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Little session - Moon, M42, a few carbon stars and doubles

Stu

By Stu
in Observing - Reports

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Stu

Stu

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I had a few hours free last night, which remarkably coincided with clear skies, so I had a nice little session from around 8 until 10.30 ish.

The moon was an obvious target, and I spent a decent amount of time panning along the terminator enjoying the views. I was rather obsessed with trying to spot craterlets on Plato, although I'm not sure whether last night was the best phase or not. I managed a grand total of two with a suspected third, not amazing! The seeing varied from fairly decent to fairly wobbly depending upon whether it was over the neighbours garden or house!

Next up M42 obviously. Even without a filter the nebulosity showed well, clear tints of green to my eye. Switching from 24mm Pan to Nag Zoom showed the Trap at between x123 and x246. Whilst the E star was fairly clear at times, F was nothing more than a 'might be' every now and then. I know the scope is capable of it, the seeing just isn't a lot of the time.

I tried the binoviewers out too, to see whether they made any improvement on the Trap and Moon. The Trap was a no, I think E was slightly harder with the binos, and the Moon was an unfair comparison because it had gone over the neighbours house. Will repeat the exercise under better conditions.

I then made a start at a few Carbon stars, having added a number of lists to SkySafari. I find these lists very handy  as the basis for an observing session and highly recommend having a look at them if you haven't already. Sorted by transit time I picked off a few without too much slewing.

Hind's Crimson star kind of stole the show, such a lovely deep red colour. In comparison the others I viewed on the list seemed far more orange but I'll persevere and see how I get on.

WZ Cassiopeiae appeared on both the Carbon stars and the coloured doubles list, a quite wide pair at 57.7", one orange and the other white. Similar brightness at mag 7.1 and 8.3

BL Orionis and V613 Monocerotis were the other two I got, fairly unremarkable I found but still rewarding identifying them in the star fields.

Sigma Cass and Iota Cass were the last two doubles that I picked. Sigma was, I think, a new one for me. Nice tight (3.1") uneven double, mags 4.88 and 7.24. To my eye they looked similar in colour, white.

Iota is a lovely one as we all know. Not something I view very often, must try harder, but at x123 with the Nag Zoom the three components were beautifully resolved. I'm sure I could have used lower mag but didn't bother changing eye pieces. Higher mag increased the split obviously, but somehow I preferred the tight star shapes and split at the 6mm setting.

So, nice little session with the Tak/AZGTi setup which is my usual these days. Lightweight so easy to setup and alignment quick and easy.

Grubby little iPhone shot attached, plus some detail of the SS lists I have loaded.

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Paz

Paz

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A good report of a productive session. I've been making more use of the lists facility in sky safari also. I've got a list I put together called "LP List" which is a set of targets that are good in light polluted conditions - its a montage mostly of the easier messier objects, caldwell objects, and brighter double stars but they add up to a lot of targets and so a lot of choice even in bad conditions.

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Stu

Stu

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2 minutes ago, Paz said:

A good report of a productive session. I've been making more use of the lists facility in sky safari also. I've got a list I put together called "LP List" which is a set of targets that are good in light polluted conditions - its a montage mostly of the easier messier objects, caldwell objects, and brighter double stars but they add up to a lot of targets and so a lot of choice even in bad conditions.

There is a list of 111 targets for light polluted skies, have you seen it?

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Stu

Stu

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14 minutes ago, cotterless45 said:

Super report Stu.  Carbon stars the future !

Nick.

Cheers Nick, I'll definitely work my way through them. Not sure any will rival Hinds for redness though, stunning!

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GavStar

GavStar

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2 hours ago, Stu said:

 

Hind's Crimson star kind of stole the show, such a lovely deep red colour. In comparison the others I viewed on the list seemed far more orange but I'll persevere and see how I get on.

Good report Stu - makes me want to get out there.

I’ve only observed Hind’s crimson star once but it really amazed me how blood red it looked, unlike any star I had seen before. Lovely!

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Stu

Stu

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26 minutes ago, Stu said:

Cheers Nick, I'll definitely work my way through them. Not sure any will rival Hinds for redness though, stunning!

These are the best I could find from the list. All with a colour index of between 4 & 5. Nothing close the Hind's though which is 5.70. No wonder it looked so much redder!

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Stu

Stu

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1 minute ago, F15Rules said:

Lovely report Stu, you got through a lot of objects in 2.5 hours!

Thanks for sharing☺

Dave

Thanks Dave. Felt like I could have got through more of the Carbon stars but that's how it goes. Will pick them up again next time. Was messing with the Binoviewers for a little while, and also kicked the tripod so had to to realign it!

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Littleguy80

Littleguy80

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Fab report, Stu. I was pleased to read that you picked up the green tint in M42. I see this regularly too but not everyone seems to be so lucky!

If you get a chance, perhaps you could upload some of the observing lists in this thread. There’s some good ones in there already :) 

 

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Stu

Stu

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On 26/01/2018 at 22:53, andrew63 said:

Slightly disappointed Stu -  I can't see any Plato Craterlets :happy11:

andrew

Having done some further research into this crushing failure Andrew, it seems the problem is I don't have a TEC160!

Now where can I find me one of them? :) 

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Stu

Stu

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On 28/01/2018 at 20:40, Littleguy80 said:

Fab report, Stu. I was pleased to read that you picked up the green tint in M42. I see this regularly too but not everyone seems to be so lucky!

If you get a chance, perhaps you could upload some of the observing lists in this thread. There’s some good ones in there already :) 

 

Yes, it's great when you see it. I find it quite dependent on the conditions, probably due to older, less sensitive eyes.

I'll have another look at that thread. I think some are there already but will add any that are missing.

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Littleguy80

Littleguy80

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37 minutes ago, Stu said:

Yes, it's great when you see it. I find it quite dependent on the conditions, probably due to older, less sensitive eyes.

I'll have another look at that thread. I think some are there already but will add any that are missing.

Thanks Stu. Don't worry if not. I just thought you'd probably have some good ones being such an avid user of SkySafari :) 

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