Herschels, Extragalactic treats, & Jupiter - 24th October '24

[josefk]

Last night was one of those perfect nights in the hobby and i'm sure it will live long in the memory. Probably a joint best session this year (so far) for me along with a long overnight haul of Galaxies I managed in the spring. Everything went beautifully.

it didn't start too promisingly. As i loaded the landy up and left Stamford i could see heavy damp sitting around the streetlights in town and as i drove out to my regular observing haunt i was driving through banks of fog. Not good. I assumed i would be parking up and taking a ten minute look at the sky before driving home for a compensatory Baileys. 

Surprisingly it was clear at my spot and i was setting up immediately - i'd taken two scopes out because i'd had a session curtailed recently with dew and my idea was to use the two scopes sequentially not concurrently. This ruse worked perfectly. First on the mount was the Cassegrain.

I aligned my DSC on Vega and Caph and so then to start the evening i dropped down a little bit into M110, M32, and M31. TBH i don't tend to look at the Andromeda family very often because they're "easy" but also somehow for me in my skies and with my kit a little bit unrewarding. I just don't see anything in M31 except a big glow no matter how long i look. Last night something was different because M110 (which i went to first) looked like M31 (relatively speaking 🙂) and all three were just more extensive and with more graduation in the brightness than normal. Normally M110 is either seen or not seen (i typically only look these three in a small scope) but last night it had a clear brightness gradient and long fade off to the west. M31 looked like a massive globular cluster with that impression of a streetlight within a fog and a mildly sharper edge in the direction of M110 than towards M32 and M32 itself was sharply defined with a bright stellar core and quite extensive surrounding halo. Wowser.

I also felt like i was seeing H-II off to the South West of M31 (North West of M32) so i got the magnifying glass out metaphorically speaking. Unfortunately i wasn't seeing H-II but in the close scrutiny i did identify two Global Clusters G185 (actually quite easy) and G76. I washed out on two others although all four are relatively similar in magnitude and it wasn't the dimmest two i couldn't see. For the GC i used a 10mm EP for x244x in the Cassegrain and an exit pupil of 0.77mm. I don't normally like the Cassegrain above 200x but last night it was a champ. Seeing these two Globulars and seeing M110 in particular so well just blew my socks off. Bailey's be damned.

Alternating a 17mm Delos and 10mm Pentax in the Cassegrain (1.3mm exit pupil and sub 1mm) i made the most of the dark and seemingly super transparent night by mopping up a couple Herschel 400 Galaxies in good positions in October. I still dipped on a couple more so it wasn't all dropping in my lap but I did observe NGC 7448, and NGC 7479. NGC 7479 has a Globular Cluster optically nearby and i carefully field ID'd that too. It's a "soft star" in appearance so it does need to be a careful star hop within the EP FOV to be sure. I had washed out on all three of these a few nights ago.

Finally in Galaxy mode i went again to NGC 7331 because i'm trying to see other galaxies here. I was seeing 7331 moderately well and i felt like NGC 7335 sitting between it and a chevron of pointer stars to it's east was so so close. The trouble is i could kid myself i was seeing it (i've been studying this field in pics quite a bit this week) and it wasn't reliable enough to count it. There are several stars here that could masquerade as tiny galaxies if focus and seeing isn't perfect i think.

For the whole of this first part of the night the sky looked fantastic to the naked eye - loads of stars in UMi and a wide and long swathe of Milky Way - i just couldn't get my head round it after the drive out in the fog but i wasn't complaining. It was locally damp though and as i moved into M33 to try for a few extragalactic targets beyond NGC 604 i suddenly got the feeling i'd lost clarity and i had - the secondary on my Cassegrain was highly fogged. Nevermind. Break out the flask and mount scope #2 🙂

The plan for the second scope was always Jupiter. Seeing wasn't perfect and there were short bouts of cloud getting blown over from about 02:00 GMT onwards but somehow i managed 4x sketches of Jupiter starting around 02:00 and the breeze though occasionally vibrating the scope did make for  lovely dry observing environment throughout the second half of the night.

The first Jupiter observation and sketch was just before the transit of Ganymede and i watched the start of the transit onto the disk at 02:39. I could see Ganymede when it was fully on the disk for a minute or two but ill timed cloud cut me off in my attempt to see how far i could observe it across the face. 

I repeated the observation and sketch at 03:00 (no sign of Ganymede nor any shadow) and again at 04:40. I was able to see Ganymede about to egress the disk but while still wholly on it. It really was a bright creamy pea and surprisingly large. Egress took longer than i was expecting. Ganymede was wholly within the limb at 04:22, 50/50 (ish) across the limb at 04:34, just touching at 04:39 and clear at 04:42. It was a magical observation.

My final sketch of Jupiter was at 05:55. Ganymede was well clear and the GRS was just coming round on the East. It was light by now and i'd had a text the coffee pot was on 👍 so no real chance to hang around another half hour or so to capture the GRS towards the meridian.

Seeing had been coming and going  a bit throughout the second half of the night but somehow there were always enough moments of steadiness to see and secure a surprising amount of detail (by my standards) and it was fascinating watching stuff transit the meridian. There are a a surprisingly enjoyable mixture of targets on or around the ecliptic too to while away the time in between Jupiter captures. As an aside Uranus was an extremely solid silver ball bearing last night and Messier 1 was there or thereabouts, and "huge" too, so even though there had been cloud blowing through transparency felt great.

Anyway a few pics:

 

 

 

 

lots of catching up to do later!

[Saganite]

A truly excellent and inspiring report Joe....

[josefk]

Thank you Steve @Saganite it was one of those nights that really delivered on all the promise of the hobby. No frustrations. Just perfect!

[PeterStudz]

@josefk what a great night, report and excellent sketches! My night wasn’t so good as I was plagued by terrible seeing, which improved later on, but soon ruined by mist and fog

However, I did see the shadow transit of Ganymede - that was earlier, roughly halfway at 23:40 as shown by this simple app that I use on my iPhone. Although position of the GRS is wrong it’s good for moon positions and transits. 

[Saganite]

1 hour ago, josefk said:

Last night was one of those perfect nights in the hobby and i'm sure it will live long in the memory. Probably a joint best session this year (so far) for me along with a long overnight haul of Galaxies I managed in the spring. Everything went beautifully.

it didn't start too promisingly. As i loaded the landy up and left Stamford i could see heavy damp sitting around the streetlights in town and as i drove out to my regular observing haunt i was driving through banks of fog. Not good. I assumed i would be parking up and taking a ten minute look at the sky before driving home for a compensatory Baileys. 

Surprisingly it was clear at my spot and i was setting up immediately - i'd taken two scopes out because i'd had a session curtailed recently with dew and my idea was to use the two scopes sequentially not concurrently. This ruse worked perfectly. First on the mount was the Cassegrain.

I aligned my DSC on Vega and Caph and so then to start the evening i dropped down a little bit into M110, M32, and M31. TBH i don't tend to look at the Andromeda family very often because they're "easy" but also somehow for me in my skies and with my kit a little bit unrewarding. I just don't see anything in M31 except a big glow no matter how long i look. Last night something was different because M110 (which i went to first) looked like M31 (relatively speaking 🙂) and all three were just more extensive and with more graduation in the brightness than normal. Normally M110 is either seen or not seen (i typically only look these three in a small scope) but last night it had a clear brightness gradient and long fade off to the west. M31 looked like a massive globular cluster with that impression of a streetlight within a fog and a mildly sharper edge in the direction of M110 than towards M32 and M32 itself was sharply defined with a bright stellar core and quite extensive surrounding halo. Wowser.

I also felt like i was seeing H-II off to the South West of M31 (North West of M32) so i got the magnifying glass out metaphorically speaking. Unfortunately i wasn't seeing H-II but in the close scrutiny i did identify two Global Clusters G185 (actually quite easy) and G76. I washed out on two others although all four are relatively similar in magnitude and it wasn't the dimmest two i couldn't see. For the GC i used a 10mm EP for x244x in the Cassegrain and an exit pupil of 0.77mm. I don't normally like the Cassegrain above 200x but last night it was a champ. Seeing these two Globulars and seeing M110 in particular so well just blew my socks off. Bailey's be damned.

Alternating a 17mm Delos and 10mm Pentax in the Cassegrain (1.3mm exit pupil and sub 1mm) i made the most of the dark and seemingly super transparent night by mopping up a couple Herschel 400 Galaxies in good positions in October. I still dipped on a couple more so it wasn't all dropping in my lap but I did observe NGC 7448, and NGC 7479. NGC 7479 has a Globular Cluster optically nearby and i carefully field ID'd that too. It's a "soft star" in appearance so it does need to be a careful star hop within the EP FOV to be sure. I had washed out on all three of these a few nights ago.

Finally in Galaxy mode i went again to NGC 7331 because i'm trying to see other galaxies here. I was seeing 7331 moderately well and i felt like NGC 7335 sitting between it and a chevron of pointer stars to it's east was so so close. The trouble is i could kid myself i was seeing it (i've been studying this field in pics quite a bit this week) and it wasn't reliable enough to count it. There are several stars here that could masquerade as tiny galaxies if focus and seeing isn't perfect i think.

For the whole of this first part of the night the sky looked fantastic to the naked eye - loads of stars in UMi and a wide and long swathe of Milky Way - i just couldn't get my head round it after the drive out in the fog but i wasn't complaining. It was locally damp though and as i moved into M33 to try for a few extragalactic targets beyond NGC 604 i suddenly got the feeling i'd lost clarity and i had - the secondary on my Cassegrain was highly fogged. Nevermind. Break out the flask and mount scope #2 🙂

The plan for the second scope was always Jupiter. Seeing wasn't perfect and there were short bouts of cloud getting blown over from about 02:00 GMT onwards but somehow i managed 4x sketches of Jupiter starting around 02:00 and the breeze though occasionally vibrating the scope did make for  lovely dry observing environment throughout the second half of the night.

The first Jupiter observation and sketch was just before the transit of Ganymede and i watched the start of the transit onto the disk at 02:39. I could see Ganymede when it was fully on the disk for a minute or two but ill timed cloud cut me off in my attempt to see how far i could observe it across the face. 

I repeated the observation and sketch at 03:00 (no sign of Ganymede nor any shadow) and again at 04:40. I was able to see Ganymede about to egress the disk but while still wholly on it. It really was a bright creamy pea and surprisingly large. Egress took longer than i was expecting. Ganymede was wholly within the limb at 04:22, 50/50 (ish) across the limb at 04:34, just touching at 04:39 and clear at 04:42. It was a magical observation.

My final sketch of Jupiter was at 05:55. Ganymede was well clear and the GRS was just coming round on the East. It was light by now and i'd had a text the coffee pot was on 👍 so no real chance to hang around another half hour or so to capture the GRS towards the meridian.

Seeing had been coming and going  a bit throughout the second half of the night but somehow there were always enough moments of steadiness to see and secure a surprising amount of detail (by my standards) and it was fascinating watching stuff transit the meridian. There are a a surprisingly enjoyable mixture of targets on or around the ecliptic too to while away the time in between Jupiter captures. As an aside Uranus was an extremely solid silver ball bearing last night and Messier 1 was there or thereabouts, and "huge" too, so even though there had been cloud blowing through transparency felt great.

Anyway a few pics:

 

 

 

 

lots of catching up to do later!

Hmm .....My system is in a shameful state Joe.......

Lovely leather binder , but sadly neglected of late.  I must have several years worth of observing notes awaiting transfer in best handwriting...

[josefk]

Oh dear 😂 @Saganite That’s a stack and a half.  I really try and do it the next day. Not because I’m super organised but because I fear a backlog would become a chore and also I’m not sure my memory would be up to it. Even the next day or the day after It can take a while to catch up if there are lots of new targets to enter but for repeat observations (because I do it in a spreadsheet) it basically fills itself in for all the object details if they’ve been entered before.  Just the EPs used in a given instance and the new specific observing notes themselves need any effort and even there I’m partially systematic so it’s efficient. 
 

I think you may need to set some time aside to get back on top.  It will bring all the obs back to life doing it. Perfect cloudy weather task. Is there something you could use to scan and digitise your handwritten backlog into screen text then sort it out digitally (cut and paste and organise etc) then reprint it for your binder or is that over thinking it? It’s great to have that archive though. 

In my renaissance in the hobby I’ve found I enjoy having a record nearly as much as the observing  Nearly. 

For the years I didn’t take notes I feel like it’s all “disappeared”. Sadly. 

Good luck 👍🏼