Revelation 15x70 Observing Report 29/06/09

[JamesK]

Just a quick report of a two hour observing session with my binns.

Sky was quite light even at darkest hours, and LP was bad to the south, and acceptable in other directions. Seeing was fair to good, estimated 5 on the pickering scale.

Went out at 11 o'clock and my first target was my personal favorite Summer object so far, The double star Albireo. I think that the colours showed very well tonight, much better than I had seen under darker skies. Split was easy.

I must point out here that my mount had developed an altitude locking problem, I had to support the lever on the mount with my hands, it would not stay still when going to check charts, and I had a nasty case or vertical only "shakies".

This made viewing my next target, Beta Lyrae, very difficult as the secondary was well seperated, but much fainter than the primary and lost in its glare, with no colour differences between the pair. I eventually spotted the secondary, noted it's position and checked I wasn't seeing things with Cartes du Ciel the following day.

At this point I must tell you there was a cat fight over the fence. With actual cats. With much yowling. And hissing.

Then I moved alond Lyra to the double-double. I managed to split the first pair very easily. They are bright and well matched, an excelend binocular double. Colours were not thrilling though. I would love to split the double-double when (if) I get hold of a scope. Alcor and Mizar told a similar, if wider split, tale.

I then had a look at M13. I had to take my binns off their mount because the great blobular (as I call them) was close to the zenith. Was pretty even though I could only see the bright core. Going camping to the lake district this August, looking forward to obseving the one under a dark sky site during the returning astro-twilight.

After this, I went and had a look for M81 and M82, but struggled to find them under early nautical twilight, and the loose mount made it impssible to refer to charts while keeping the binns looking in the same place.

Also, I saw four satellites over the two hours.

Then I packed up due to incoming cloud and tiredness. When inside in the light, I identified the problem with the mount's altitude locking, and fixed it in 30 seconds. The word "frustrating" is thrown around a lot on these forums...

[Talitha]

Thanks James, great report! Glad you got the mount problem fixed, and i hope you have clear skies in August... IIRC didn't Beatrix Potter live in the lake district? (No relation to Harry, i assume, lol.)

[Lester]

I enjoyed reading your report James.

All the best.

[JamesK]

Thanks. And yes, she did live there and there is a museum. If you go fell-walking in the area, you can find some Beatrix Potter landmarks, like one of her more famous characters (a hedgehog, I think) was supposed to have lived on the slopes of Catbells, which is a famous walker's peak.

[albedo0.39]

Thanks for the report James and please you had a push for M81 and M82. IMHO it's way too light and if the moon was out, even less chance I suppose. Whilst you were busy splitting doubles, it seems the cats were spitting double.

[JamesK]

Thanks for the comments. Been out again last night for a bit, managed to split beta Lyrae more clearly and easily with the fixed mount, and was waiting for Jupiter to get over my (annoyingly high) southern horizon, when dew ended the fun. Also had a look for the faint deep red star near Alcor/Mizar, and M13 again. Tried for the Ursa Major galaxies again, and M57, sure I was looking on the right place but I agree with Steve, I don't think it was going to happen with the LP on top of the sky brightness. Oh, yeah, and another cat fight. This time a big dog got involved and shut them both up.

[John]

Nice report James

I've been looking for M57 with 20 x 80's and it is very difficult - very tiny - it is probably in your field of view but at 15x it will just look like a slightly off-focus faint star. Try M27 (the Dumbell Nebula) in Vulpecula, just below the "head" of Cygnus - it's a much bigger object and was very clear in my 20 x 80's.

John