Summer Holiday Preview in Ireland, featuring an early Perseid.

[Captain Scarlet]

I’ve just returned from a “summer holiday preview” long-weekend trip to our place in SW Ireland. No family, no cats, just my astronomical toys and me. And with luck, some clear nights. Luck was with me.

I flew into Cork airport on a heavily-delayed flight late on Wednesday night, collected my little hire car and drove for 90 minutes or so. Arcturus was my lodestar, constantly in my vision as I drove West. The contrast between driving in SW Ireland and the outskirts of London is sharp: there were fully 10-mile stretches on the main-road N71 where I didn’t see a single other vehicle. To be sure, it was the early hours but even so.

I arrived at 0234, stepped out of the car and gasped. I’d deliberately looked up when collecting my car at Cork airport, and the difference in sky blew me away, as it always does: the Milky Way bright through the zenith, most of the asterisms lost in the mass of stars. It was too late of course to set anything up, so I spent an hour or so with my binoculars (Nikon 12x50), whetting the appetite for the following night, Thursday, which was also forecast clear. I finally crept into my pit at 0400.

I have two telescopes that permanently live in Ireland, a 12” Skywatcher Newtonian and a Mak 180 together with the AZ-EQ6 and Berlebach Planet. My eyepieces came in my luggage, along with a Lacerta dual-speed upgrade kit (thanks @niallk – an old post of yours inspired me to that) for the single-speed focusser on the Newt, my APM 50mm finder, 2 pairs of binoculars, a DSLR with 300mm and 24mm lenses, a laptop, a set of craftsman’s screwdrivers (Facom 6-piece kit – superb) and the TS-Optic SCT focusser that nobody on this forum seems to want to buy off me. I’d stretched the hand-luggage allowance to the very limit and needless to say, my bag was set aside and inspected.

Thursday 1^st August 2019

In keen anticipation of the clear night I spent the lovely sunny Thursday afternoon, when not swatting away Painted Lady butterflies, setting up and lining up: Mount in AZ mode , 12” Newt on the main saddle, Kowa 88mm spotting scope with 20-60x zoom on the other side. APM 50mm RACI plus RDF on top of the Newt. From my patio, I have direct line of sight to the radar domes atop Mount Gabriel 20km distant, so getting everything lined up was easy. Also, I noticed that the 12” Newt needed no re-collimation from the last time I’d used it 4 months ago!

 

 

I’d prepared a list, but didn’t entirely stick to it. It included M31, M57 ring, M51, M63 sunflower, M13/92/3/53 all globulars, M64 black eye, M81/82, M106.

The night didn’t disappoint. My SQM-L gave me 21.5, not too bad but not like the 22.0 I had here at Easter, and the Milky Way was more or less directly overhead. My list was a mix of galaxies and globular clusters, with one planetary nebula, but I was really looking forward to the globs: these seem to be my “thing” at the moment when it’s dark enough.

M13: I started with Great Hercules Cluster. My goodness, what a beauty (again). From this dark location, I’ve probably spent more time on this object than any other. I returned to it time and time again between other targets. And I finally actually “saw” the propeller. It really felt 3-dimensional, as though I was inside its outer limit. Also, with the rig I had that night, the progression from naked eye to 8x50 finder to 88mm birding-scope 60x to the 12” was really rewarding. Naked eye, it’s a “not-a-star” hazy blob. With the APM 8x50, it’s a less indistinct version of the same. Through the Kowa 88mm at 60x, it’s clearly got some structure and you can see it’s an aggregation of stars with distinct brighter ones away from the centre. But it still doesn’t prepare you for the view through the 12”.

I also hopped across for a quick look at M13’s little companion, NGC 6207, which was readily visible. I took a picture of M13 a year or so ago and NGC 6207 and featured in that, but this is the first time I’ve actually observed it.

M13 is the object I shall use to shock and amaze newcomers with just such an aperturical progression from meh to amazing. Most layfolk have simply never heard of a globular cluster.

M92, M3, M53: these were all similarly beautiful, but I was obsessed with discerning the Propeller in M13 so I didn’t give these others the time they deserved. Plenty of time for that I hope.

M57: the Ring Nebula. Again, the difference between 88mm (3.5”) of aperture and 305mm was interesting, but 60x magnification wasn’t really enough in the Kowa for a proper comparison. A bright polo which I spent a while staring at.

M81/82: a quick look, just to tick off the list. The diagonal slash in M82 was quite evident.

M51: two rather bright cores and some evidence of more structure.

Early Perseid: in between all the Messier objects, as I was looking North-Eastish, I saw what must have been an early Perseid, quite the most spectacular meteor I have ever seen. It started off in the usual way, a thin bright streak which quickly got thicker and brighter, then suddenly became enormously bright and exploded in a huge flash. I was lucky enough that it appeared exactly where I was looking. I wonder if anyone else saw this one, it was at 2336.

To finish off I decided to point the scope at the densest part of the MW I could see and just cruise around. I used the RDF to point at a random spot, looked through the eyepiece and found myself looking directly at what was clearly a well-defined open cluster, perfectly centred. It was distinctly rectangular on 3 sides, comprising lots of very similar-magnitude stars and straight-line voids-and-stars, with just one significantly brighter star inside. It was M11, the Wild Duck cluster, I think. Lovely.

That was it for the night, I packed up and retired eventually about 3am.

Friday 2^nd August

Thank God clouds were forecast, I needed an early-ish night.

Saturday 3^rd August

The forecast kept changing during the day. In the end it was a cloud-dodging night. I’d decided to try to use the AZ-EQ6 in EQ mode for the first time, having during the afternoon calibrated for and marked Home Position and 0-up-6-down polar-alignment position.

With just my Mak 180 mounted up, I first tried for a 3-star alignment to see how far the SynScan reckoned my Polar Alignment was, but after successfully getting Arcturus and Vega, Capella was suddenly covered by low cloud which wouldn’t go away. So I just guessed for Capella and carried on.

I was very tired so it was only going to be a short session. I quickly skimmed through Albireo and Almach for a comparison (Almach my favourite such lovely colours); had a brief look at the Epsilon Lyraes (really sharp and clear); and noted that M13 through the 7” aperture was nowhere near as good as the 12” obviously. My tiredness overcame me at that point and I had to go to bed.

All in all a very satisfying long weekend, and I’m back in the same place in 2 weeks for a fortnight weh-heh! Bring on 2^nd half of August.

If you’ve got here, thanks for reading.

Cheers, Magnus

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Thanks Magnus for sharing your holiday with us  🙂 , great write up.

Just remind me again what that blue stuff behind the clouds is ?

Steve

[niallk]

What a great report Magnus!

Yeah globs really respond to aperture, dont they?!  The difference between M13 in my 10" vs 15" is huge.

Have you any plans to attend the Skellig Star Party in 2.5 weeks?  I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed for decent weather

[Captain Scarlet]

On 06/08/2019 at 22:33, niallk said:

What a great report Magnus!

Yeah globs really respond to aperture, dont they?!  The difference between M13 in my 10" vs 15" is huge.

Have you any plans to attend the Skellig Star Party in 2.5 weeks?  I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed for decent weather

Thanks Niall. I would love to get to the star party, but the journey time from our place is 3-4 hours by the looks - I'm not sure I'll get that amount of exclusive "car time" for it, unfortunately. However, i do have plans to move to Ireland permanently before too long, so I'll definitely be able for it then. As for this time, I'll have to see if I can engineer it...

Edited August 8, 2019 by Captain Magenta

[Trikeflyer]

Sounds amaaaazing. Just thinking that If ever you want rent out your back garden in Ireland for my tent I’d be more than happy to take you up on the offer 😜.

We are planning to go to Ireland next year for our holiday....

Steve. 

[niallk]

6 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Thanks Niall. I would love to get to the star party, but the journey time from our place is 3-4 hours by the looks - I'm not sure I'll get that amount of exclusive "car time" for it, unfortunately. However, i do have plans to move to Ireland permanently before too long, so I'll definitely be able for it then. As for this time, I'll have to see if I can engineer it...

I believe there will be a guy with a 20" Obsession there...

Edited August 8, 2019 by niallk

[scarp15]

Great session, congratulations upon resolving the propeller, very good SQM reading.