Galaxies from the suburbs

[PeterW]

Don’t seem to get many reports on here, so here’s one. After getting my old 8”f4 out on the EQ6 recently, replacing the focusser and a few other niggles it was  time to give it a go again.

SQM about 19, but I have a few dazzly LED lights nearby that are hard to escape, I have a foot long flocked dew shield to reduce their impact. 

Leaving the lens cap on the StarSense delayed things somewhat! After the last session I was keen to measure the field of view to estimate the focal ratio I was working at. I have a 1.25” 0.5x reducer close to the NV system giving some reduction, looks to be about f2.5 for a 2degree field of view. I was using a 685nm long pass filter to further beat the local pollution.

I’d made a list of “bright and reasonable sized” stuff from Interstellarum. Given my crappy location galaxies are objects that I mainly give a miss, so see how we get on with them....

M81/2 made a great paring, M82 with 2 little bright and a dark mark along its length.

ngc 4027 whale, with pup visible, the nearby “hockey stick” have me the slip.

Markarians  chain was interesting, picking up additional fuzzies extending beyond the field, I was using skysafari to note which ones were visible (should have spent longer in this area).

M65/6/ngc3628 a nice grouping.

Galactic nuclei showing as slightly fuzzy stars with varying degrees of elongation. There are some great edge on galaxies up there, like the sombrero and NGC4244. Globular clusters are dazzling as M13/92/3 showed.

Overall total about 50 objects (those that I identified! (happy to provide a list, but make for a long report), in several fields I used sky safari to help me find other objects or to confirm things I thought I could spot.

I gave up at 1AM as I couldn’t  afford a lie in. Good to test things out and see that they’re working nicely.

 

Peter

 

[Stu]

A very productive evening Peter! Nice report, thanks. Shows the benefits of EEVA, can’t see much in terms of galaxies with assistance from here as you know.

[PeterW]

Can’t wait for the nebulae to come back again. Just need a big battery and the setup would be transportable.

Peter

[Highburymark]

Great session by the sounds of it Peter. An 8” F/4 sounds ready made for night vision- didn’t know you had such a large scope. Agree that the 685nm filter is superb for chasing star targets at this time of year.

[PeterW]

8” big, had a 16” dob once! It’s an imaging newtonian, so comes with free focus in travel that just seems well designed for the reducer I am using... no huge long stack poking out the scope. All the Goto spot on, sort of cheating....

 

peter

[Highburymark]

19 hours ago, PeterW said:

8” big, had a 16” dob once! It’s an imaging newtonian, so comes with free focus in travel that just seems well designed for the reducer I am using... no huge long stack poking out the scope. All the Goto spot on, sort of cheating....

 

peter

We may require pics next time please.....

[PeterW]

4 hours ago, Highburymark said:

We may require pics next time please.....

Of the scope or the objects... Gav is the master of taking pics down the eyepiece...

Peter

[alanjgreen]

On 16/04/2020 at 19:11, PeterW said:

Leaving the lens cap on the StarSense delayed things somewhat!

Great report Peter.

I remember that I used to fail to remember to take the starsense cap off on occasions too. Makes me chuckle now, dont think it did at the time 😀

Alan

[Highburymark]

On 17/04/2020 at 21:11, PeterW said:

Of the scope or the objects... Gav is the master of taking pics down the eyepiece...

Peter

Of the scope. Always interested in seeing different NV set ups.

[PeterW]

Here goes, dark of course and poor phone flash. Running prime focus avoids the “long pokey” thing hanging off the focusser. (Why does the upload rotate stuff!)

 

Peter

[Highburymark]

Looks excellent - although nebulae thin on the ground it’s nice not to freeze to death during late night sessions at this time of year