Observations 10/9/09 AWESOME Jupiter viewing

[SAB]

Last night was the first clear night in Melbourne in 186,338 years and 94 days. After being ugly overcast all day, the clouds cleared by sunset. Isn't that pip!

Time: 8:30pm-2:45am

scope: 12" F4.6 dob

Seeing: 7/10 at the start, degrading to 2/10 after 1am

transparency: 2/5 at the start, improving to 4/5.

Dew: light

So I Left the 12" dob out to cool for a couple of hours while I went inside to watch Home and Away, oh I mean Family Guy, eat pizza and get high........

....on the anticipation of the night ahead

Spirits were good, Family Guy was exceptionally funny as usual, the night was clear, moonrise was not for a few hours. Good times, gooood times.

Jupiter

Started the session at 8:30pm with the 8mm EP for 176x....Immediately I knew I was going to get good viewing! Seeing was the best I've seen in a LONG time. I was stunned by the amount of detail, for the first time ever I could see the festoons in the EQ zone without straining, they were actually obvious, and yes, a pale bluish colour.

I popped in the 5mm LVW, which yields 283x in my scope. Wow it was actually crisp! Normally I can't venture beyond 200x on Jupiter here, but tonight was cracking! THe amount of hair-thin blue festoons in the EQ zone was mind boggling like dude I was tripping balls man It was like spaghetti strewn across the planet. Never seen these features so clear and sharp before. A couple of white ovals were present on the northern edge of the SEB.

A massive, dark brown barge was seen in the NNTeB stretching about 1/4 across the disk with another similar curdled feature in the NEB. Very clear ruffling was present in both the NEB and SEB and parts of the NEB appeared to be split in two by a rift. A couple of brown ovals were seen on the northern border of the NEB.

Also experimented with higher magnifications, got one moment of crisp viewing at 326x, but it was fleeting but to get a crisp view at 326x was fantastic. That being said, 283x was the practical limit. And even with all this, seeing was still not perfect as when I defocused the planet slightly, you could see the air screaming across it and giving a slight roiling boiling effect.

Caught two simulatanious shadow transits aswell, that was quite a treat. Observed the shadow of what I think was Ganymede creep over the limb seemingly taking a "bite" out of Jupiter.

This level of seeing only lasted about half and hour, as the night wore on seeing deteriorated rapidly. Still, this was quite possbily the best Jupiter viewing I've ever had!

Had a few PNs and Galaxies on my list but seeing as I was staring at Jupiter for nearly 1 of the 4 hours available before moonrise, quite a few objects had escaped me.

LSA 1

A PNe in southern Aquila. Could not see it for sure without an OIII filter at any magnification. Hinted at using the 5mm EP for 283x with the OIII, but it was easiest to grasp at 404x using the filter. Still, it was nothing more than a small, extremely faint dust kitty with no discernable structure. DSS images show a tiny elongated donut.

NGC 6818

This is a large, very bright PNe in Sagittarius. Clearly non stellar at 44x and bluish in colour. At 283x it appeared slightly egg-shaped with long axis orientated N-S, with just a hint of annularity, although this wasn't obvious enough for conformation. Using the 3.5mm eyepiece at 404x without filtration this suspected annularity became slightly more obvious, but it was still very vague although certain. The annular feature wasn't a perfect ring, but more a horseshoe shape with the open end pointing north. Checking various images of 6818 on the net confirmed what I saw.

NGC 7424

This is a large spiral galaxy in Grus. Being large and face-on, SB is very low. At 176x I could only make out the faint knot of its core and basically nothing else.

IC 5148

The "Spare Tyre" @ 271x + OIII - see attached sketc

NGC 7009

Saturn Nebula @ 566x + OIII - see attached sketch

NGC 253

By now it was 12.30am and the moon was starting to peak over the horizon so I figured I'll see what the 12" can do on this. Being so large, one is inclined to limit power, but I decided to to pour some fuel on the fire. And what a smart idea it was. Using 283x and 404x, I could see the core, that little knot of light that characterises images, and low-contrast dustlanes strewn all over the galaxy. The most obvious was one bordering the core on its eastern edge. Lots of faint mottling could be seen, and a large bright patch (a starcloud or HII region?) toward the SW edge of the GX, directly W of mag 9.2 HD4555.

NGC 288

Globular near NGC 253. By now the moon was well above the horizon. Fairly large, but quite faint. At 283x several cluster members appeared to be arranged in a triangle with the long end pointing E and with the tip bent southward. The brightest stars also seemed to be arranged in two rows, one at the bottom and one halfway up the triangle, like rungs on a ladder. The densest concentration of stars and associated background haze is located between the two rungs.

NGC 1261

Finding this globular cluster was quite hard in that desert known as Horologium. But it is a rather pretty object, showing obvious resolution in its outer reaches at 176x. The core is nice and condensed. A curious feature was an elongated clump of haze on the southern edge of the cluster seperated from the main body by a narrow dark void. Increasing mag to 283x revealed slightly more resolution slightly closer to the core, but seeing was very poor by now.

[Starflyer]

Thanks for the report, I really enjoyed reading it and it sounds like you had a great night.

Superb sketches by the way.

[Jake Bullit]

Now that`s a report!

[iamjulian]

Love that first sentence! Your observations forms are superb too. Thanks for sharing.

[lunator]

Very nice report.

It sounded an excellent session.

Rgds

Ian

[Doc]

Amazing stuff and some very interesting objects.

[Talitha]

Thanks for a great report and wonderful sketches! Sure wish the seeing would have held on longer for you, it's great when we're allowed a bit of clarity. I bet you can still see Jupiter every time you close your eyes... love it when that happens.

[Casus belli]

Brillant reporting mate. Im an avid reader of any report from south of the line but this is top notch stuff. Excellent sketches too. One thing you did leave out though....which episode of Family guy was it? D:

[JamesK]

Wow what a report. You've got me thinking Must... Get... Out... Tonight.

Incidently, where can you get a deep sky form like yours, cause I just kind of sit taking random unstructured notes and type them up properly when I get the time?

[Andrew]

Excellent report and sketches - I can only dream of getting those sorts of views of Jupiter!

[SAB]

Thanks everyone That was the best view of Jupiter I've ever gotten. Hopefully tonight will deliver the goods!

As for the obs form, I used to have a copy on my comp but the darn thing broke down and lost the program with which I made it, I'll try scanning it and converting to a PDF (never done that before....and knowing computers it's bound NOT to work ) so wish me luck!