LZOS 130mm Sky Tour - 25th Feb 2022

[Stu]

With forecast clear skies for Friday and Saturday night, I had to make a choice between the two. Knowing I had an early start on Sunday pretty much decided it in favour of Friday from the start.

Next choice was between one scope I haven’t used yet, the 16” dob, and another I’ve not used much the 130mm LZOS. Checking the forecast I suspected that the transparency may not be fantastic on Friday night, and I really want to look at galaxies with the 16”, so LZOS it was.

One aim for the session was to give the AZ100 tracking motor kit a good work out, so I set this up, on the Planet tripod at the bottom of my garden with scope level and point South, and waited for darkness.

There are a couple of ways of aligning the mount and I tried both. First is in the web app that controls the mount (and also facilitates firmware upgrades. You put the scope facing south and level, then turn on the controller. You then search for a star, select it, push the scope to the star, centre it and press Star 1 align. Then search for another star, this time press Goto and the mount points where it think it should be. Centre it and press Star 2 align and you are done. You can then open SkySafari and connect, and the position syncs automatically.

The second, slightly easier way is just to turn on with the scope in the home position, turn the motors on in the web app, open SkySafari and connect. It syncs with the South, level position and you can just align on a star in SkySafari and it works straight away. Once aligned, the mount worked perfectly and targets were always in the field of view. Slews were quiet and quick.

With the benefit of Goto I was able to get through a large number of objects. The poor transparency meant that galaxies were quite muted and with little detail apart from the shape, but I was still pleased to be able to see quite a few.

This will just be a bit of a list of objects to show what I got through, with the odd description here and there for things that stood out to me.

Galaxies

Coccoon

Whale - this was a nice one, kinda looks like a whale I guess 🤣

Sunflower

Blackeye - no dust Lane seen unfortunately 

M65/66 - just the two brighter galaxies seen, no NGC 3268

M95/96/105 - I was surprised to get all three of these

M60

M106

M84/86 - I searched a bit, but no others from Makarian’s chain

M81/82 - good ones these two, didn’t disappoint

M51 - two cores and nice haloes surrounding them.

M108 really faint this one, just on the limit with with AV

NGC 4449

NGC 4925

NGC 2903

 

Open Clusters

NGC 7788/7790

M44/M67 - beautiful as expected, 44 filled the fov with a 13mm Ethos

M35/36/37/38/NGC1907 - love these clusters, each with a very different character

NGC 2264 Christmas Tree cluster

Caroline’s Rose - beautiful as always, fine chains of stars

NGC 457/663/103

Stock 2

NGC 869/884 Double Cluster

 

Globs

M3 - faintly resolved around the edges

M53

 

Nebulae

M42

NGC 2392 Eskimo Nebula

 

Doubles

Polaris

Rigel

Beta Mon - beautifully resolved

Zeta Cancri (Tegmine)- spent quite a while looking at this one. Again, beautifully resolved airy disks and looked stunning, the tighter pair clearly split at both x222 with 3.5XW and x312 with TOE 2.5mm

Alnitak

Algieba

Mizar

Sirius - no, of course I didn’t split this!!

32 Orionis - clear split

52 Orionis - clear split

The Trapezium showed E clearly and F intermittently with the better seeing.

All in all a great few hours observing, more than I’ve seen in a long time. With darker skies and better transparency it would have been fab. Need to get this lot into the car and down nearer the coast.

[paulastro]

That sounds like a great session  Stu, thanks for sharing it.

[jetstream]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

M108 really faint this one, just on the limit with with AV

Great haul Stu!

M108, great catch. This one can be a frustrating object and is a good test of skies. Spent lots of time here and the near area.

[GavStar]

Stu, good to see the lzos getting used

Interesting that you couldn’t get the hamburger galaxy (3268). Gerry recently said the dark lane in this galaxy is reasonably tough to see. I always thought this one wasn’t that tough an object - it’s got me thinking a bit…

I had some great views of Markarian’s chain with my c11 from Ranmore Common last week, at least 7 galaxies in the fov but that was using my night vision monoculars. The whirlpool also showed its arms clearly which was cool.

Edited March 6, 2022 by GavStar

[Stu]

2 hours ago, GavStar said:

I always thought this one wasn’t that tough an object

I guess there is tough visually, or tough with NV….?

Best view I had of Markarian’s chain was at SGL10 in my 16”. Got really well dark adapted and the galaxies were stunning.

[GavStar]

5 hours ago, Stu said:

I guess there is tough visually, or tough with NV….?

Best view I had of Markarian’s chain was at SGL10 in my 16”. Got really well dark adapted and the galaxies were stunning.

It’s a bit off topic I admit but your observing report did get my brain whirring! 😀

Night vision is generally thought of as being best on emission nebulae and globulars, and not that good on galaxies. However, reading some of these galaxy observing reports, I think nv does give a big improvement on many galaxies, particularly edge on. For example, the dark lane of the Hamburger galaxy is quite straightforward with nv. And the spiral arms of m51 were significantly better when I did a direct comparison with my 16 inch dob at the Isle of Wight of glass vs nv eyepieces. Admittedly getting good image scale on galaxies with nv can be tricky and require largish aperture. 

[Deadlake]

13 hours ago, GavStar said:

Stu, good to see the lzos getting used

Interesting that you couldn’t get the hamburger galaxy (3268). Gerry recently said the dark lane in this galaxy is reasonably tough to see. I always thought this one wasn’t that tough an object - it’s got me thinking a bit…

I had some great views of Markarian’s chain with my c11 from Ranmore Common last week, at least 7 galaxies in the fov but that was using my night vision monoculars. The whirlpool also showed its arms clearly which was cool.

The galaxies where pretty clear and it was quite light polluted at SQM 20.09.

Great contrast allowing the outside structure of the galaxy to be seen. 
 

Is a C11 minimum aperture for these types of objects?

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Deadlake said:

The galaxies where pretty clear and it was quite light polluted at SQM 20.09.

Great contrast allowing the outside structure of the galaxy to be seen. 
 

Is a C11 minimum aperture for these types of objects?

Clear in what scope, with or without NV?

[Deadlake]

10 hours ago, Stu said:

Clear in what scope, with or without NV?

Being able to resolve spiral arms structure, not just a point of light. 

i.e. in a C11 EdgeHD with an NVD I can see the spiral structure of the galaxy. 

[Stu]

26 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

Being able to resolve spiral arms structure, not just a point of light. 

i.e. in a C11 EdgeHD with an NVD I can see the spiral structure of the galaxy. 

Trouble is, this thread is not about NV and this becomes confusing for anyone reading it. There are skills/techniques to drawing out detail in galaxies which aren’t needed when viewing with with NV so it’s best to keep these discussions separate. They don’t resolve as points of light, the appear as distinct shapes in my experience, and with darker skies/more aperture detail is possible.

I’ve viewed through NV a number of times, a couple of these ‘driving’ myself including in a 14” dob so know what they are capable of.

I didn’t know you had a C11?

[Deadlake]

3 hours ago, Stu said:

I didn’t know you had a C11?

I was looking thru @GavStar. 

The C11 is most likely my next scope, my garden has too much of an incline for a Dob, and the C11 would work well with an AZ100.

[Ships and Stars]

Great haul and variety of targets Stu, I saw the Whale and Cocoon for the first time recently, they were wonderful! I'll have to try my hand at some doubles next time conditions are right (read: if I collimated correctly!)