Coloured doubles and open clusters

[Stu]

The skies were very good last night, and I had hoped to get home on time and get setup before bathing duties kicked off in order to have a decent view of the Moon and Venus conjunction. Unfortunately an overturned van on the M25 put paid to that idea, and I was left to admire it whilst sitting, engine off, on the motorway.

Once home finally, I got setup and did manage a very quick look through the scopes at both objects, lovely earthshine showing and clear phase on Venus (just edited that as it said shade, and I didn't see shade. Blooming spell checker!) I then had to break off, returning after dinner for a couple of hours.

The seeing was actually not bad, not the best but not disastrous either. I found a good observing list on Skysafari which I had uploaded some time ago called Coloured Doubles, and decided to work through a few of those. Very nice they were too! It's very easy to select the list you want and higher the objects then pick them off on the star map. The AZ100 makes life very easy; the scopes are now accurately aligned thanks to the adjustment plate and it is a quick job to push the scopes around the sky to the next target, then use the slow motion controls to keep it centred. Using just the Nexus II is actually just as easy as aligning with the Nexus DSC, doesn't matter where the scope starts, just align on two stars and away you go. With the mount levelled properly I found it very accurate all over the sky.

I largely stuck to Cassiopeia, Cancer and Orion, and really enjoyed the contrasting colours. The tighter ones I observed through the Vixen FL102S with the Nag Zoom, whilst the wider ones looked better in the Genesis with the 24mm at low power.

I also caught the Tegmine triplet, conditions just good enough to split the tighter pair.

Finally I did a whirl around various open clusters, enjoying the likes of M44 and M45 through the Genesis and the smaller ones in Cassiopeia and Auriga through the Vixen. I have reacquired a Leica Zoom which gives and excellent and very useable range of magnification on these clusters.

An enjoyable few hours with nice sky and a couple of lovely old scopes.

 

[alan potts]

Nice report Stu, clear here too but too windy, that in itself is strange, not something we get often.

Alan

[Captain Scarlet]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

... I have reacquired a Leica Zoom ...

Is that a Leica astro-dedicated zoom Stu, or a spotting-scope eyepiece with special 1.25" adapter? I have a Leica spotting scope and zoom eyepiece, and am dying to use it on my scopes, but the adapters seem very hard to come by!

M

[Stu]

3 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Is that a Leica astro-dedicated zoom Stu, or a spotting-scope eyepiece with special 1.25" adapter? I have a Leica spotting scope and zoom eyepiece, and am dying to use it on my scopes, but the adapters seem very hard to come by!

M

It's the 25 to 50x ASPH Zoom Magnus, for spotting scopes but with an adaptor.

This is the eyepiece.

http://apm-telescopes-englisch.shopgate.com/item/33383037

It works out around 8.9mm to 17.9mm equivalent ranging from 80 degree afov at high power down to 60 degree at low power. It fills quite a range of requirements for me in one eyepiece which is great. With a Barlow it acts as an excellent planetary eyepiece.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/302297-leica-zoom-25x-50x-asph-178-89mm/

I will try mine with my AP barcon next time out to up the power.

I'll drop you a PM separately, may be able to assist!

[RobertI]

Nice session Stu, what a lovely setup too. Tegmine is also on my list of doubles for the next session, the tighter of the pair looks pretty close, but I’m having trouble getting an accurate figure from my resources; SkySafari says 0.8” as of 2005 but widening, another source says 1.0” as of 2008 but widening, so I am assuming it must be between around 1.2” ish and 1.4” ish by now?

Edit: after a bit more rooting around, seems like it’s reached a maximum separation of around 1.1”,so that’s a good split to have bagged. 

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by RobertI

[Stu]

14 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Nice session Stu, what a lovely setup too. Tegmine is also on my list of doubles for the next session, the tighter of the pair looks pretty close, but I’m having trouble getting an accurate figure from my resources; SkySafari says 0.8” as of 2005 but widening, another source says 1.0” as of 2008 but widening, so I am assuming it must be between around 1.2” ish and 1.4” ish by now?

Thanks Robert, yes I'm very happy with the setup, just need to not sell anything for a while now so I don't mess it up! The combination of high power and widefield is really nice.

Skysafari 6 Pro lists the tighter pair at 1.1" which seemed about right based on what I saw last night. Pretty tight, but doable with the 4" in good conditions. Tightest back in 1989 ish at 0.6" and nearly at its widest currently, but should stay at this kind of separation for a few years.

[RobertI]

Thanks Stu, I can see now that I should ignore the description in SS and go by the orbital view. 👍

Edited February 28, 2020 by RobertI

[Stu]

42 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Thanks Stu, I can see now that I should ignore the description in SS and go by the orbital view. 👍

Yes, I think that is best. I never read the description page but always look at the data page which I think gets updated.

[cotterless45]

Super report , Tegmine is a special sight . Compares very well to Beta Mon. For a super view try the bright star( 15 Monocerotis)  base of the Christmas tree cluster NGC 2264. 

Super sky here last night , get out there and grab some 

clear skies ! Nick.

 

[wookie1965]

I had cloud cover again nice report Stu glad someone got out.