Deepest Darkest East Sussex

[Sam]

Richie hosted a small get togeher last night at his very dark site in East Sussex. It was great to see his setup and also meet a couple of other fellow astronomers, Dave and Norm.

I packed up the 16" Lightbridge and took it for it's second away trip. It's quite a beast to load and unload but well worth it. The evening started off with a bit of high cloud that cleared fairly quickly and eventually turned into a brilliant evening of very clear skies. Richie helped with the collimation using his Cheshire collimation whatsname. The first star I pointed at seemed very hard to get into focus - my first thoughts were that the collimation hadn't quite worked so well - but then it became obvious the elongated star was infact a double (I have no idea which one though) so the collimation was bang on.

The first target for the evening was M51 - which is always great to see how the conditions are developing. I used the 26mm 2" Meade eyepiece to start with as it gives a great widefield view, a bit rough on the edge of the FOV though. M51 was very bright with clear definition in the spiral arms and the bridge visible. Through the 15mm a bit more detail showed through. It looks a lot like a rough image in black and white. Dave was imaging M51 so it was good to see it through both scopes.

The next on the list was M101 which stood very well and was even detectable in the finder scope! Not a lot of detail in M101 other than a bit of hint of sprialing and the overall structure. Richie was imaging the Owl Nebula so it was a good reason to check it through the scope to see if the eyes were visible. It was quite bright and with a bit of averted vision the eyes were certainly visible.

One galaxy which I looked at last year and was pretty unimpressed with was M64 (Blackeye Galaxy) in the 8". It was a different story this year with the dust lane being clearly visible and the structure showing through as well. M64 also looked good in the 15mm eyepiece. Whilst in the Coma Berenices area I couldn't go past M53 without a look. All of the globulars I looked at were treated very well through both the 26mm and 11mm eyepieces. M53 showed quite a bit of detail with individual stars clearly visible. A little to the left of M53 is a very low surface brightness globular called NGC5053. It was barely detectable and no chance of making out individual stars int his one - a real averted vision glob.

A little to the right and below Coma Berenices in the huge Virgo cludter of galaxies. I had a quick look at M98 and then M100 before just ahving a general browse around the area and soaking up loads of different galaxies. By this stage - around midnight, Hercules was starting to get high enough to have a look at M13 followed by M92. M13 is a very impressive glob, with loads of invidual stars visible.

Back up towards Bootes is M3 and NGC5466. M3 is a nice tight Glob and NGC5466 is a large but faint glob. Through the 16" NGC5466 had individually resolvable stars. The final effort for the night was back to the galaxies. Between Draco and Bootes is a group of galaxies that are well worth a look at.

Tracking right from Draco towards Bootes the first galaxy is NGC5907 which is big and edge on. A little further to the right is NGC5905 and NGC5908, two quite small but bright smudges. A little further up from this little bunch of galaxies in M102 which is a small bright galaxy. There was a bit of a hint of some detail near the core.

It was a great evening of observing with some fellow astronomers and I bet there'll be a couple of fine images of M51 and the Owl Nebula. A big thanks to Richie for hosting us.

Sam

[Doc]

Great report Sam. Sounds like you had a great time under very dark skies.

I tried NGC5446 on Friday and couldn't spot anything so well done on this one.

Just goes to show what dark skies bring out.

[Talitha]

Bet it felt pretty cool to walk across M51's bridge and then have the Owl look back at you! Great report, thanks Sam.

[RichieJarvis]

Great report Sam - it was a pleasure having you over. The skies were very kind to us - in fact have been for the last 3 days here...

Got the scope on NGC4236 atm - adding to some L data from last night.....

Owl is posted btw : http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/78721-m97-owl-nebula-ha-oiii.html

Dave - how are you getting on with the M51??

Cheers,

Richie

[jgs001]

Great report Sam, sorry I missed out, sounds like Richie hosted quite a party .

[lunator]

Sam

Nice report

Sounds a great evening

Cheers

Ian