January constellations shared and compared.

[cotterless45]

What a cracking night ! Calm with seeing that got better after midnight. Frosty down to minus 4.9C. Quite interesting to watch minor ups and downs on the digital thermometer. My guest , Patbloke arrived at a sensible 10pm. 🙄

I'd kicked off at 6 just spending hours on well placed Auriga. Some beautiful open clusters there and bounty of binaries. Just one look at M37 showed how good it was going to be. The sky was incredibly light, just got lighter as the night progressed. Particularly bad over the town to the south. 

Uranus gave a beautiful green pea disc at x 240. 5mm Vixen LVW in the C6rgave pin sharp gasps.

Auriga.

NGC 1893 , beautiful cluster holding the "spider" nebula, could not be caught.

NGC 2281 open triangle of delight, NGC 2240, a lozenge fish, NGC 1760 , a reverse question mark. Reminded me to get NGC 2169, the reverse 37 cluster in Orion's elbow.

Carbon glowing star of UU Aurigae (SAO 59280) kicked off a search for more colour with the winter Alberio of ι Cancri coming up later , what colours ! That's a steely sapphire blue !

ω (Omega) (SAO 57548) gave a yellow and blue. Theta opened out nicely with the tiny companion to the main. 14 Au.(57799) gave a triple with yellow and blue.

14 Aurigae gives a multiple quintet , not all related , but in the mix A, a cool white star with H fusion running out , 4.4 x sol diameter.

Gemini.

We enjoyed a cracking view of NGC 2392, the Eskimo nebula. A lovely hood at x240 and the reward of the central white dwarf. That's some sight, a lovely glow filling the view.

Cancer.

Iota Cancri.  What colour ! SAO 8041615.

57 Cancri gave a 1.5" split .

Then Zeta ( Tegmine) beautiful view teasing out the triple at x216. Reminded me to go to the triple β in Monoceros.  One of the finest in the sky . That kicked off a view to the fish hook triple of sigma Orionis. These triples lead to wandering searches.

Monoceros. 

A lovely view of "Hagrid's dragon " NGC 2301. More spectacular from dark skies with spread wings , tail and head.

M42 and some colour in the great nebula, surrounded by star groupings.

Lepus.

Tried for Hind's crimson , but very much washed out as was our visit to Keid in Eridanus.

Leo.

No galaxies , but colour from 54 Leonis (SAO 81583) giving yellow and blue. Surprising visit to those named stars, Denebola,Algieba and Regulus. 

 

Plenty more have slipped my mind . Wonderful company and great to forget troubled times. Nothing beats talking about your first car ( both had leaking minis) and the merits of Netflix, under shared and 

Clear skies !

Careful now , Nick. 

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by cotterless45

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Nick a fabulous read I'm going to copy those clusters and a couple of of those doubles and triples. 

I would of loved to have gone out last night I will get another night I know 

It's great to view with a friend you both can suggest objects. 

The company is always welcome on those cold nights  clear here until 11.30pm then clouded over despite saying clear all night. 

Let's hope for many more of these nights this year. 

[mapstar]

As always Nick a fantastic tour of the winter skies. Must catch hagrids dragon as I can't think as I've ever viewed it. 

Thanks for posting 

[Stu]

Great report Nick, not sure how I missed this some so thanks to @mapstar for flagging it up! 👍
 

How’s life in the tent?? 😱🤣

[cotterless45]

Pretty cool down to minus 4.5c. About the same as the SGL camp that year with the frozen rain and no ehu !

Gives great views of the clouds . Looked out one night and spotted a star ! careful now ! Nick.

[Stu]

9 minutes ago, cotterless45 said:

Pretty cool down to minus 4.5c. About the same as the SGL camp that year with the frozen rain and no ehu !

Gives great views of the clouds . Looked out one night and spotted a star ! careful now ! Nick.

How long till Mrs Nick let’s you back in the house? 😉

[Mr Spock]

Ah, what I wouldn't give for a 5mm LVW...