M3 - April 2006

[daz]

Observation reports here

[daz]

Monday 3rd April

Temp: 7 down to 0; Hum: 66% to 87%; LP: Window lights mainly; Gentle breeze; Seeing 7/10; Transparancy 7/10

Moon waxing crescent at 25%

Took a little while to locate it with the scope (easy in the bino’s), as there are not a great deal of bright neighbours to hop to it, and having to contort myself with the scope didn’t make it any easier! In the 2? 30mm, there was not much structure to be had, but using averted vision made it almost double in size! In that EP (2?, 30mm, 70 deg AFOV) I reckon it was 30 arcminutes in size.

Going through the powers, and again using averted vision, there were some tantalising glimpses of structure, finishing with the 20mm Meade 4000, the cluster filled well over half my FOV. However, I missed the extra aperture of my 8? newt at this point!!! Also, a moonless night at a dark site would make all the difference (not to mention being in a more comfortable position!)

A lovely cluster to look at, I can see why globular's are favoured by many. I shall review this again when the newt is back on the road and see what difference the extra light gathering power gives!

A full report of the night's observing can be found here

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

19/4/06

Got this with the SC3

200mm Skywatcher f/5 Newt on HEQ5 - no autoguide

27 x 4 seconds

Captain Chaos