now, I reckon it looks like a dog bone (which is like a Dumbbell ). The Blue Snowball looks like a big fuzzy star - for me it stood out quite a bit and there was a darkening in the centre.

Sam

[starf]

hi andrew, what you saw was Alcyone and 24 Tau (Vm 6.28 A0V) melded with STF 4008D (Vm 8.72 F3V) V647 Tau (Vm 8.26) A7V)

when viewed at your magnification Alcyone and 24Tau do form an optical binary, the fainter star was probably V647 Tau a variable star of delta SCT type.

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=alcyone&NbIdent=1&Radius=2&Radius.unit=arcmin&submit=submit+id

click on the Aladin applet button and you'll see what's what.

when trying to download the lastest wds catalog im always getting a internet explorer cannot display the webpage.

http://ad.usno.navy.mil/wds/ any ideas?