LZOS 130mm session - 26th March 2022

[Stu]

Conditions weren’t bad last night here, transparency much better than I expected although still not top notch.

I had the 130mm out again on the AZ100 Goto, and observed a range of different objects from low power for M44 up to high power for a few tight doubles. Eyepieces used were 31mm Nagler, 21mm and 13mm Ethos, Leica Zoom, 10mm and 5mm XW, and for the doubles I used the Nag Zoom plus 3.4mm HR and 2.5mm TOE.

In terms of galaxies, I caught M84 and 86, the start of Markarian’s chain, then a hint of the next two although they were tough. I could have trawled round more with the Goto but it wasn’t that rewarding. I was using an observing hood to cut out the local glare which definitely helped. Best galaxies of the night were (unsurprisingly) M81 and 82. Quite good contrast on these and some mottling in the centre of M82.

M51 showed two clear cores and quite extensive haloes surrounding both. I think even in only 130mm it would look good with better skies. I mustn’t complain really, I could not even see M51 from my previous house! M65 and 66 were clear enough, but NGC3628? I may have caught the faintest whiff of it with AV but that may just be wishful thinking. Strangely M95, 96 and 105 were all clear, if small little puffs of grey. They must be higher surface brightness than NGC3628 because they are similar magnitude, but much smaller.

Globs were better; M3, M53 and then later on M13 and M92. M13 looked excellent, resolving deep into the core at high power, really nice though I couldn’t pick up the Propeller.

I also did a round of OCs namely M35, DC, M44, M67, Stock 2, Christmas Tree Cluster and M45. NGC2169, the 37 cluster showed well too, including the lovely little double in the corner of the 3.

This report is a bit tipsy turvy because I actually started the session trying to nab a few carbon stars and coloured doubles. I mentioned these elsewhere, but I’ll paste it in here so it’s all together.

 

UU Aurigae which has a colour index of +2.98. I wish I had seen it was a pulsating variable when I observed it, then I could have checked the brightness; it varies between +4.9 and +7.0 over 441 days. In fact most of these carbon stars seem to be long period variables which should probably have been obvious to me but wasn’t something I had considered before.

X Cancri which has a colour index of +3.21

T Cancri was the best of them in terms of colour. It is quite dim at +8.68 but has a colour index of +4.88 which is very red.

Finally, La Superba. This one is less red (+3.24), but brighter at mag 5.26 so is a lovely sight.

From the doubles list, I verified that I didn’t quite manage Omega Leonis the other night, just a bit of elongation, it’s very close with a bit of magnitude difference.

Had another look at Thera Aurigae which a good one; 4.2” with +2.65 and +7.2, so the secondary is a tiny pinpoint of light very close in.

Xi Bootis was another nice one, 5.0” sep with +4.67 and +6.95, easy enough and I enjoyed the mag difference.

Finally, finally, Asteroid Iris (7). This is currently in Gemini and at mag +9.8. The Goto plonked the scope on the right field of view (using the 21mm Ethos for 2.7 degrees fov), but I still needed to do some work to identify Iris. The field contained quite a few similar brightness stars, but with the aid of SkySafari it was reasonably straightforward to pin it down. This is a new one for me, so was quite nice to get.

Thanks if you made it this far. It’s clear out there again now but transparency remains poor so I’ll give it a miss tonight.

[Kon]

Nice report and you managed to bag quite a few targets considering that conditions have not been the best recently. NGC3628 was hard even on my 8" Dob the past week (usually nice and "bright"), due to that awful haze.

[Captain Scarlet]

Nice read. Just had a very short session tonight myself with the VX8 and I can confirm that although transparency is much much better tonight than it has been the last week, M51 is still invisible from here (not far from your old house) 🤣! Another thing that’s been missing until tonight: dew. Possibly not unconnected.

M 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Captain Scarlet

[wookie1965]

Great report Stu how is the AZ100 for accuracy at finding the objects.