WAG bag the comet

[Stu]

A very pleasant, if chilly night tonight with the Walton Astro Group on the green in West End village near Esher tonight. Amazingly some clear sky coincided with our club meet and we headed out from the warm pub about 9pm.

I had my Intes Micro M715D, freshly back from Es Reid who fixed the focuser and collimated it for me. I made the grave mistake of forgetting my finder scope for it, and with a 1 degree field of view on a manual mount it somewhat limited my targets for the night.

Gavin had a selection of exotica, the Baader 95mm and Tak Epsilon 130 with NV, whilst John had his 72mm TS scope on an AZGTi the same as Gavin.

I managed to locate the comet after a bit of searching. Glad to have got a decent look at it, much brighter and larger than in the binos obviously, but I suspect still much less than under a dark sky. Given the lack of finder I then just spent plenty of time on M42 which looked great both filtered and unfiltered, although with the OIII fitted, the batwings were much more dramatic.

The scope took a long time to reach equilibrium,  the heat plume was clearly there for much of the night, only really settling toward the end. Leaving it out for a couple of hours before observing, or wrapping in insulation seem to be the options. I will certainly try the wrapping approach.

My old favourite the 37 cluster looked great, compete with the tiny double on the corner of the 3 (I think!).

Some nice NV targets including the Flame and Horsehead and three or four bright Geminids completed the session. Scopes and toes all nicely frozen! I think I've warmed up enough not to initiate a divorce when getting in to bed!

[GavStar]

Another fun club evening Stu, despite the freezing conditions, and well-timed as well! ?I really enjoyed seeing the Geminids and the comet.

And we even bagged Barnard’s Loop at 1x with the NV! Although we did discover you have moist eyes ? the NV eyepiece was fogging up quite often towards the end - and this did rather reduce the contrast! Eyepiece dewheater next time...

[cletrac1922]

Hi Guys

Not going to see comet or Geminids again this weekend

Was over in Fiji last weekend for a funeral, and rain and overcast there as well

We going to be totally clouded out with a cyclone up the coast

Great to hear you had a great night with your club

My club link http://sas.org.au/

Monthly magazine is Event Horizon

John

[Stu]

8 hours ago, GavStar said:

Although we did discover you have moist eyes

It was just the sheer emotion of the moment getting to me Gavin

Harvard's loop was pretty impressive I must say, never thought I would see that!

[GavStar]

8 minutes ago, Stu said:

It was just the sheer emotion of the moment getting to me Gavin

Harvard's loop was pretty impressive I must say, never thought I would see that!

Harvard’s Loop? Your phone spell corrector has a sense of humour ?

[Stu]

26 minutes ago, GavStar said:

Harvard’s Loop? Your phone spell corrector has a sense of humour ?

Sometimes I really hate this phone!!! ???

[PeterW]

The seeing was plop.. rather surprised the loop made an appearance as it seems to need good transparency. 

Apologies for missing our Xmas meet.. had to attend  a carol concert instead. Although there was much talk of cold, I found that with my new hat, gloves and boots I was rather on the warm side. Need to test them against  good observing session on wet grass with a decent breeze.

i thought about having a little fan to blow the humid air away from the eyepiece, dried my eye out a lot when I tried it.

PEter

 

[Stu]

I just popped out with the 10x50s to see if I could nab the comet again despite the moon, and found it to be much easier than my previous binocular attempt, direct vision this time. I assume this is due to the better transparency after the heavy rain today.

It was a fair amount dimmer than M31, but looked larger than before, again an effect of the transparency I guess.