Orion XT8i 02-02-2010

[pvaz]

The night was decent. The entire sky was clear but there was a thin mist at low altitude making some DSOs, galaxies in particular, a challenge.

I started with NGC1954. This is was a very hard object to find. It is said to be wide, around 4 arcminutes in diameter but with a magnitude of only 13 streched over that area it proved to be a challenge. I managed to nail it at 77x but had to use averted vision and confirm the location using the near by stars.

I then moved to the Herschel 400 in Eridanus. Only managed to find one of them, NGC1535. This is a very small planetary nebula, known as Cleopatra's Eye. It's 42" wide and haves magnitude 10. I could easily detect it's non stellar nature at 77x, but the best views ware achieved at 120x and 240x where I could see a more intense point in the center, although it didn't resolve completely as a star. By now my session was over 1h long and I had only seen 2 object. This targets ware proving to be tough under the limited visibility with only 8" aperture.

Next stop was NGC2403 in Cameleopardis. Another though one! With a magnitude of 8.4 spread across 17' this galaxy was very dim and hard to spot, even though it was well positioned near zenith. I failed to located the other H400 objects in this constellation.

On to Andromeda in the west, things started to work better. NGC404 was easily spotted. This showed like a faint lighter patch near Mirach. The glare from the star didn't make things easy and I found it easier to observe by keeping the star just outside of the FOV.

Next on the list was NGC752. This is a medium size open cluster. I could resolve over 30 stars in the area.

Then I went for the blue snowball, NGC7662. This is a bright fuzzy ball that popped out nicely at 77x. Best views ware at 120x but I failed to see any color in it this time.

Then the open cluster NGC7686. It's located in the middle of nowhere which made it hard to find. To be honest it's one of those that haves nothing out of the ordinary and really not worth the effort.

I still tried a few more DSOs, mostly galaxies, but my efforts ware frustrated, the mist seamed to be thicker now and the moon was starting to rise.

I then looked at Mars for about 15min and finished it off with the colored double Iota in Cancer, where I could resolve the 2 stars and clearly see the light blue and strong yellow color in them.

I think I'm picking targets at the very limit of my scope capabilities as I failed to observe many on the list and end up with less then 10 new objects on a 3 hour session. Still it was a good night and given all the bad weather recently I was happy to get a chance for a long session.

[Chris H]

Nice report Paulo sounds like a good night even though you did not find all you were hunting for.

[DarkerSky]

Super report Paulo. NGC1954 sounds like a really good catch at Mag 13. Sometimes the harder it is to track down, the bigger the grin is when you actually find it. Good stuff

[pvaz]

Indeed there is an added satisfaction when you nail a hard object.

I guess I was just bit depressed cause I'm starting to get the aperture fever but I can't do anything about it now. I promised my wife I wouldn't spend more money on astronomy this year when I got the Nagler and Ethos. Need to be content with what I have for now and make the best of it.

But still, i'm seeing a big dob far down in the horizon just waiting for me!

[Chris H]

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread Paulo but how do you find the Ethos 10mm performs in your scope?

[pvaz]

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread Paulo but how do you find the Ethos 10mm performs in your scope?

In one word: Excelent!

I struggle to see a difference in quality to the orthos, even when barlowed and it's great to use cause of the extra FOV that makes it "dob-friendly". I find it useful for planets and DSOs as it produces a bigger FOV then most 13mm EPs (in between a 12mm and a 13mm Nagler).

I wrote a review on the review section, but that's the general idea.

[russ]

A great haul of challenging targets Paulo.

I remember finding NGC 7662 'Blue Snowball' this time last year just before 'selling up'. At the time i remember it being a challenge with a 12.5 dob. But i was having to contend with a stupid amount of LP and couldn't see the stars needed to hop. I found it by pure chance in the end. It was the session when I decided enough was enough, i could no longer carry on.

But once you have the bug that's it. So i bought my current 8" dob a few months later and just accept that some nights the LP will make observing impossible.

10mm Ethos sounds a dob owners dream eyepiece!

[pvaz]

Yeah it was not the easiest set of objects. I'm just trying to complete the Messier, Herschel and Caldwell lists to get a good idea of everything I can see, but it seams some of those objects may be beyond the limits of my scope. I usually pick 2/3 constellations per session and make a compiled list with the objects, from the 3 catalogs, for those constellations.

Still I managed to get some of the objects I missed in this session later that week. The seeing conditions also had a role in it so I think I can still clear quite a few before moving on. The low LP where I live does help a lot!