Looking at clusters

[iamjulian]

Yesterday was clear skies all day, then by 6pm it started to cloud over. By 8pm the stars were visible, but there was definitely a thin layer of cloud. I could make out M31 but Bodes Galaxy was too faint so there was no chance of finding my main targets in Ursa Major, the spirals of M109 and M101. I had a detailed star map and knew I had star hopped to exactly the right place, but transparency(?) wasn't good enough. Or maybe it was partly due to all my neighbours flicking their lights on and off all night, wrecking my vision.

So I changed tack and took a look around the clusters. M13 gave me the best view so far. 83x magnification seemed about right. There were lots of sharp pin pricks of light, that were glittering as I changed where I looked in the eyepiece. I'd love to see this one through a bigger scope! Anyone know whether you need 10" or 12" to resolve it? Next I had another look at the double cluster in Perseus, even managed to convince my wife to come out have have a quick look. It fits beautifully into the 32mm EP.

I have heard it said many times that you see more, the more practiced you are. I always had a slight suspicion that this was just more experienced astronomers trying to make out that they were better than beginners. I doubted that experience would give you any better views. But I was definitely wrong. The double cluster is blindingly obvious to me now, even though I have only seen it about a dozen times. When I centered it in the EP, my wife asked where it was. She couldn't see the pattern at all. That has to be experience, doesn't it?

Anyway, on to M103 in Cassiopeia and then back down to a new Messier for my list, M34. Quite easy to find almost mid way between Algol in Perseus and Gamma Andromeda. It has a very distinctive pattern of stars and is definitely one of the nicer open clusters I have seen so far.

Jupiter was taking too long to appear in the gap between the houses and I decided to save the hunt for the M36, M37 and M38 clusters in Auriga for another night.

[Talitha]

Sorry about the thin cloud layer (and the neighbors' lights).. i hope you get a good look at the galaxies next time you're out. Even if it's a good night for galaxies though, check out the Auriga Messiers.. they're lovely.

M13 resolves pretty well in my 120 achro, and is a lot better in the 8" SCT. Steady skies help, too. Atmospheric turbulence tends to blend the stars and takes away that pin-point look we all like to see.

The relationship you mentioned between 'practicing' and 'seeing more' is definitely true. Familiarity and experience are great teachers, and this is also how our viewing eye learns to see more. When you habitually use one eye for observing (like most of us do), your viewing eye is actually being trained to detect things much easier than the non-trained eye. It'd be great if we could train it to see through the clouds, eh?

[Paxo]

I love to occasionally go back to observing clusters as a break from imaging, I never tire of looking at these amazing structures (globs are my favourite I guess). As for experience, I was sceptical originally like yourself, but I don't know how many times you have people near you who have had the same dark adaption, you centre a faint fuzzy in the eyepiece and they can't see it!

Hoe you get some more clear skies again.

Steve..

[kniclander]

Sometimes I wonder if the problem that peole who are not familiar with the hobby have is focussing? i am shortsighted so I can't focus for other people - the difference between a nice cluster in focus and a tiny bit out of focus is significant.