Monday 27th Sept: Nice Looking Skies - a Quick Ad Lib Session With the ST80

[MercianDabbler]

Last night was looking promising but there was some cloud around early on. I'm in the middle of making a new dovetail to allow ST80 (or even just the camera) to fit directly to the SP mount so decided to head for the shed and make some progress on that. Once I'd had enough of turning handles and chewing away aluminium I had another look at the sky and the clouds had gone so I decided to pop out with the ST80 in its usual grab and go mode for an hour or so before the moon came up. I had no real plan so it was just a case of looking at some familiar objects and a couple of forlorn hopes again.

First up was a quick visit to M31 (no bother there but never really stunning) and then a forlorn hope - M33 from my back garden. Unlike my previous session in Cornwall, I had the tablet and Stellarium so finding the spot was no problem but it was indeed a forlorn hope from home, even if the sky was looking good.

Another thing that I keep returning to is the double double, Epsilon Lyrae so I gave that another try. No joy with any of the longer eyepieces but I'd dug out my Meade S4000 6.4mm eyepiece for another try. This is not a favourite eyepiece so it doesn't get out much. It could just about split Epsilon 2. I then tried my 5mm BST Starguider which on this evening seemed to be able to produce a usable image. The Starguider could intermittently get a clean split of Epsilon 2. With Epsilon 1 I could not do better than a sausage shape. All in all this is the best I've done on the double double with the ST80. Naturally the SP102 can do rather better.

I then went back to M31 and spent a bit more time there. I've never really given much thought to the two smaller galaxies so decided to give that a go. Inspecting the nearby objects more closely one of them was noticeably fuzzy and Stellarium confirmed that this was the right spot for M32. I did not have any luck seeing M110 though.

The moon was starting to make its presence felt by now so I shifted leftwards for a scan around Perseus with the 32mm TV Plossl. The area below Mirfak caught my attention as being particularly 'busy' and attractive. I'm not sure what notable objects may or may not be there but it looked lovely anyway.

Finally I moved up to Cassiopeia, completely forgetting to stop by the double cluster on the way. For some reason I always feel like there is more to be had from Cass. I really should do some better homework but last night I had to content myself with a quick scan around the main stars, M103 being the only object that particularly drew my attention, looking fuzzy in the ST80. I suspect it would look less fuzzy in a bigger scope.

I packed up around 5 past eleven by which time I was feeling just a bit chilly and the moon was really starting to wash things out.

[Nik271]

Very nice! Cassiopeia is wonderful area with a widefield scope or binoculars. 'Turn left at Orion' has 2 chapters dedicated to it. The ET (Owl) cluster is my favourite there.

M33 would have been too close to the haze/light pollution on the horizon before 9pm and after that the rising Moon will have rendered it invisible. M33 is harder than M110 because it is a lot larger and with low surface brightness. I've seen them both with difficulty from SQM 20 sky but it takes a night of good transparency and no moon.

[MercianDabbler]

8 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Very nice! Cassiopeia is wonderful area with a widefield scope or binoculars. 'Turn left at Orion' has 2 chapters dedicated to it. The ET (Owl) cluster is my favourite there.

M33 would have been too close to the haze/light pollution on the horizon before 9pm and after that the rising Moon will have rendered it invisible. M33 is harder than M110 because it is a lot larger and with low surface brightness. I've seen them both with difficulty from SQM 20 sky but it takes a night of good transparency and no moon.

Thanks... I'll check out the Own. Definitely some homework needed on targets in Cass.

In other news I have managed to grab a bit more shed time so the new dovetail is finished. Now it is chucking it down so I don't want to be traipsing to and from the shed or using my scope.

[SuburbanMak]

Super report - love widefield observing with the ST80.