Wymeswold 06.01.2018 Observing Report

[Doc]

Wymeswold Cricket Club

Skywatcher 120ED Esprit

Selection of Clave Eyepieces

06.01.2018

19.00 - 23.00

Cold and clear.

 

Spent the night checking out my new Clave eyepieces as well as trying Andy's selection of higher magnification Clave eyepieces, I'm really getting to like them and they surprise me everytime I use them. Also wanted to see how easy it is to star hop using my AMICI prism diagonal I had for Christmas.

I started of star hopping to Uranus, to do this I used SkySafari and basically used bright stars and asterisms to star hop found it pretty easy. You could detect a disk and a slight blue/green hue, the colour could be seen better if Uranus was defocused slightly.

Next was a lovely view of M31, looked pretty large in the 40mm Clave. Then over to M33 in Triangulum, which was barely visible but with prolonged observing in did appear on and off. Next I went over to Ngc 7662 the Blue Snowball Nebula in Andromeda. At mag 8.3 it was pretty easy to find I star hopped from Iota Andromeda. I increased the power to x210 using the 4mm Clave and it took magnification pretty well.

I split Eta Cass with my 12mm Clave and it apperared as yellow and white. The mags are 3.45/7.52 and has a 13.4" seperation. Staying in Cassiopeia I star hopped to the Owl Cluster Ngc 457, With the 40mm Clave inserted the view was fantastic.

Back over to the East and I star hopped to the Intergalatic Wanderer Ngc 2419. I thought this was a new one but looking at my notes I saw this back in 2013. With great difficulty I could just see 31 Lynx aka Alsciaukat and from there with the help of SkySafari I star hopped to the location of Ngc2419. Wow this was very hard to detect but with averted vision it did appear, my mate Andy looked and confirmed it.

Cancer was becoming visible through the murk so I bagged M44 the Beehive cluster which was lovely in the 40mm Clave and then dropped down and spotted the open cluster M67.

Up to Gemini and star hopped from Wasat to the Eskimo Nebula Ngc 2392. At mag 9.19 it was pretty hard to detect and pretty small but took magnification well.

My last observation of the night was M77 a spiral galaxy in Cetus. Once again star hopped from Delti Ceti as it's pretty close and easy to do. M77 (Cetus A) was barely visible  being mag 9 but with averted vision and the odd tap on the telescope tube you could see it. Just above it and slightly to the right is Ngc 1055 another spiral galaxy at mag 10.6 once again I could barely see it but with the technique of sweeping the area you could detect a slight mottling of the area where the galaxy is.

Packed up at 23.00.

[Space Hopper]

I spent a couple of hours yesterday getting to grips with Sky Safari 6 Mick which i just upgraded to from version 5.

It worked well and everything seemed in order....

[Doc]

I'm yet to do that Rob. Does it cost anything more if I have already paid for version 5?

[Knighty2112]

Nice bit of star hopping. Well done on your observations.  Nearly had to avert to star hopping myself last night as my powertank ran out of juice on my goto mount, but luckily I have an older powertank as a backup, so no need to! Hehe!  

[alanjgreen]

59 minutes ago, Doc said:

I'm yet to do that Rob. Does it cost anything more if I have already paid for version 5?

Unfortunately YES.

Each new version must be purchased separately. They have introductory 50% off at the moment.

Check out the list of new features. If there is nothing you need then stick with the version you have (especially if you are happy with it!)

I plan to stay of version 5. Next year will see version 7 and so on...

[Doc]

Thanks Alan

[Space Hopper]

Yes, i'm afraid so.

I think it was £6.99 if i remember....

[Doc]

2 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Nice bit of star hopping. Well done on your observations.  Nearly had to avert to star hopping myself last night as my powertank ran out of juice on my goto mount, but luckily I have an older powertank as a backup, so no need to! Hehe!  

Well done for having a back up Gus. I've always star hopped , if you keep doing it, it becomes pretty natural and as long as there are asterisms and brighter stars it's easy to do.