Observing Report from Baltimore environs, SW Cork

[Captain Scarlet]

Last night was a classic beautiful clear sparkling night out here near Baltimore in 21.8-mag SW Cork.

I got to see a couple of things I’d either tried and failed to see before, or not yet attempted. They included:

M84 and other galaxies in the Markarian Chain. Not having ever seen these before, I pointed my SkyMax 180 / Panoptic 35 (or DeLite 18.2) to M84 and immediately saw two highly distinct fuzzy patches. My unfamiliarity meant I wasn't sure exactly which one was M84 or what the other was. But magical nonetheless. I stayed with them for a while, entranced.

Next I went for M51, the Whirlpool, which I’d attempted to see a few weeks ago from my garden in London on a clear night with my 127mm Mak without success. From here, last night, with the 180, it was a beauty: two distinct cores, and with averted vision some obvious structure.

I’d read that Castor is an easy double, so I confirmed that, and travelled along to the Beehive Cluster while in the vicinity.

I revisited a couple of old favourites, Polaris and Polaris B, and Mizar/MizarB, Alcor and Ludwig’s Star, none requiring such dark sky but I like them.

Otherwise, the night was a night of interesting comparisons.

On first setting up, around 11pm, I was aware I had only 1-2 hours before the Moon started to spoil things.

At the outset, the Beehive Cluster was a bright bright patch clearly obvious to the naked eye. Later on, around 2am, it was not discernible at all (to the naked eye).

Ursa Minor: I can’t remember making out the whole of the "little saucepan” since I was a child, but last night it was difficult to make out at opposite ends of the evening for entirely different reasons: at 11pm, with concentration I could make it out but it was drowned out by so many other stars. By 2am, it was indistinct because the Moon was coming up, and the dimmest of its stars was only possible with averted vision (or perhaps imagination).

I also set up my 200mm f/1.8 lens to try out some wide-field photos, on an AstroTrac-equipped tripod, but stupidly it turned out that I had polar-aligned on not-Polaris. With the naked eye, Polaris is obvious, but through the polar scope, I couldn’t tell which of many was “the one”, they were all bright. Lesson: do the polar alignment during astronomical twilight when the lesser surrounding stars are still dim enough. It’ll be interesting to see how much drift I got during my 30-second subs.

Finally, as I was putting everything back around 2:15, I had a quick look at Jupiter through binoculars, my scope-positioning to shield me from the Moon had prevented me using that for Jupiter.

I have another week or so to go here so hopefully I can get another one or two beautiful nights, as the Moon gets later and later. I'll add to this thread if I do.

Cheers, Magnus

[Red Dwarfer]

Great report , Magnus - just had a quick gander at the Sombrero galaxy , Ghost of Jupiter and Jupiter itself here last night 

[Stu]

Sounds fab Magnus, what a lovely problem to have - too many stars . Mag 21.8 is quite something!

Hope the skies play ball for the rest of your trip.

[dokeeffe]

Nice report. Lucky with the weather yesterday, was a lovely evening.

 

Derek

[scarp15]

Nice report, could you expand on the quoted SQM reading, did you use a reference from the current on-line Light Pollution Map, or did you take your own meter readings? If you took your own readings, with a Sky Quality Meter such as Unihedron, was there an average? The best regarded readings are usually on a moonless night and in the early morning hours and when transparency is excellent.

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, scarp15 said:

Nice report, could you expand on the quoted SQM reading, did you use a reference from the current on-line Light Pollution Map, or did you take your own meter readings? If you took your own readings, with a Sky Quality Meter such as Unihedron, was there an average? The best regarded readings are usually on a moonless night and in the early morning hours and when transparency is excellent.

Thanks. I take that number from the FLO's estimate, which comes from lightpollutionmap.info, and for me here gives the vcalue shown in the image using "My Location".

I can never resist a useful gadget, I feel the need for one of those meters.

M

[scarp15]

Thanks for clarifying. Such a reference is perhaps useful as a very generalised (in my experience to date fairly exaggerated) guide only. Readings from such light pollution maps are over stated, except for perhaps exceptional rare conditions in the early hours of the morning. As you say a Unihedron Sky Quality Meter is a useful gadget, if your aim is to seek dark sky locations to go observing, night lapse photography, imaging. Then it is better to take your own readings, on the night and time that you are there to form an accurate account of overall sky brightness, magnitude. Also to learn and understand how to use this devise and under what circumstances and to work on the average reading. FLO stock the Unihedron, the SQM (L) accounts for readings within the vicinity of zenith and is the commonly used model.

[niallk]

Nice to hear you had a good night down in Baltimore 

I live in East Cork, and it was on another of the south west pennisula tips (Allihies) that I came out of a pub and fell in love with the night sky one really dark night - and ended up buying my 1st scope!

Enjoy your visit: I've enjoyed several pints of stout and nice grub in the pub near the pier  Clear Island is a top spot too - ferry from the pier.

[Captain Scarlet]

4 hours ago, scarp15 said:

Thanks for clarifying. Such a reference is perhaps useful as a very generalised (in my experience to date fairly exaggerated) guide only. Readings from such light pollution maps are over stated, except for perhaps exceptional rare conditions in the early hours of the morning. As you say a Unihedron Sky Quality Meter is a useful gadget, if your aim is to seek dark sky locations to go observing, night lapse photography, imaging. Then it is better to take your own readings, on the night and time that you are there to form an accurate account of overall sky brightness, magnitude. Also to learn and understand how to use this devise and under what circumstances and to work on the average reading. FLO stock the Unihedron, the SQM (L) accounts for readings within the vicinity of zenith and is the commonly used model.

For now the actual number doesn't mean much to me except as a relative measure. At the moment I live in the UK, near Hampton Court, but my wife is irish so we also have a base here in Ballylynchy. The lightpollutionmap.info measure puts the two places at 19.0 and 21.8, and also says that down here in Ireland is amongst the darkest accessible places in Europe. But I love gathering and analyzing data, so getting a meter will add an extra dimension of interest  -- at least that'll be my excuse .

Nice to hear you had a good night down in Baltimore 

I live in East Cork, and it was on another of the south west pennisula tips (Allihies) that I came out of a pub and fell in love with the night sky one really dark night - and ended up buying my 1st scope!

Enjoy your visit: I've enjoyed several pints of stout and nice grub in the pub near the pier  Clear Island is a top spot too - ferry from the pier.

  Not the first and certainly not the last of my visits down here! Every chance I get, basically.

[Captain Scarlet]

To round this off, and having promised to add any further viewing sessions for my 2nd week (which promised perfect Moon conditions, ie not rising until 0500+).

Inevitably, the second week was almost wholly cloudy, so no more sessions were had, sadly. Back in Londres now until August with perhaps a long weekend around June. I'm not sure, @niallk, if you had any better luck last week the other side of Cork?

Cheers, Magnus

[niallk]

2 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

To round this off, and having promised to add any further viewing sessions for my 2nd week (which promised perfect Moon conditions, ie not rising until 0500+).

Inevitably, the second week was almost wholly cloudy, so no more sessions were had, sadly. Back in Londres now until August with perhaps a long weekend around June. I'm not sure, @niallk, if you had any better luck last week the other side of Cork?

Cheers, Magnus

Afraid not Magnus!

It is quite depressing how much cloud there has been.  I really look fwd to just getting a chance to use my dob again!!

I've gotten into Ha in the last 6 months, and it is killing me that there is a bit of an active region for the last few days in the midst of this solar minimum, and I havent even had a glimpse.

I'm hoping to attend the Skellig star party in mid August if you'll be there?  I'll be the one with a big green tent, a 15" dob,  and three noisy kids

[PeterW]

We’d like some “accurate” SQM numbers ;-)! The extreme SW Ireland is a noted very dark location (when the clouds allow), so you’re probably >21.few. At that level I would look at the Bortle descriptions which are probably more useful that a plain number.

I have seen all of the Little Dipper from Kingston before, but not well. 

Peter

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

We’d like some “accurate” SQM numbers ;-)! The extreme SW Ireland is a noted very dark location (when the clouds allow), so you’re probably >21.few. At that level I would look at the Bortle descriptions which are probably more useful that a plain number.

I have seen all of the Little Dipper from Kingston before, but not well. 

Peter

I'm definitely getting a SQM meter (is that a double-mention of meter? Like AIB Bank?).

Bortle 1 suggests "many constellations, particularly fainter ones, are barely recognizable due to the large number of stars" - - This has been true for me for Ballylynchy on several occasions, except that a couple of times you could have replaced "barely" with "not".

Bortle 2 says "clouds are only visible as dark holes against the sky" -- On a couple of occasions I have noticed that suddenly the stars were just "going out" and disappearing, though the sky still seemed perfectly black.

Bortle 7 says "when it is full moon in a dark location the sky appears like this, but with the difference that the sky appears blue" -- this seemed very true, when the full moon was up, I was able to replicate my Sunbury-on-Thames viewing experience quite faithfully, and as some photos from my thread a few days prior shows, the sky was very blue. This suggests I should be able to see the Little Dipper from there, I've not really tried too hard before.

It's dark enough for me to fairly regularly kick and trip on things, I need to get a dim red torch and more of an organized "workflow".

Where I do diverge from Bortle, though, is in the visibility of M31 and M33 under various conditions, and some recent research does seem to to support this.

Cheers, Magnus. (perhaps see you at the next WAG?)

[PeterW]

I would be looking for airflow, zodiacal band and gagenschein... does your site show these?

 

Peter

[Captain Scarlet]

Tbh I wouldn’t know what to recognize having never had them pointed out. I do have a photo taken one good night in Dec 16 which I’ll look more closely at, I’ll post it up here tomorrow when I’m at a computer.

M

Edit: looking up I’d need to look for zodiacal light shortly after sunset, which my pic wasn’t. But airglow is evident in it, I think.

[alan potts]

Very nice report there Magnus, as Stu said too many stars, nice problem to have. Just as an aside there is a section for observing reports just below where you posted, not that it matters much but something to consider.

Alan

[Captain Scarlet]

2 hours ago, alan potts said:

Very nice report there Magnus, as Stu said too many stars, nice problem to have. Just as an aside there is a section for observing reports just below where you posted, not that it matters much but something to consider.

Alan

Thanks Alan - yes I realized I'd posted in the wrong section about 2 replies in -- when looking for the right one my brain only got as far as the word "observing" and I plonked it in there. Apologies.

Magnus

[alan potts]

3 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Thanks Alan - yes I realized I'd posted in the wrong section about 2 replies in -- when looking for the right one my brain only got as far as the word "observing" and I plonked it in there. Apologies.

Magnus

Reall is no need to apologise I thought maybe you had not seen it, I have done the same thing myself so we are not alone. It was rather odd that just before reading your post,among other things saying how dark it was,  I had read a post from a member up in Norway who was rapping up for the summer as he didn't really have any darkness now.