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M35 and Satellites


MalcolmM

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Transparency was not great last night, I think that's the right description; it seemed there was high cloud and there were simply not many stars visible.

Anyway, I took @mikeDnight's advice from an earlier post and spent lots of time looking at and getting to know my current 4 favourite open clusters a bit better :) M35-38.

Anyway, while observing M35,  quite a bright satellite passed left to right (refractor view) just under it. About 10 seconds later another one passed on the exact same trajectory. Strange I thought :) I've never seen that before. And then another one, 10 seconds and same trajectory again. This happened twelve times! All on the exact same trajectory and all roughly 10 seconds apart. There may have been more as the first one passed just after I had started to observe. Does anyone know what this procession might have been?

I'll not describe the clusters (again) suffice it to say it was well worth spending time on each rather than rushing though them and every other visible DSO! It's lovely as gradually more and more stars and detail becomes visible the more time you spend.

I also saw the Eskimo nebula for the first time. Very satisfying star hopping down from Pollux and seeing it; not much detail, it appeared as an out of focus star - I've attached my sketches through a Tak 28mm Erfle (my star hopping eyepiece) and a Tak 10mm LE (on an FC100DC).

I then tried for the Leo triplet but despite being sure i was in the correct location there was no sign of any of them. Ditto M65 and 66, no sign of them. I take this as confirmation of the poor transparency.

A quick attempt at the Rosetta Nebula. Again a no show though the little group of stars in its centre are very pretty. Should the Rosetta be visible in a 4" refractor in suburban skies?

Finally a glance at the double cluster which as always is a joy (wish I could come up with some more superlatives for this one :) ) and that ended a very pleasant 3 hours under the stars!

For those of you who have got this far, thanks for reading and apologies for the upside down image, can't seem to figure out how to take a photo the right way up! Guess that's why I'm a visual observer :)

Malcolm

 

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Very nice report and I agree some times less is better. I was given a similar advise before. These are some nice clusters to take time and observe and your sketches are great.

The succession of satellites that you describe could have been starlink ones? You could also check in Stellarium and turn back time to the area you were observing and it might show you what it was.

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Nice report @MalcolmM 👍

The satellites will definitely be Starlinks. In the early orbits after they launch, they are all bunched together, then gradually spread out into long trains. I’ve seen whole strings of them, probably 40 or more passing at regular intervals. I even saw a few transiting the Moon once which was cool.

Poor transparency kills nebulae and galaxies. Last night I could only just see M65 and M66 in the 16”, the transparency was so poor, and tonight is not much better.

You often find that good seeing goes hand in hand with poor transparency, and vice versa. At the moment, the Jetstream is not overhead, and that often means the thin high cloud is not blown away so seeing is good, transparency poor. When the Jetstream is around, it clears the haze so we get nice clear skies but the seeing can be poor. After a good downpour the transparency is often good too as the pollution is washed out of the atmosphere.

It’s worth choosing your targets accordingly.

The Rosette is a large object with low surface brightness, so you are unlikely to see it from suburban skies, and definitely not when there is haze around. It benefits from an OIII filter (or UHC if that’s what you have), and a wide field of view. With a narrow field of view you can end up looking through it and missing the contrast change around the edge. I’ve had good views of it in a 4” scope from dark skies though.

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