2018-07-06 - Saturn - Mars - Moon

[N3ptune]

Welcome!

I had another very beautiful observation last night at my very best location with fairly good dark sky. Bellow 15 Celsius temperature, no mosquitoes, not too much humidity, no moon until 2:00 and an impressive and detailed Milky Way! Full of naked eye stars.

The original idea was to go for DSOs but the planets were so awesome.. I had to spend some time on them:

SATURN: My best observation of that planet so far in +-3 years, my telescope and eyepieces proved to be very capable again. I was able to look at Saturn using high power 425x, 334x and 283x with my 6mm, 7mm and 4.7mm  2x barlowed.

Eventually the best choice turned out to be 212x with a #11 Yellow/Green filter. That filter suggestion from Mak the Night, was a very good one. #11 will enhance many shades all around the planet very effectively (it's also not every day 212x is sharp like that too.)

NEPTUNE: Surprise! I located it for the first time 100% sure in Aquarius, easily, there was even a disk again at 212x of power. A few seconds in diameter, something like 5 seconds (perhaps more) and bigger then expected frankly. I could recognize it's characteristic turquoise bluish colour instantly. Ouffff this was a high moment ?

MARS at around 2:00 AM Montreal time,at maybe less then 20 degrees elevation.. I had a few minutes of sharpness to clearly see the general storm scene.  One goal was to try very high power on it, but the atmosphere and elevation would not permit anything more then 143x with a 7mm orthoscopic. A step down to 9mm was even required at some point with the very comfortable Xcel LX. 111x, my best deal last night for Mars. At the south pole atmospheric clouds were visible a bit, that I know, has well has as darker patch in the middle of the disk, shown in sketch bellow, faint but visible dark shade on a large disk overall.

Celestron is now selling a little kit of 4 filters: 25 Red, 80a Blue, 56 Light Green plus their Mars filter and a 2x barlow.. So since I already have the 25, 80a and 56 I tried them with no significant success.. Neodymium wiped them all with it's enhancing effect of the red color.. and eventually, showing a bit of more contrast between the various shades. To my taste, the best views were without filters.. only the 9mm or the 7mm eyepiece. 

So here is my sketch, reversed views from my trusty 200mm Newtonian plus a sketch of the naked eye moon.

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I also had a terrific DSO observation,to list it quickly:

THE RING NEBULA: with it's super super rich star field WOW WOW!! I could throw 425X at it and see details in the center (has well has a few faint stars all around, perhaps 3 ~ 4 in averted vision). The most impressive was low power with a 34mm eyepiece, showing all the star field has well has 2 ~ 3 very bright primary stars from the constellation, all in the same FOV.

INK SPOT TO WILD DUCK CLUSTER TRIP: All the trip from Aquila to Sagittarius.. there are no words to describe this again.. especially the Lagoon nebula with it's massive star complex. M22 star cluster was breath taking and filling all the FOV of my 25mm eyepiece with sharp stars.  I could not believe it again, the amount of visible stars and the positive effect of averted vision.

Triffid, Omega, Eagle, all visible without filters while slowly screening the sky at low power again.?

STARCLOUD: WOUSH! in the face!! with the 34mm eyepiece, it's like getting a strong drift of wind in the face, staggering, in all it's richness. This thing is one of my favourite visual DSO. ? and I am never sketching it any time soon.

That's it! thanks for reading the report and looking at the sketches, I hope it was time well spent.

[Pete Presland]

Very well reported and sketched.

[N3ptune]

Glad you like it Pete (; I still think about this today.

[mariosi]

Wonderful observations and sketches!

Marios