A night under the stars and sketches at the eyepiece 2024-01-18 / 19

[Fraunhoffer]

I felt like I was floating in space this evening. Nights like this do not come along often, and even though it was cold, and the forecast was expected to drop to -4 C, it was not to be missed. The cold air from the last few days had made the sky very clear so not only were the celestial sights sharp, but the light reflected from the surrounding light pollution was minimal.

The early evening had some very enjoyable views of Jupiter with variations in the belts clearly visible. I was able to reach 250x magnification without the picture turning into a fuzzy blob, thanks to the clear and stable air. No red spot was expected this evening. A tour of the terminator along the half moon provided some wonderful detail of craters, valleys, mountains with long shadows, strange undulating plains and rills. It really felt like I was in orbit and travelling above the surface.

Uranus was not far away and so I thought I would look at this faintly coloured ball. Surprisingly it was accompanied by three very faint dots this evening. After some research, I was delighted to find out these were three of its moons. This is the first time I have seen this. Uranus has a strange inclination so I think the combination of the clear sky and the particular orientation at the current time enabled this.

Orion was reaching prominence due South a bit later and the customary examination of the huge M42 nebula was required. The centre trapezium was very clear, although I couldn’t make out the additional 2 faint stars to make the 6. One day!.  The nebula did not disappoint and under a high magnification the wings spread across my whole field of view.

After an interlude to warm up with some hot soup and catch a bit of sleep, the streetlights turned off at 1am (hooray) and the sky became noticeably darker. Leo was now in the south and so I looked for faint galaxies in this region of sky. ‘Galaxy season’ is almost upon us where we can look out of the milky way into deep space. Despite the extinguished streetlights, the sky was still a bit grey which frustrated my search. However, I did manage to catch several Messier galaxies: M95, M96, M102 and its companion NGC 3384, M65, M66. The nearby NGC 3628 the hamburger galaxy was just too faint to see today.

Comet ‘62P/Tsuchinshan’ was in the vicinity and after struggling with various apps to try and find out exactly where it was supposed to be (it helps to know exactly where it is when looking for faint things) it came into sight as a bright dot surrounded by a faint fuzzy patch. On another night I might try the camera to record a bit more light.

I was by this time starting to feel quite cold and tired, so I finished the evening with some lovely bright star clusters M53 and M3. It only seems a short time ago that I was seeing M3 as an evening object, and here it was coming around in the morning. Where does time go?

[josefk]

What a productive night @Fraunhoffer super and super sketches. Ptolemaeus caught my eye last night. Cold wasn't it!

[Swoop1]

Very nice report @Fraunhoffer and then sketches top it off very well.

I was out for a couple of hours last night bedding in some software. Just got life back into my toes.....

[dweller25]

Quite a marathon and on a very cold night, well done 👍

[SwiMatt]

What a nice collection of sketches! Very nice and thanks for sharing! 

[Fraunhoffer]

2 hours ago, josefk said:

What a productive night @Fraunhoffer super and super sketches. Ptolemaeus caught my eye last night. Cold wasn't it!

Thank you. It was cold. It was nice for it to be so cold that it was dry though.
I have a an old fur lined 'fishing suit' from a neighbour and some 'charcoal' foot warmers, so I stayed reasonably warm.

[bosun21]

Lovely sketches 👍. Sounds like a great session despite the temperature. Let's hope we get more clear skies like it in the near future.

[MZack]

Fantastic set of sketches and well done for doing such a long stretch in the cold! Liked them all. Nice one of M42 especially. 

[John]

Excellent report and sketches 🙂

Great stuff to catch Uranus's moons. I have only managed two of them and that was with my 12 inch scope under a really dark sky.

 

[JeremyS]

Marvellous 👍🏻