The Great West Sussex Star Party

[Sam]

Last night Starjumper, MikeP and I got together for some stargazing in my garden. It was Newtonian night with John's Celestron 130EQ, Mike's 12" Skywatcher and my 16" Lightbridge. Taking full advantage of the recent end of daylight savings we kicked off at about 6:00 pm with M31. It wasn't very high in the sky but we all had a look through all of the scopes and positively identified M31, M32 and M110. The seeing looked pretty good and M110 stood out which is always a good indication that things are pretty good.

I can't remember the order of events but I think then Mike went looking for M13 just as some cloud was passing by. Hercules was getting a bit low in the sky but Mike got M13 nonetheless. I got NGC7331 in the Lightbridge but no sign of Stephen's Quintet, 7331 is like a mini M31.

We also had a look at the Double Cluster through both John's 130EQ and my 16" - very nice views in both, I think though I prefer the globs as far as clusters go. And on that note we had a nosey at M15 as well.

Then started the great super fuzzy hunt with M33 - which wasn't too hard to find (once I looked at the right star in Triangulum and not Aries ) In the 16" it stood out quite well and in Mike's 12" it was also quite evident. I think with a bit of imagination I could could get a hint of detail - or maybe not. M74 was the next one which was really faint. We got it in the eyepiece then spent ages trying to all get to the point where we could say we've seen it. I think we could all jointly say something was there, and as it was where M74 should be, it must be M74 though it was a real tricky one - absolutley no detail - not even with buckets of imagination.

During the evening we also observed M57, the ring Nebula, which was a cracking sight - a favourite of mine that one. The other neb we looked at was the good ol' dog bone nebula (also known as Little Dumbbell) it was quite faint with not much detail visible.

A big thanks to John and Mike for a great evening of observing. It's a great way to share knowledge and learn stuff from other astronomers. There's soooo much to learn about eyepieces and different configurations so it was great having the opportunity to look through other scopes and try different eyepieces (basically I need to spend some money on eyepieces ).

Sam

[Doc]

Well done Sam for inviting them round..

It's nice to share an evening with like minded people.

Sounds like you had a great night.

[Astronut]

I would like to have been there but I'm not local. Clear and still up here in Lancs last night. I was out 'till 3am with all the neigbour's lights off so I only had to contend with the town skyglow which is bad enough. Everything was icing up at pack up time.

I too had a go at M74 and saw diddly squat. The Orion neb was worth the wait though

[jgs001]

Sounds like the three of you had a good night there Sam. I wasn't able to get out into the garden last night... More's the pity, but there we go.

[Andrew*]

I would love to meet up with local folk for observing sessions, but there aren't any :?

This and that have got in the way of joining an AAS meeting too...

Sounds like a lovely time was had by all and some good targets bagged.

Andrew

[ChrisEdu]

My invite obviously got lost! Huh! Anyone else in West Sussex miss theirs?

[Sam]

Chris,

TheThing's post was open to anyone who wanted to join in, though with the amount of posts lately it was probably easy to miss . You're more than welcome next time just pm me dates that work for you in the next month or so.

Sam

[jgs001]

I'm up for it, just depends on the night... I don't normally know far in advance available dates though...

[ChrisEdu]

Chris,

TheThing's post was open to anyone who wanted to join in, though with the amount of posts lately it was probably easy to miss . You're more than welcome next time just pm me dates that work for you in the next month or so.

Sam

Cool! As you say, with the amount of posts going on, it's very easy to miss things. I'd certainly be interested in joining in next time though. Cheers.

[Starjumper]

Sam, I think you may need to borrow a farmers field to accomodate all of us lol.

John