Making the most of the darkness.

[Orange Smartie]

At 52 degrees North, like most of us on the forum, I'm rapidly running out of darkness.  I had hoped for a long session last week, only to be frustrated by clouds within about 20 minutes of starting.  Last night promised to be much less changeable and so I was outside with my stuff by about 10.45pm, hoping to have the Heritage 150p nicely cooled and everything properly setup ready for the onset of proper darkness after 11.30.

Galaxies were out of the question in the half-light, so I tried my hand at some doubles in Hercules:

Kappa Herculis (Marsic) split easily at 30x, the primary being of a yellowy/white and the secondary more orangey, to my eye.

Rho Herculis was a much tighter pair, needing my 5mm eyepiece (150x) to resolve into two similar white stars.

Mu Herculis was a very easy split (over 30 arcseconds), but with a very dim secondary.

Finally, off to Rasalgethi (Alpha Herculis), which needed my 150x to separate cleanly into a yellowy/orange primary and a greenish secondary.  

 

By this point the sky was somewhat darker and many more stars visible, so I thought I'd have a go at some galaxies.  First stop was the Leo Triplet - a group that is very easy to locate and which would give me an indication of how good the sky conditions were likely to be.  These three were very easy to see, including the "hamburger", which benefitted from a bit of averted vision to see properly.

Encouraged by this, I headed over to Vindemiatrix in Virgo, to track down some of the many galaxies therein.  This caused some issues, because (and I realise that this is a heresy), I don't find the Turn Left at Orion page on this subject to be particularly helpful.  After floundering around for a bit trying to mentally cope with the change of orientation between telescope and chart, I finally hit on M60, from which I was able to follow the string of galaxies through NGC 4638, M59, M58 to M89.  At this point I got somewhat lost and couldn't quite orientate myself to find M90 - this area of the sky would probably benefit from a little planning in advance so that I have all the guideposts in place.  I was aware of multiple fuzzy shapes in the background in addition to the galaxies numbered above, so I can see that it is an incredibly rich area of the night sky.

To finish, I headed to Ursa Major to see M81 and M82 - the clearest I have seen them, detoured briefly to M13 to admire this ball of stars at 150x - then nipped back to Polaris to admire this mismatched double.

Pete

Edited May 11, 2021 by Orange Smartie

[Kon]

Excellent report and well done on finding all these galaxies before we lose the darkness.

[Zermelo]

A nice session, Pete.

I agree that the Virgo section in Turn Left is quite involved, and unusual in that you are hopping galaxies rather than stars. It took me three sessions to cover it.

[Epick Crom]

Good report Pete. Interesting to read your sky only darkens at 11:30pm? I can't imagine that. Over here it's getting darker earlier but it's also the rainy season😵

Edited May 11, 2021 by Epick Crom

[Orange Smartie]

2 hours ago, Epick Crom said:

Good report Pete. Interesting to read your sky only darkens at 11:30pm? I can't imagine that. Over here it's getting darker earlier but it's also the rainy season😵

Yep, astronomical darkness from 23:44 tonight, and then it starts getting lighter from 2:18.

And it's always the rainy season!

[Pixies]

The forecast from earlier today: <crying face>

[SuburbanMak]

9 hours ago, Orange Smartie said:

At 52 degrees North, like most of us on the forum, I'm rapidly running out of darkness.  I had hoped for a long session last week, only to be frustrated by clouds within about 20 minutes of starting.  Last night promised to be much less changeable and so I was outside with my stuff by about 10.45pm, hoping to have the Heritage 150p nicely cooled and everything properly setup ready for the onset of proper darkness after 11.30.

Galaxies were out of the question in the half-light, so I tried my hand at some doubles in Hercules:

Kappa Herculis (Marsic) split easily at 30x, the primary being of a yellowy/white and the secondary more orangey, to my eye.

Rho Herculis was a much tighter pair, needing my 5mm eyepiece (150x) to resolve into two similar white stars.

Mu Herculis was a very easy split (over 30 arcseconds), but with a very dim secondary.

Finally, off to Rasalgethi (Alpha Herculis), which needed my 150x to separate cleanly into a yellowy/orange primary and a greenish secondary.  

 

By this point the sky was somewhat darker and many more stars visible, so I thought I'd have a go at some galaxies.  First stop was the Leo Triplet - a group that is very easy to locate and which would give me an indication of how good the sky conditions were likely to be.  These three were very easy to see, including the "hamburger", which benefitted from a bit of averted vision to see properly.

Encouraged by this, I headed over to Vindemiatrix in Virgo, to track down some of the many galaxies therein.  This caused some issues, because (and I realise that this is a heresy), I don't find the Turn Left at Orion page on this subject to be particularly helpful.  After floundering around for a bit trying to mentally cope with the change of orientation between telescope and chart, I finally hit on M60, from which I was able to follow the string of galaxies through NGC 4638, M59, M58 to M89.  At this point I got somewhat lost and couldn't quite orientate myself to find M90 - this area of the sky would probably benefit from a little planning in advance so that I have all the guideposts in place.  I was aware of multiple fuzzy shapes in the background in addition to the galaxies numbered above, so I can see that it is an incredibly rich area of the night sky.

To finish, I headed to Ursa Major to see M81 and M82 - the clearest I have seen them, detoured briefly to M13 to admire this ball of stars at 150x - then nipped back to Polaris to admire this mismatched double.

Pete

Great report and thanks for the Hercules Doubles - these look ideal for a garden session for me one night!

I've been wrestling the same problem in Virgo & Coma B. recently I've been working up from a series of little asterisms SW of Vindemiatrix for the group up to M84 & M86. 

For my last session I worked from a fairly wide almost equilateral triangle formed by Porrima, Vindemiatrix and Omicron Virginis. Even then I ended up getting lost more times than not!  

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[Voyager 3]

9 hours ago, Pixies said:

The forecast from earlier today: <crying face>

Don't worry mate 😭