Fuerteventura delivers again!

[OK Apricot]

Wow wow wow 😍 Apologies in advance as this is a bit of a ramble... 

The Mrs and I are currently on the Windy Island enjoying our honeymoon - we love it here - and what would a trip here be without indulging in some clean class 3 skies? See, this is why I married her - she gives me grace to do astro on our holidays and honeymoon 😊. I thought I'd post here as a little diary of sorts, but to also share how good a pair of humble 10x50s can be in the right location at the right time. 

My first two nights imaging were done at the Astronomical Observation Point, approx 1500ft elevation and away from the worst of the island's light pollution, but probably under some of the better seeing. The third was down a ravine in the middle of nowhere. The imaging itself hasn't been without it's issues, but I think I've got some really good clean data. Anyway, while the mini rig was running, I turned to the Pentax SP binoculars....

This time of year is great at 28°N - the Milky Way stretches from horizon to horizon, almost at zenith, and the core of the MW is setting early in the evening. Being lower down the core is affected by extinction, transparency etc but it's width does still obviously stretch out well into Ophiuchus, grazing Corona Australis. It's really, really huge! A lot of great targets here are still visible for a couple hours. M8 and M20 are faintly naked eye, and really pop in the binoculars. Slightly north and you've got another pair of naked eye targets in The Swan and The Eagle nebula, in binoculars showing as bright fuzzy patches in the same FOV with hints of structure. Great fun to scan up and down the MW here - star clouds, clusters open and globular, dust clouds, nebulae, wow 😍.

Scanning up toward Sagitta and Cygnus, Boom - M71 and M27 in the same field - the former a non-stellar looking blob and the latter a small but bright grey patch which could just about be made out as an apple core. Alberio a bright yellowish-white and hints of the small blue companion. One of the real treats were the highlights of Cygnus - The Veil and the North America nebula! The Eastern Veil was just about there - with averted vision you could make out the 'C' shape. I may have glimpsed the Witches Broom but unsure whether it really was that or just some ghosting or glare from the bright star. NGC7000 was a beauty - a faint milky glow embedded between obvious dark dusty regions, the shape was visible. I even got hints of red on my phone 😍. 

Scanning up from Cygnus towards Cassiopeia, numerous clusters and dusty regions visible. I'm pretty sure I saw the Pacman Nebula - a very faint wisp of nebulousity. I'm by no means an experienced visual observer but using Stellarium and putting Schedar and Achird in the FOV, there was something there. Cool 😊. Over to M31 and it was bright, fuzzy and extensive. I could just about make out an inner dust lane, and M110 could also be seen on its northern side which really helped to give it that classic M31 look. It was almost like looking at an image! M33 was an obvious fuzzy patch but just that, nothing more to see here. Needless to say, M31 was naked eye but so to was M33, just. You'd have to know where you're looking.

Later in the evening Orion was rising accompanied by an extremely bright Jupiter, Sirius, a not-so-bright Mars and Betelgeuse. As they rose higher, Canopus became visible, like a Sirius twin, very bright white. To note, I'm used to seeing Sirius as a flickering colour changing disco ball, so it's been a real treat to see it sit in the sky like a well behaved dog, the seeing has been excellent. Before Orion, based on how much I could see with little 10x50s, I tried my luck with the Rosette. I could see the "6 domino" cluster of stars but I don't think I really saw any nebulousity. A little more aperture, I think, and it would've been visible. A quick peek toward Jupiter, a bright round white disc with 4 good moons. Nearby was the Crab Nebula, visible as guess what? Another non stellar fuzzy blob. Over to Orion I managed M78, two faint non-stellar blobs just up from the belt. The showstopper was M42, what else? It was 3D in appearance, hints of a reddish green colour, two out stretching wings lapping round to form a bowl. Unbelievable 😁.

To top off all of that? The brightest and best Zodiacal Light I've ever seen. A bright, tall triangle of light through Leo, and stretching right up through Gemini where it intersected with the Winter MW. It was truly an awesome sight. Finally, as the sun started to gain influence, I tried for Tsuchinshan - easy peasy. A bright nucleus and obvious tail. Happy days!

Bit of a ramble but as I said, more of a diary 😊. Get yourselves over to Fuerteventura folks, grab a hire car and get down the trails and ravines away from the lights. It's a fantastic astro destination! Now I suppose I should get back to this honeymoon... 😏

 

 

[Alan White]

Congratulations to you both on your marriage.
 

[happy-kat]

congratulation and enjoying your honeymoon, yey to seeing the comet

[tico]

Congratulation!! 

Fuerteventura is way!! 

A fantastic island with a  good sky... 

Fuertevidorra!! 

Cheers, 

Tico

[GTom]

Congrats! Have been visiting Fue for quite a number of years, my favorite Island! Much better weather than in La Palma in December-January. Driving down South to the Jandia NP, you can get B2!

[OK Apricot]

On 09/10/2024 at 11:03, Alan White said:

Congratulations to you both on your marriage.
 

Thank you 😊

 

On 09/10/2024 at 12:17, happy-kat said:

congratulation and enjoying your honeymoon, yey to seeing the comet

Thanks 🤗

 

23 hours ago, tico said:

Congratulation!! 

Fuerteventura is way!! 

A fantastic island with a  good sky... 

Fuertevidorra!! 

Cheers, 

Tico

It really is great ❤️

 

17 hours ago, GTom said:

Congrats! Have been visiting Fue for quite a number of years, my favorite Island! Much better weather than in La Palma in December-January. Driving down South to the Jandia NP, you can get B2!

Same here, this is my fifth trip - June twice, Sept twice and Oct once. It does seem to be better in early to mid autumn - more sun and less wind - but goodness me is the local climate volatile. Low cloud can gather out of nowhere! 

Certainly does get dark down the National Park! The thing that puts me off about that is that it's a large risk vs a small reward - the skies bwtween Pozo Negro and Las Playitas are really very dark and only 5mins on a ravine road vs 75 down the NP 😅. 

[GordonD]

Wow sounds fantastic. Really enjoyed reading this. And congratulations!

[Space Hopper]

Nice photos and congratulations.

Fuertaventura is the only place i've been to where the sunbeds are 'moved about' and not always by human hands.....

[Xilman]

1 hour ago, Space Hopper said:

Nice photos and congratulations.

Fuertaventura is the only place i've been to where the sunbeds are 'moved about' and not always by human hands.....

You haven't been to La Palma. Not for nothing is El Paso known locally as the Windy City, in homage to Chicago.

After finding the cover lids, themselves quite heavy,  to my jacuzzi blown several metres away and over a wall, I now weight them down with rocks and lead bricks.

I also use about 50% more clothes pegs on my laundry than I do I Cambridge.

[carastro]

Glad you are having a good time, but having been to Fuerteventura myself some years ago I would never go back, it was so windy it bascially spoint the holiday.  I guess if I spoke Spanish I would have known that is exactly what Fuerteventura means duh!!

I did not see much sky from our hotel, but I guess like everything else you need to travel to the darker spots.

Congratulations on your marriage and some great astro while you are there.  

[GTom]

13 minutes ago, Xilman said:

You haven't been to La Palma. Not for nothing is El Paso known locally as the Windy City, in homage to Chicago.

After finding the cover lids, themselves quite heavy,  to my jacuzzi blown several metres away and over a wall, I now weight them down with rocks and lead bricks.

I also use about 50% more clothes pegs on my laundry than I do I Cambridge.

I have been: first time really great but didn't bring any imaging equipment. Second time overcast, rainong cold during the entire holiday fior THREE WEEKS, except two nights when I was tired from daytime hiking. Tried driving up to the Observatories: caught in a SNOWSTORM with summer tires on the rental car! Will give it a last chance next February, otherwise I'll be perfectly fine with one of the drier "mini Sahara" islands. Sure, Spring to Autumn is better.

[Xilman]

Just now, GTom said:

I have been: first time really great but didn't bring any imaging equipment. Second time overcast, rainong cold during the entire holiday fior THREE WEEKS, except two nights when I was tired from daytime hiking. Tried driving up to the Observatories: caught in a SNOWSTORM with summer tires on the rental car! Will give it a last chance next February, otherwise I'll be perfectly fine with one of the drier "mini Sahara" islands. Sure, Spring to Autumn is better.

I should be back in LP during February. Drop me a line and we can meet up, including a visit to Tacande Observatory if you wish.

TBH, we could do with some rain on the dry west side of the island where I live. Only had about a millimetre since March or April. More on the wet side, of course.

 

[GTom]

8 minutes ago, carastro said:

Glad you are having a good time, but having been to Fuerteventura myself some years ago I would never go back, it was so windy it bascially spoint the holiday.  I guess if I spoke Spanish I would have known that is exactly what Fuerteventura means duh!!

I did not see much sky from our hotel, but I guess like everything else you need to travel to the darker spots.

Congratulations on your marriage and some great astro while you are there.  

Indeed you need to find deep Barrancos to keep yout gear sheltered. Once I drove to the highest point on the dirt road to Cofete: the wind was shaking the CAR 😅.

But you can indeed find sheltered beaches and stargazing spots 🤗

[OK Apricot]

Thanks for your comments 😊

We may have been lucky for the time we've been here - the wind has been notable, but in the opposite sense that it's been very calm. I'd definitely give it another try here in early October. June is definitely the time to be sand blasted! We tend to stay around Jandia so it might be that, down here, the worst of the NNEly trade winds are broken up by the bulk of the island to its NNE.

I've always been interested in going to La Palma, after all, what's good enough for professional research observatories has got to be good enough for us lowly imagers! It seems the only way there is by ferry? 

Can't wait to process my data - really hoping I've framed up LDN1357 properly, but I only managed an hour or so as the clouds rolled in completely unforecasted. I also think I might have enough interest to go for a higher quality and/or larger aperture pair of binoculars, though I fear that the buzz will quickly disappear once I'm back home in Northants under B5-6 skies and a Openreach's candles. 

[Xilman]

On 11/10/2024 at 15:38, OK Apricot said:

I've always been interested in going to La Palma, after all, what's good enough for professional research observatories has got to be good enough for us lowly imagers! It seems the only way there is by ferry?

Beware: El Roque is at 2400m and so above the inversion layer almost all the time. That means superb seeing and no clouds most of the time, though the altitude means that it is generally cold and sometimes a metre deep in snow.

Most of the island is much lower. The east side tends to be much cloudier than the west where I live near El Paso. As already noted, the orogenic winds can be ferocious and create seriously bad seeing.

As for getting to LP there are a good number flights a day into and out of SPC. Very few are direct to the UK (more to Germany which is where most tourists come from) and typically two a week during summer to and from MAN and LGW. The inter-island service flown by Binter is frequent and I generally fly through Tenerife or Gran Canaria. A couple of days ago my route was SPC->TFS->STN, the final leg with Ryanair. It is worth checking to see whether flights through MAD or BCN are cheaper and/or more convenient.

 

[GTom]

Ferry is probably a better option between the islands as Binter has very limited space for large astro hand-luggage.

[Xilman]

A friend of mine stores a 12" Dobsonian in his workshop for a group of Germans who come over once a year or so. The telescope breaks down into a number of small components.

If others wish to try this approach I can put them in contact.

Binter will check in luggage and takes good care of it. The planes are so small that passengers can see everything that goes on.