Out with the Peashooter - 12th April 2021

[Stu]

The skies looked lovely here last night, but I was too tired to consider putting a large scope out. I at least wanted to have a little observe though, so opted for a very simple setup; the Zeiss Telementor on its Unitron AltAz mount. Eyepiece wise I mainly used a 24mm Panoptic and Nag Zoom for high power. In hindsight it would have been well worthwhile at least putting the Heritage 150 out but I didn’t think of that until too late. With 20-20 hindsight, it would have been a great night to do the comparison between the Tak and Heritage 130p or 150p for @Mark at Beaufort. Grrrrr, why does one never think of these things at the time?

The skies here are mag 19.1 SQM at best (about mag 5 NELM at the zenith), and they were probably not far off that last night, with reasonable transparency though not the best I’ve seen.

I started with the Auriga clusters, finding  M38 first by following the trail of stars which runs ‘upwards’ from between Elnath and Al Kab. Despite being quite large, this cluster was easy to miss still until I got my eye in. In the Telementor it appeared as a faint dusting of stars, with a hint of the arms that give it its Starfish name.

Panning across gave me M36, the Pinwheel Cluster which was easier due to its more compact nature. M37 proved a little harder to find, but a little star hopping got me there, and very nice it was too. It always amazes me just how different these three clusters are. M37 showed its bright orange star surrounded by an oval haze of fainter stars, more resolving with averted vision in the little scope.

Whilst there I thought I would pop across to M35 in Gemini. Much larger than the others, it was visible as a number of larger stars with a kind of haze of fainter ones not really resolved. Next up was the Eskimo Nebula. I wasn’t sure if this would be visible, but a short pan across from Wasat showed me a small fuzzy ‘star’ which was clearly it. Higher power enlarged it but it got very dim, but regardless it was good to catch. I did try a UHC filter but that was a step too far in terms of small exit pupil, very dim, although by shielding the stray light from my eyes I could see that the contrast was improved a bit.

A few of my favourite doubles next. Polaris looked beautiful. I sometimes struggle to catch the secondary with this aperture and the LP, but last night it showed very clearly with the 6mm setting on the Nag zoom giving x140. It would have shown at lower power too but I didn’t have a middling power eyepiece with me.

Algieba was equally (or should I say unequally? 🤪) beautiful. Two unequal yellow ‘balls’ very clearly separated at x140. The joy of these little scopes, for me, is that they show large airy disks which make stars and doubles appear beautifully resolved. Of course, physically the opposite is happening, in that you just cannot resolve tight doubles in the same way that you can with a larger aperture due to the lower resolution, but for me I enjoy the presentation of stars in these scopes.

Finally for doubles it was another old favourite Izar. Again, absolutely beautiful, with the secondary showing as a blue grey ‘gem’ slap bang on a lovely first diffraction ring. Really nice!

Finally finally.... I thought I would try to see if I could see a galaxy in this tiny scope under my skies. I could see Iota Leonis much more clearly than the other night, but M65 and 66 are just too faint. That left M81 and 82 which I was avoiding as they are awkwardly placed near the zenith (the Unitron mount is not so good at high elevations as the scope tends to drop backwards as the weight is positioned away from the axis of rotation). However, the reasonable transparency allowed me to see Upsilon and h Ursae Majoris and start my normal star hop to the small triangle of stars of Sigma 1 and 2, and Rho, then onto the little line of three stars with D UM and HR3838 at either end. From there, I quite easily got onto M81 and 82 which were clearly visible. No detail visible obviously, but the orientation was clear, and the finder line of M82 vs the more oval shape of M81 was clear. Pretty satisfying given the kit and skies!

Plenty I missed, should have at least looked at M44, doh! Anyway, a fun little night, with no dew which makes a nice change. Hopeful plenty of others for out with better skies and larger scopes, but we take what we can! Yet another ‘something and nothing’ report from me, but these nights, and writing them up, keep me going between better opportunities.

EDIT How could I forget M3! Whilst in the area for Izar, I hopped up to M3 for a look. No stars resolved obviously, but it showed as a fuzzy patch, brightening towards the centre. It seemed to show some sort of texture, but the limited aperture won’t allow more than that. Nice to see though.

EDIT 2! Actually, I started the session off by having a look at the Nova in Cass. It seems to me to be maintaining similar brightness, still clear and easy to find.

[John]

Nice report Stu

I assume the title should have read "12th April...." ?

Or is this a retrospective ?

 

[Stu]

Just now, John said:

Nice report Stu

I assume the title should have read "12th April...." ?

Or is this a retrospective ?

 

Thanks John. Indeed it was last night! Doh! Now changed 👍

[Stu]

Why sad @John????

[Littleguy80]

Great report, Stu. I’m not that big on double stars but really love Izar. Really good fun flying around a little scope