Session 4 for 2022

[Davesellars]

Session Report for 12th Jan.

Following last night's astronimical marathon of 7 hours observing I was a little tired but the dob was already out from that session and it's difficult to pass up a clear night!  However, at 8pm I could barely make out the constellations with the moon and transparency being awful. So I spent some time attempting to fix the 80ED focuser (can't seem to fix it this time round) which had slipped loose yet again and then typing up session 3 and planning some brighter objects to observe while waiting for the conditions to hopefully improve.

11pm and I was out - the moon was starting to lower a bit and would soon disappear behind rooftop.  The transparency was much better but far from brilliant.

7 Iris - Asteriod in Gemini - apparently mag 7.6 it was in slightly tricky place to locate but with the help of the 60mm finder I honed in on a closeby group of mag 9 - 11 stars in the dob using the 17.3mm Delos and pin-pointed the location exactly.  However, I can't say that I managed to see this.  The location of the asteriod I'd expect to be accurate in Sky Safari but if the asterioid was indeed mag 7.6 I wasn't sure why I couldn't see it as I'd expect the surface brightness not to be much of a factor. I used the Delos 17.3 and 10mm however after about 30 mins I gave up on this.  I'll have to give it another go perhaps when the moon is not such a factor.

NGC 2392 Eskimo nebula (Planetary) - Very bright and good relative size using the 10mm Delos the core showed very well with some surrounding nebulosity in perfect circle.

NGC 1857 Open cluster in Auriga - sparse cluster with 4 bright stars within lots of very low magnitude starts just visible with the 10mm Delos.

NGC 1907 Open cluster in Auriga - On the edge direct visibility for the most part but with averted vision able to make out individual mag 11 to 12 stars in the group.

M38 - Open cluster in Auriga - With the 10mm Delos showing an impressive amount of stars with the brighter ones making a cross like structure - can see why it's called the Starfish cluster!

IC 2149 - Planetary nebula in Auriga (mag 10.6) - Very small almost stellar like appearance. Using the 5mm Delos showed not much improvement however its size is only 0.2 arcmins.

I had a quick scan around Leo. The moon-light was too strong tonight to even see the M65 and M66. As it was already now 1:45am I decided to wrap up the session.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Davesellars

[wookie1965]

Great session and read thanks for posting.