With company - 26th October Report

[Andrew*]

For those of you who don't know, I live and work in a community that cares for people with special needs. All the weather forecasters predicted a clear night all night for Sunday, so I invited the staff along to join me.

By 8pm I was out and two people had come for a look. The sky was looking good with the Milky Way quite obvious overhead.

I started showing off some of the best objects, starting with M13. Moved on to Andromeda and two companions, double cluster, Pleiades and a few others that have now slipped my mind. By now a couple of others had joined us too. A few meteors and satellites kept it alive, but the oohs and aahs were coming in a bit slow. I decided to hook up the laptop and camera to the imaging set-up to show some fainter objects live on screen.

This took a while to set up, but eventually I had M27 live on the screen, and I showed it to them in the eyepiece too. I also got M57 on the screen.

By now it was coming up for 10pm so three of my friends/colleagues had gone inside - not dressing up warmly enough :nono: . I was toasty in some excellent new boots I got half price from Millets and all the rest of my warm-weather gear.

But Yanick stayed. He's a very nice chap from Germany who has some interest in Astronomy already and owns a "department store" telescope. He was very impressed with everything we'd been looking at so far, so I proceeded to show him some more imaginitive objects: the Owl cluster (he liked the resemblance, the Veil nebula, M33, Albireo and Epsilon Lyrae. By now, Yanick too was getting cold, so I continued alone. But we kept talking before he went - you know how it goes! I pointed out the Hyades, and indicated where Orion was rising, and identified a few more constellations that he wasn't aware of.

While I had the imaging stuff set up with the Atik 2-HS, I started off some shots of the Merope nebula (chip only big enough for one star) and have yet to process that.

Coming back, I decided for a challenge, as it seemed a good kind of night for that regarding transparency. What more for a challenge than NGC7000 - that huge red nebula popularly known as the North American nebula. At 48x using a UHC filter in a 38mm PanaView, I could definitely make out some brightening of the background, and it extended way out of the FOV, and there was one brighter bit. More than that I cannot tell you. Still, I definitely saw it, which was a very good feeling.

So with one challenge under my belt, I tried for my second - M74 in Pisces. Phantom indeed. I found it quite quickly, as it is very easy to star hop too, and showed up in the eyepiece with averted vision. As I viewed it, of course it drifted off a bit - but when I attempted to centre it again, I must have done just the opposite! I sweared it was still in the FOV but it seemed much fainter than before. When I got it back in the eyepiece I realised how silly I had been by imagining it in a totally blank star field. It just goes to show how faint this thing is!

By now, Auriga was getting quite high, so I seeked out my old favourite cluster trio - M36, 7 and 8. Clearly I am rusty on these three because I only found M36 and 8, despite much panning around. M38 is considerably nicer with more stars, and a mini cluster a little way off to sweeten the deal: NGC 1907.

I was ready to finish off now, but I got a tantalising glimpse of Betelgeuse and a familiar line of three bright stars, rising in the southeast. I had to have a peek at good old Orion again before finishing. While it was clearing the trees, I packed up the imaging stuff, brought some stuff inside and had a cup of lovely hot tea.

Coming back out, I enjoyed seeing the nebula again. I expected a lot from the 16" but it didn't feel like offering it, for some reason or another. Despite this, I welcomed M42 warmly back into my night sky!

While I don't think I enthused a new hobbyist into astronomy this night, it was good to have their company, and one of the guys was keen to see my astro photos.

Goodnight!

Andrew

[asteria]

Thanks for the report Andrew - the usual excellent standard. It sounds like you had a very enjoyable evening.

Ed

[Doc]

Great report Andrew.

I looked at very similar objects last night.

Thats a great idea about hooking them up so the objects are on screen might try that.

M74 I cannot seem to detect. I'll try again as for the North American Nebulla, I'm going to need a filter thats for sure.

Once again great report.

[kniclander]

Andrew, I hope this isn't a silly question :scratch: but can you see more by just hooking up a (modded?) webcam to the scope and watching the screen on a laptop? and is that without tracking (ie just pushing the dob?)

many thanks

Dan

[Andrew*]

Ah, no. I suppose I could do that with the brightness up a bit and 20 sec. exposures or something as it's a fast scope.

But no, I used my other equatorial set-up - see my signature. I put on 30-60 second exposures.

Andrew

[Astro_Baby]

Great report - enjoyed reading that - thanks

[Greg]

Top report Andrew..thanks and well done for spreading the word of astro.

[Andrew*]

Thanks Greg, Mel

That should really have read "cold-weather gear" :?

Andrew

[John]

Very nice report Andrew and well done for getting that glimpse of the N A Nebula - I've been looking for that one for years with no luck yet. I suspect that I've been looking straight through it, so to speak. I'll have to try again with the 2" UHC filter and the 31 Nagler.

I'm a little suprised that your 16" did not offer more of M42 - it's been wonderful for the past 2 clear nights with my 8" - mind you I've not found the UHC filter adds anything to that object - in fact I prefer to view it unfiltered.

John

[Starjumper]

Very good report .Andrew

John