Beta Monocerotis

[Jiggy 67]

So last night (6th) was completely cloud free!!!...........all night!!!!!

Given the fact that we have so few of these I decided to ignore the fact that there was a near full moon that was about to traverse the sky, not only traverse it, but take all night doing it and get out for some observing. It was abundantly clear that DSO's were out of the question, the moon was behaving like a Brighton FC pitch management system and bathing everything in light which meant that my targets for the night would have to be double stars and maybe some open clusters.

To warm up I started with Castor, an easy one to split but still a majestic sight with the secondary slightly smaller than the primary at 5 o'clock.

Next I went for Beta Monocerotis.....this is the reason for this post. i cannot believe that I have not looked at this before, if you haven't seen it yet, it needs to go on your bucket list. it is actually a triple star system and is by far, the most beautiful multiple star system i have observed. the three stars were centred in my new Vixen 4mm SLV and presented a curved line from the largest on the left to the two smaller ones curving to the 1 o'clock position. My initial observation was with the finder scope where it presented as a single star but when I moved to the main scope and focused it blew me away as three stars suddenly appeared. Two further, yet unidentified (by me) stars, were also visible in the field of view, right at the edges, one at 6 o'clock and one at 11 o'clock.

After staring at Beta Mon for 30 minutes I moved on to Alnitak in Orion and Mekbuda and Mekbuda in Gemini. Alnitak is also a triple star system but i could only split into a double, the primary is a binary but I was unable to split it.

I moved onto the Double Cluster, NGC's 884 and 869. For this I used the Celestron Omni Plossl 32mm. I have to say that I am really impressed with this eyepiece, it's worth every penny of it's cheap price tag, I find it gives good crisp, sharp images. Both clusters filled the fov with (I might have this the wrong way round) 884 to the top left and 869 to the bottom right. NGC869 especially was a very rich star field with hundreds of stars easily resolved.

I tried a couple of galaxies as well, M33 being one of them, but the moon won that particular battle, I didn't get to see any galaxies, they were completely washed out by the moon.

To end the night, I thought I'd have one go at a planetary nebula, knowing full well, I had no chance with the moon sitting on my shoulder grinning away. So I slewed to NGC6543, The Cats Eye Nebula......Wow!!....there it was, centred in my Vixen 6mm, I hadn't even bothered fitting a filter as I didn't think there was any point in bothering. The nebula was clear, but small, in my fov so I quickly fitted an Astronomik UHC filter (superb by the way) and I could now see a disc with a blue/green haze against an ultra black background. I'm really glad I took the gamble to have a go because the result was beautiful, a stunning planetary nebula.

By now it was midnight so I packed up, having had a great 4 hours......just shows, that the moon is no reason to not observe!!

Thanks for reading

[Ciaran Meier]

Sounds like you really enjoyed the clear sky !!!  Next chance I get I'm gonna take a look at Beta Mon, thanks for the suggestion 😀. 

BTW , what scope are you using ?

Edited February 7, 2020 by Ciaran Meier
Info.

[Stu]

Great report Jiggy. Beta Mon is a lovely one (or three!)

[Jiggy 67]

6 hours ago, Ciaran Meier said:

 

BTW , what scope are you using ?

A Sky Watcher 200PDS which is a bit of a light bucket, good for light polluted skies like mine