Mars and the Lagoon

[Littleguy80]

When the alarm went off at 4:30 AM this morning and my first look out the window showed a fair bit of cloud, I almost went back to bed. 10 minutes later, with the clouds clearing, I had the dob outside ready to go. My first target was NGC4636 in Virgo. I located the galaxy fairly easily and spent 20 minutes or so trying to locate the supernova within it. It was much trickier than my previous observation of it. Transparency was relatively poor and I suspect the SN has faded a little. A few glimpses in averted vision was enough to satisfy though. 

I walked round to the front of the house and scanned the horizon. Eventually I spotted my target... Mars. I moved the dob around and aligned on the red planet. I took the unusual step of putting in a UHC filter. With my 20mm APM HDC, I could see some faint nebulosity to the left of Mars. Changing eyepieces to my ES82 30mm and Mars' companion became clearer. The Lagoon nebula sat clearly in the field of view with Mars. Even with  the low position of both, it was an impressive sight. I switched to my 40mm Aero eyepiece which enhanced the view even further, thanks to the large exit pupil through the filter. It then occurred to me that the Triffid may also be possible. It wasn't clear with the UHC so I tried an OIII. The red planet became the turquoise planet. The Triffid was still very difficult to spot. I returned to enjoying the Lagoon and Mars on their own. The Lagoon responding magnificently to the OIII filter. 

Looking up, I spotted the crescent moon had now risen and looked stunning with earthshine. A little while later, Jupiter joined the parade. The two planets and Moon sat in a line across the sky. Ganymede was the only one of Jupiter's moons  that could be seen at the eyepiece in the early dawn sky. Around 6:15 AM, I returned indoors for a quick snooze before work. A lovely start to the day.

 

[mikeDnight]

That's a wonderful report and a kick up my rear to get moving sooner in the morning. I did look out around 4am but it was quite cloudy and went back to bed. It's easy to chicken out when there's the slightest excuse! ☺

[Littleguy80]

32 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

That's a wonderful report and a kick up my rear to get moving sooner in the morning. I did look out around 4am but it was quite cloudy and went back to bed. It's easy to chicken out when there's the slightest excuse! ☺

Thanks Mike. I’ll admit that I could have gone out the previous night but I choose my warm bed instead 😉 It was a lovely session this morning though and well worth the effort of getting up  

[RobertI]

Nice early morning session and a very lucky alignment of objects, must have looked wonderful.