North Wales 14/15 April 2010

[DarkerSky]

Wonderful dark sky with a limiting magnitude of 6.0 greeted me on my first night's stay in the Conwy Valley. Set my 8.5" scope up for a couple of hour's viewing along a mostly dark southern horizon. Air transparency was poor, with a bit of mist / haziness dispersing what little LP there is immediately to the south and in the north east.

My first target was NGC 3242 - the Ghost of Jupiter planetary nebula in Hydra. Navigated my way along the snaking stars from the border with Crater to find Mu Hydra. Dropped down past a triangle of fainter stars at a magnification of x63, past a double star and onto a fainter 8.5 mag star. The pl came into view just to the southwest of this 8.5 mag star.

On first sight i can see why it is called the Ghost of Jupiter! A small round disc of quite intense but grainy light appeared similar in size to its namesake. Closer inspection at x86 revealed a slightly oblate disc of light with a slightly darker appearance close the disc's centre.

It was a magical sight, and only about 8 degrees above my local horizon. The given mag of this planetary is 9.0

Bouyed by the Ghost's capture, I moved onto another object I have never seen before in Hydra - the M68 globular cluster. At mag 8.2 I expected this globular to be a fairly easy target. Its declination though made it very challenging at only about 2 degrees above the local horizon at the time.

I took a route down through Corvus, dropping down from beta Corvus to the 5.4 mag star hip61621. In x63 magnifcation it came into view as a fairly large patch of indistinct light. Haze and wispy cloud on the horizon made me lose sight of it several times. I did regain enough visisbiltiy of it for about 15 mins before it went behind a group of trees.

A slight brightening was detected towards the centre of the globular, and no stars were resolved. Seeing was pretty awful that low down to the horizon, making star sharpness very tricky.

Still I am glad to have just seen it. And it actually takes a special place in my observing logs as it is the most southerly object I have seen in a telescope.

Sketches were taken of both objects. Will post when I am back home!

[Doc]

A lovely read and mag 6 skies must be fantastic. I have yet to see both those objects but one day I will have to travel south to a star party and look for them.