Supposed to be a quick Mars session...

[IB20]

After seeing some Mars images on Twitter I decided to get my scope cooling. Going straight for Mars, he initially looked a bit washed out and plain with the moon’s bright glow but after 5 mins of being outside I started to get my eye in. After a few eyepiece changes I’d nailed down the sweet spot and the 8mm BST with variable polariser was stunning. A tiny sharp 2 o’clock south polar cap and clear central and northerly low albedo segments were brilliantly visible whilst drifting across the eyepiece. 
 

After soaking in the views, I remembered reading about asteroid (8) Flora in the Sky at Night. Looking on Sky Safari it showed as being close to Kaffaljidhma in Cetus. I located yellow Menkar, which along with the blue of 93 Ceti looked absolutely brilliant. Scrolling across to Gamma Ceti, I found the point of light that SkySafari highlighted as 8 Flora. Not much to look at but pretty astonishing that I’m looking at a large asteroid in our solar system, I plan to keep viewing over the next few nights when possible to see how much it moves along the night sky.

Then Capella caught my eye, so I had a quick gander around Auriga, and particularly Pi Aurigae which was a fantastic deep orange colour. Checking SkySafari I could see that IC 2149 planetary nebula was near my sights, and after some triangulation I could make out a faint diffuse blue blob and star, but the moon’s brightness was making it real difficult to pop out.

No viewing night is complete without me having a look at Uranus, I can’t help myself. I’m getting good at finding it now and the pale aqua disc didn’t disappoint. I barlowed my 8mm for 300x and watched it drift across my eyepiece changing from a white aqua to deep turquoise at the EP edge, just fantastic. I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of one of its moons but I could only make out 3 nearby stars of 10.1, 10.9 and 12 mag. One day I’ll see a moon!

I finished up with a few more minutes on Mars and packed up. Then I saw Orion was up and I could get at M42 with my 15 x 70 bins. Since being a kid I’ve been able to identify Orion but I’ve never looked at it through scope or bins until now. Wow, it did not disappoint what a fantastic sight, I was half tempted to get the scope back out and wait a while but I’ve work tomorrow 😭. So the Orion Nebula through a scope will have to wait...
 

Not bad for just a quick Mars session eh?!

[IB20]

Oh and now I’ve seen M42 through the bins, I look at it naked eye and it’s obvious! 😅

[RobertI]

Great report and an interesting selection of objects. 👍 

[Nik271]

7 hours ago, IB20 said:

Oh and now I’ve seen M42 through the bins, I look at it naked eye and it’s obvious! 😅

Indeed! Which makes is very strange that Galileo did not record M42 in his observations even though he saw  the four stars of the Trapezium. He must have used too way much magnification. Or perhaps he cared more about stars and not nebulae, which must have been completely unknown at the time.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Lovely report!

[Mand1]

Inspirational report.

Can I ask what scope and how long it cooled for? Where did you look from, dark sit or back garden, and lastly what time of night?

Thanks

Mand

[IB20]

1 hour ago, Mand1 said:

Inspirational report.

Can I ask what scope and how long it cooled for? Where did you look from, dark sit or back garden, and lastly what time of night?

Thanks

Mand

Thanks. My scope is the 200P Skywatcher Dob, I probably cooled it for about 45-50 mins but 30 mins is usually fine. I've only viewed from my back garden so far, which is somewhere between bortle 6-7 but the moon was 91% and extremely bright. Session started at 10pm and I packed up at midnight so there were still a few house lights on, my own included. Some of the best advice I've ever received from this forum was not to get too dark adapted for planetary viewing, which has really helped in my experience. I did check my collimation with a star test too and it seemed to be spot on which I'm quite proud about as I've only just learned how to do it. 

[Mand1]

Thanks for that info.

Ive got same size dob. Think I need to cool scope for longer, and need to go out much later to see what you saw. Local conditions permitting. 

Mand

 

[IB20]

40 minutes ago, Mand1 said:

Thanks for that info.

Ive got same size dob. Think I need to cool scope for longer, and need to go out much later to see what you saw. Local conditions permitting. 

Mand

 

On Monday the seeing was rotten but it was decent last night for Mars. Can’t stress how much the variable polariser helps, need to kill a fair bit of brightness before the features are visible.

[Kyle Allen]

Nice report, thanks for posting. I have the same scope as you and it impresses me every time I use it! I hope you get to look at the Orion Nebula through it soon. It really is stunning!

Asteroid (8) Flora is new to me so I’ll have to check it out next time I’m observing. 👍