3 Nights of the Trapezium. E & F duck broken!

[Captain Scarlet]

1^st Jan 2021 - Skymax 180 on Ayo2. Near-full Moon.

The forecast was good for New Year’s Day’s night, although a 98% Moon was likely to dictate things. The forecast for the following week+ was very good, so I thought I’d get into the groove in spite of Her, and give my Skymax’s new Feathertouch focuser its first outing. It was also a first opportunity to use my new encoder-unit for the Ayo2 with my Nexus DSC. And another first: my very first use of a Bahtinov Mask, brand new in packet despite being amongst the very first batch of stuff I thought I needed when starting out back in 2017. It really works! And such big bright spikes! (such big teeth Mr Wolf!)

The Nexus-DSC/Ayo2 was a joy to use, and it dawned on me (sorry I’ve headed off on a tangent…) that the “go-to” “push-to” etc is all about, and only about, initially acquiring the target. Once you’ve got it, whether you’re tracking or nudging, it’s thereafter easy (I speak as a pure observer). I had been afraid, skeptical even, about “nudging” to keep something in view, but having done just that now with this manual mount, I’ve lost that fear and as you more experienced observers have written many times, it’s not an obstacle to worthwhile observing at all. Also, the Nexus DSC’s pre-sets allow for multiple, up to 6 I think, mount settings, with an instant switch between separate direction-arrow-rules and encoder resolutions.

Anyway, sorry, back onto track. I attempted the Trapezium with the Skymax, namely the E and F stars, but I had no luck no matter how hard I stared. I had still yet to see them at all. So I simply used the Nexus’ “Tour” facility to scroll through any interesting objects within 10 degrees. I enjoyed many decent doubles in Orion, though I should have noted them, as some I would like to revisit. I need to start note-taking. Even sketching actually, given what's to come (read below).

I spent some time on the Moon too, which seemed stable enough even at more than 300x, so perhaps the E & F stars need less ambient glare.

3^rd Jan 2021 - 12” OO Newt on AZ-EQ6. Trapezium.

2^nd Jan was cloudy in the end, but 3^rd was looking good. I did 2 sessions divided by dinner, and the night was all about Trapezium E & F stars. This time I had the big 12” Skywatcher metal-tube newt on my AZ-EQ6 and Planet. The Moon wasn’t due up until nearly 10pm so I had a bit of dark-time to play with.

Before dinner, a quick look at Rigel and Alnitak showed 2 kaleidoscopes. Never mind Sirius. So the seeing was terrible, and this manifested in again a complete failure to spot the Trapezium E & F.

Inside for dinner.

Coming back out, I spotted them immediately! Weh-heh! There they were! My first time! The seeing was much better less bad. E and F were by no means pristine, and they came and went, but they were definitely there, E much easier than F, and not unlike a tiny version of Ludwig’s Star offset between Mizar and Alcor.

My current 12” “rig” comprises an OO mirror which replaced my SW mirror, but with increased FL by 90mm. Plus a Paracorr 2 which further requires extra out-focus. The combination of the two resulted in a huge cantilever sticking out the side of the tube (I have a re-delineated Carbon tube on the way) and it occurred to me that this might “droop”, given the crudeness of the steel tube, thereby throwing collimation off. Up to then I’d been collimating with the laser right in the focuser, then sticking the whole stack back in. I decided to collimate this time with the laser at the end of the stack, and sure enough it was quite different from before!

The re-collimation made a difference: the E and F were significantly cleaner afterwards. However a quick look at Mars and the Moon (up by now) showed the seeing was still not good.

In these rather dark skies, 21.4 before Moon tonight, and with 12 inches of aperture, M42’s nebulosity around the  Trapezium was incredible. Not just veiled versus not-veiled, but smooth contoured varying strands, like cream in coffee, and through the gaps deep black. Wonderful. What it must be like through a truly big dob! I did notice something weird though. If, using 100x or 180x magnification I looked away a bit to the East of the 4 main stars, I could see all this amazing nebulosity and the contrasts quite plainly. But the moment I moved my eye to look directly at the Trapezium, all the black would suddenly “fill in” to become the same lighter shade as the nebulosity. In other words all my subtle contrast would simply disappear, like a switch. On or off just by looking at or away.

I spent most of the session on the Trapezium. I did briefly also try for the Flame Nebula, and noticed nothing. I managed to split Alnitak though, which was nice.

5^th Jan 2021 - 12” again. Mag 21.51. Trapezium Again.

I set up late afternoon, a sparkling night in prospect, and headed inside to dinner. When I came back out, so had the clouds! There was a clear patch towards Polaris and the Great Bear, so hoping the cover might somehow disappear, I collimated (barlowed-laser, the paracorr acting as barlow, and refined using my new technique and diy tool) and aligned on Polaris and Dubhe.

By now the bright patch had increased in size and I could see an end to the cloud-band in the direction-of-weather, NE. Superb, it looked as if it might be clear after all. I quickly took in M51, lower down than I had remembered, and in the only nearby bit of light-pollution so I quickly moved on to M81 & 82, both nice, but not my intended for tonight. That was, for a change, the Trapezium! And maybe, conditions permitting, the Flame and the Horsehead.

The sky had almost completely cleared and it was beautifully clear. Seeing seemed not bad too, with Sirius actually stable and round, in fact the best I’ve ever seen it; though try as I might I could not find the Pup. The star was above the one house in that direction (think heat plume) and having checked where the Pup ought to be, it was going to be directly beneath a diffraction spike and I wasn’t about to rotate the scope in its rings. I tried for the Pup several times during the night, but no joy.

Whereas my main target for the night, once again the Trapezium, was MUCH clearer than two nights ago. Before, the E and F stars were definitely there, but hazy and coming and going; tonight they were all pinpoint and stable at both 183x and 305x with my Delos 10 and 6mm. I spent ages admiring not just the stars but the sheer variable milkiness of the surrounding nebulosity. Furthermore, in my optimism and excitement, I thought why not try for the G or H? I did spend quite a while staring at where I knew G to be, but not a hint. If the E and F at mag 10 are just about discernible, mag 14 would’ve been all but impossible in all that nebulosity and close to the mag 5 and 6 C and D stars. I guess it’ll take a perfect night and more aperture and magnification. Another problem was that although seeing wasn’t bad, there was a bit of wind and every time it got stable enough, another little gust would come through and shake things up a bit. Big 12” tube on Alt-Az mount.

I’ve read somewhere that if you can see the Flame Nebula, then the “Horsehead is ON!”. Well I could see the Flame, quite distinctly, in the DeLite 18.2 at 100x, so I instructed my Nexus to take me to Barnard 33 (Horsehead). Using averted imagination I could perhaps think there might have been a slightly darker shaped patch where I was looking, but I don’t think so. Another day.

Finally, as I was slewing around the supposed-Horsehead area looking for it, suddenly an exquisite collection of stars streamed across and I just had to stop and go back. Not just a nice collection, but captivating. It also occurred to me a moment later that it was the very same collection of stars that that evil man @Stu used 3-4 years ago to infect me with Refractoritis by showing the same to me through his Tak. It was, of course, Sigma Orionis, and the view of it this night was literally arresting. So sweet and pinpoint.

At around midnight at -3C and a NE breeze, my feet eventually drove me inside.

Sorry I’ve gone on and on again but I have re-lived the experiences just recounting all this.

Cheers, Magnus

[GordonD]

Thanks for this - a lovely report.

I had a brief first look this year at M42 a coupe of days before Christmas with a new 12 inch dob and I too managed to get the F star for the first time! Previously have picked up the E fairly regularly in a SW 120ED, but never had a definite yes on F before. Visibility for the pair does seem to be very dependent on the conditions, doesn't it?

Anyway glad someone has had some clear skies! 

[John]

Great report Magnus

You may well have seen the Horsehead - it has been very, very indistinct when I've managed to spot it with my 12 inch and that was with the help of an Hb filter.

Certainly nothing horse shaped about my experiences of it !

 

[John]

Your report has inspired me to get my 12 inch dob out tonight .

Surprise clear sky here without a moon. E & F Trapezium and a lot of other stuff looking lovely

 

[Captain Scarlet]

5 minutes ago, John said:

Your report has inspired me to get my 12 inch dob out tonight .

Surprise clear sky here without a moon. E & F Trapezium and a lot of other stuff looking lovely

 

Superb. Would be interesting to see if anyone else gets that “on-off” of the nebulosity when looking at and away from the Trapezium

[Epick Crom]

Nice report 👍 Glad you got to see the E and F stars in the Trapezium!

[Captain Scarlet]

There’s been some talk on SGL lately about messier and how his list came to be. There was discussion about M1 and how it’s not the easiest of his list. So with unexpected clear sky tonight I set myself the goal of trying to find it. I’d only set up my 6” Intes Mak, not the 12”, so I wasn’t too hopeful.

But I found it very quickly, rather a bright large smudge with my Pan 24, sitting on the left edge of an upside-down kite, as seen through the eyepiece. No real detail though, but I expect that to change when I bring my 12” to bear.

Chuffed, it’s another “tick” for me.

M