Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

Meade LB 16" Report as of 3.10.2008

Doc

By Doc
in Observing - Reports

Recommended Posts

Doc

Doc

Posted
Posted

At last had a great night of observing.

Started on M31 as normal in my 21mm baader Hyperion looked mainly like an elongated smudge but once the 8 mm Hyperion was in place could clearly make out the shape . Revisited this a few times during the night and as it climbed higher the detail got a little better. But made a mental noteto myself that I must get to a dark site to fully appreciate this.

I then decided to sweep Cassiopeia my 21mm EP was just full of stars. One thing this 16" excels at is the sheer number of stars you see. It makes star hopping very hard indeed.

Within Cassiopeia I visited NGC 633 at 16'x16' it fitted into the FOV just nice and made a really lovely site. it is generally known as the "Horsehead nebula" and you can see why. Next was NGC 457 again a great looking cluster with some stars that shone red and amber. The colours were so vivid.

This is my favourite cluster in Cass and I could spend ages just starring at it's beauty.

The LB really excells at bringing out colour as well. I also visited STock 5 which resides at the end of Epsilon Cass. Once again a very attractive Cluster.

I tried to find M103 but as I mentioned before the LB sees so many stars that I hink the M103 was swallowed up in the huge amount of stars so I'm not 100% sure I saw this.

I then sweeped upwards and hunted down the trio of NGC 133, NGC 146 and King 14. All fit into a relatively small FOV and really stand out in brightness. Fantastic colour and for the sheer number of stars this is just awesome. Spent some 30 minutes just looking at them.

Halfway between Cass and Perseus lies NGC 869 and NGC 884. The perseus double cluster. Just one word WOW. I loved looking at this. I placed my old Tal 32mm in and it just managed to fit all this into the fov.

I then dropped down and had a look at NGC 1499, it's a nebula of 160'x40'. It turned out to be very dissapointing and no nebulisity could be detected.

I swept over to the M34 in Per again a very nice cluster but nothing special.

Before the clouds rolled in had a good look at M45 and as always this shone like jewels in the sky.

Considering this is only the third time I've managed to use the 16" LB it performed well. The main issue is cooldown time it needs at least 2 hours to make the stars perfect and the seeing up to scratch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Andrew*

Andrew*

Posted
Posted

Hi Doc,

Great report! You've got an excellent mix of the usual suspects and less ubiquitous objects, and I see you've taken up my formatting "signature"! :)

I think you mean NGC 663, not 633. The former is an OC in Cas, while the latter is a galaxy in Sculptor. As for the horsehead nebula, well, that's a dark nebula in orion :D

Your description of M103 matches mine. Rather difficult to pick out of the busy milky-way star field. Recently I recorded it's Trumpler type as II, 3, p (weak concentration, large brightness range, poor (<50 stars)), so it's not one of the more in-your-face clusters by any means. Still, I found it quite nice, with some colourful stars buried in there.

M42. What can I say? Just can't wait to see what it shows in a 16" mirror :love7:

Andrew

Link to comment
Share on other sites
themos

themos

Posted
Posted

Just had a look at M103. There is a very nice-looking orange star in there. Cartes du Ciel reports it as

Star

TYC4031-00418-1

Magnitude Tycho BT: 11.06

Magnitude Tycho VT: 8.72

Visual Magnitude: 8.51

Color Index: 1.99

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doc

Doc

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Cloudy at the mo themos so cannot clarify.

But according to my notes there was quite a few orange stars around the region I was llooking.

The problem I'm having is the 16" sees alot more stars then normal so loose clusters seem to merge with background stars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
themos

themos

Posted
Posted

Can I suggest a Wixey for Doc's Dob? Just now, it confirmed for me that I was looking at Altitude 63.6 degrees and I was able to match that against the Cartes du Ciel program. I then checked the actual chart and indeed I could see the star patterns of the chart in the eyepiece. I couldn't really have done it without the Wixey.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.