Expedition to Shropshire

[Stub Mandrel]

Last night I met up with forum member @Andyb90 at a dark sky site in Shropshire.

I got there first and set up my imaging rig. I had big problems with guiding, mostly down to my guidescope attracting enough dew to wash a car and some trouble getting accurate goto moves, I will share any decent photos in another thread.

I also brought the C90 MAK and my bins. Andy brought his 10" dob and so this was my first chance to look through a big scope and the combination of excellent seeing and absolutely no cloud and a very dark sky meant I was going to see some amazing things.

Even while the horizon was still bright blue and the moon was up, the stars were out in abundance. By proper dark the Milky way ran from just above the south west horizon right up and down into the only area of bright sky in the east (Birmingham and Black Country, I guess) although we noticed that this sky looked bluish rather than yellow.

I stared using the C90 to look at Saturn. This was disappointing and I couldn't see any more than the rings, but I put that down to it being so low.

The first DSO I saw was M13 through the dob. Somehow I hadn't expected to see stars in it, yet the huge ball of fuzz was studded with bright points. (I hadn't realised how different bright stars look through a big scope to a photograph, they stay as tiny points but look brighter, rather than spreading out).

Found in the C90  with a 32mm EP M13 didn't resolve into lots of stars, just a handful but was still a big object.

M52 looked good in the dob, but surprisingly much the same as with my 150PL at home. Even with the C90 + 10mm EP it was possible to see it clearly as a ring. I also tried to split the double double the bottom (erecting prism) was easy but it took a minute or two of staring and very careful focusing before the top one suddenly split into two tiny, but distinct, dots. So for the record a C90 Mak passes that test! It is very fussy about focus.

With the C90 I found (after several attempts) M71, which was very faint and quite small and the dumbell nebula which looked more like a fuzzy sack. Searching around Cygnus at low power I couldn't find any recognisable nebulas but the background sky showed a strongly mottled appearance, especially around Sadr and Deneb. I looked at Andromeda and it filled the whole width of the eyepiece at about 40x and both M31 and M32 were visible. With the dob we could see a very strong dust lane and perhaps hints of others. You could see andromeda easily with the naked eye, compared to the two nearby stars below it, the galaxy was at least 3/4 as wide as the gap between them.

Through the dob I also saw M16, M33 and the swan nebula which looked just like the photos! The filamentary nebula and eastern veil also were amazingly clear (Andy put a filter on). These last three nebulas actually stood out like monochrome photos, they weren't just blurs, the filamentary nebula really looked like twisted filaments.

Another great thing was that we saw lots of meteor, including a couple of bright ones and one that was really a proper fireball. it was almost like a shower and thinking about the direction some of them may have been late Perseids (although some were in random directions).

Scanning with binoculars, I couldn't get the NAN to stand out and Andy couldn't get it in his dob, which was strange as naked eye the Milky Way was full of shredded texture and detail, nothing like you usually see in drawings or star maps. I spent more time just gawping up at it in awe than doing anything else. It's hard to describe how good the sky was. Even constellations away from the milky way were full of stars, from home I have made out the whole of the little bear on one occasion. Last night it was backed by a rich texture of smaller fainter stars. All the constellations in the south were hard to make out because of the sheer abundance of stars.

It was far better than the Peak District, I think I have seen sky like this a handful of times before but not really been able to fully dark adapt. Even after we packed up and ruined our night vision with interior lights and torches the milky way still stood out as clear as a bell.

By the end of the night the Plieades were well up, then the Hyades and Taurus.

We hope to visit the site again, and other SGL members are welcome to join us, we will use the thread here to discuss potential meet ups, but for security we will only share the location with genuine SGLrs by PM.

 

[cotterless45]

Ace report ! Some memorable sights and what a night !

Nick.

[estwing]

Great stuff....next stop mid Wales!....just think a 10" dob under dark skies?....go treat yourself!

[Beulah]

Great report and pleased that Shropshire didn't fail. 

I was out last night and I would say although it was clear, the stars were sharp at the Zenith but there was an awful lot of turbulence - Saturn was very disappointing, last night. A lot of residual heat from the day...

[Andyb90]

Yep was an excellent evening. Star hopping was a challenge due to the sheer number of stars, but thats a nice challenge to have . I think a dew shield is definitely in order for the dob. I've got some camping mat and velcro tape so will be easy enough to make one.

M16 and M17 were firsts too. Although low down they were easy enough to find. It's easy to see why M17 is popular. The UHC filter definitely enhanced the view with the Swan shape clearly visible.

Would be good if anyone has advice on observing the NaN. Maybe a different filter would have helped.

Looking forward to future sessions and forming a group. I think being able to get together at short notice really can pay off as it did last night.

Andy.

[cotterless45]

Short notice is the future !

That's the trouble that plagues long term planned star parties, bad weather ! Mind you , we've had some really enjoyable meetings and learned so much.

Bit of a wonder as I got very very drunk ! That follows our well intentioned samplings of the Hetefordshire cider trail,

Nick.

[swamp thing]

1 hour ago, Andyb90 said:

 

Would be good if anyone has advice on observing the NaN. Maybe a different filter would have helped.

 

Andy.

Hi Andy

Forget the scope/bins. Hold the UHC or O-III up to your naked eye and ........behold  

 

[Stub Mandrel]

17 minutes ago, swamp thing said:

Forget the scope/bins. Hold the UHC or O-III up to your naked eye and ........behold  

Didn't Michael Moorcock write book called 'Behold the NaN'?

[Beulah]

3 hours ago, Andyb90 said:

Yep was an excellent evening. Star hopping was a challenge due to the sheer number of stars, but thats a nice challenge to have .

I feel your pain.

[Andyb90]

2 hours ago, swamp thing said:

Hi Andy

Forget the scope/bins. Hold the UHC or O-III up to your naked eye and ........behold  

 

Yep should have thought of that or take it even further like this.

[DavidR100]

Very enjoyable report of a magnificent sky seen from a great location.  I particularly liked your description of a clearly stunning Milky Way.

In all my observing sessions I have only ever seen one fireball and it was a most remarkable sight.  Quite coincidentally that was also from a dark site in Shropshire! Armagh Observatory maintains a database of fireball sightings worldwide. I filled in a report form on their website, you might be interested in doing the same. My report was dated 21^st Feb 2015.

Keep up the good work!