Wonderful Trapezium!

[Sunshine]

There’s something special about the Trapezium, I think, this is one of my fav targets regardless of season. One would have to be a double star fanatic or something (which I am) to say what I just did but I really can never get enough of this grouping of stars. Much of ky time is spent looking at stars at high powers, checking them off my list and in the case of the tough ones, coming back to them many times till I manage a split. Stars look amazing at high powers, when seeing is great they appear as perfect unwavering discs, and the fact I can make out stars so small and faint at the threshold of my vision is just plain cool. This night seeing was fantastic, and of course, before looking at Jupiter which was screaming in my face and bright as an airplane light I had to swing over to M42. As wonderful as M42 is in it’s entirety, it’s the core that interests me most. My 5mm XW was my first choice and last for this target, offering just over 200x it’s the magnification sweet spot, for me. 
 

Wow, those four stars, five, six stars looked great, perfect discs set against an inky black sky, when I say perfect I mean laser cut discs, no distortions or shimmering of any type. Sitting just off to either side were E&F stars, hanging there in the black, no need to strain my eyes or later convince myself that I saw them. They were very cool, they lie at the threshold of my vision and I find it fascinating that a telescope can resolve such a minuscule star down to a perfect disc just blows my mind. Immediately around these stars I could see details which make M42 the famous target ot is, I could see structure, Inky black and lighter areas which seemed to give the gaseous cloud a 3d like appearance. As nice as gaseous clouds look, the wisps of gas in M42 quickly seem to disappear when my concentration is on the trapezium. After an embarrassingly long amount of time with this target, I moved on to jupiter. Jupiter was also memorable tonight, at 300x I was able to make out those dark colored paint brush strokes coming down from the NEB while thw Galilean moons looked lile they were stamped out with a cookie mould, laser sharp discs. After a short look at a series of other doubles and clusters I packed it up, I think what I was trying to say is that many of us don’t use those high power eyepieces on stars, enough. When the seeing is great, stars are the real attraction, I think.

Edited February 6 by Sunshine

[JeremyS]

Great report and lovely looking scope 👍🏻

[lunator]

A very nice report 😀, as a fellow double star enthusiast I agree that on nights of exceptional seeing the stars really do look amazing.  

Even though I have moved to darker skies I still observes some doubles on every session.

Cheers

Ian

[Epick Crom]

Hi @Sunshine. I agree with you! On nights of good seeing, one of my favourite things it to ply on the magnification on a tight double star and enjoy seeing the airy disks with the two stars close together. I love observing tight double stars of equal brightness as well as those that have a fainter companion nestled in close by. 

As you say, it's a treat to observe at high magnifications.

 

Clear Skies

Joe

[runway77]

I think that the stars (other than the Sun) cannot actually be resolved into discs, from such distances they are for us always only points of light. But a nice report.

Edited February 7 by runway77

[Stu]

1 hour ago, runway77 said:

I think that the stars (other than the Sun) cannot actually be resolved into discs, from such distances they are for us always only points of light. But a nice report.

Correct but not correct 😊

Stars cannot be resolved into true discs due to their extreme distance, but light diffraction causes them to appear as airy discs through a scope (with enough magnification and when seeing conditions allow). That is what Sunshine is referring to.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk

 

[mikeDnight]

What a fab report Sunshine. I was with you all the way, and loved how you described the view as being 3D. That dark nebula really does create that effect as bright nebulosity almost explodes from behind the black walls of dust. And your description of the Airy disc's of the stars was wonderful too. Stars through a nice refractor remind me of little Christmas bourbles suspended on nothing, and contrasting binaries are some of the most beautiful. The sight of them never ceases to leave me in awe!  Never feel embarrassed at spending a long time looking at just one object, because only then will you really observe it. I hope there's another exciting instalment of Sunshine's Adventures Among The Stars soon!