August 15th and 16th (better late than never)

[Talitha]

Before i begin, here's a mystery to solve. Last week, the 7mm Celestron Axiom eyepiece arrived and this was the first chance i had to try it out. All in all i'm satisfied with it, but for some reason, this ep and the 26mm QX that came with the scope tend to get me a bit nauseous and give me eyestrain headaches if i use them exclusively. I used to get the same feeling when using the f/6.3 focal reducer with the f/10 8"SCT... any idea what's causing this?

Sunday August 15th

It was a bit windy, but the air was exceptionally dry and the transparency was well above average. So despite the several herds of clouds which moved through and kept interrupting things, i decided to keep going because it was so beautiful out. If i didn't, i'd regret it in February when the temp was -29C. At 8:55pm, i was about to do a startest on the Double-Double and the coolest thing happened.... a flock of 30 Canadian Geese flew about 25' over the Starpad and they were so close, i could hear the wind-whirr of their wings. After they'd passed, one of them gave a solitary goodbye 'honk'... what a great way to start the night.

Observations began with M4 in Scorpius using the 7mm (261x, 18.8' fov).. very nice. This globular has a line of stars cutting straight through the center of it.. quite an interesting one to study if you get a chance. Spent a lot of time wandering up and down the Milky Way looking at this and that, including M16 which appeared to have a curved 'bow shock' of nebulosity to the right of it. The Swan nebula was magnificent using the 7mm. It showed variations in the nebulosity i'd never seen before, and the brighter areas looked like sunlight reflecting off of a Swan's feathers... absolutely stunning. The sketch has been posted in the Sketching Forum.

The two handles i'd added to Seymour's UTA helped a lot when rotating the scope near the zenith on the way to the Crescent Nebula in Cygnus. The 26 Plossl (70x, 42.6' fov) with O-III filter gave a very nice view, easily the best i'd ever had. Next was the Veil. The 40 Plossl (46x, 56.4' fov) gave lovely views that got even better when the O-III was added. The smoky nebulosity of the Cocoon Nebula (26QX) was easily seen with or without the O-III, and the dark lane leading to it looked like a black ribbon of highway compared to the surrounding stellar congestion.

The QX started to affect me again, so i thought it best to get down from the ladder and cruise around at a lower altitude. The Helix was in a nice position, so i settled down to have a look using the 13.8 SWA (133x, 30.3' fov). The nebula was bright enough not to need the O-III, and it appeared to be slightly thicker around the edges. The Saturn nebula definitely looked elongated, but the seeing wouldn't allow detection of the side extensions. Maybe next time.

Sliding over to Cetus, i began to wander around and saw something just a bit up from 47 Ceti which wasn't on the chart. Turns out i literally bumped into Comet 10P/Tempel, how's that for a happy accident? Next was ngc247, the 'exclamation point' galaxy. The nickname was given to the edge-on galaxy because there's a magnitude 9.5 star (HD 4529) at one end, making it look like an exclamation point. TBH though, it's always reminded me of Comet Bradfield hovering in the dawn sky 6 years ago. Next, i wanted to get a good look at ngc246. It's the only planetary nebula i've ever seen with really noticeable stars in it, so i call it the 'sparkly' nebula. Worth a look.

The Pleiades were magnificent through the 2" 26QX. Even without the O-III filter, the nebulosity was very noticeable but the O-III enhanced it. The O-III filter is only 1.25", but luckily it nests quite well in the QX's eyecup, making it fairly easy to use with the 2" ep. By 3:40 am there was already a slight brightening to the NE horizon. Dawn was fast approaching, but i still had plenty of time to get a good look at M1. No structure was seen but wow, it was so much brighter than what i'd been accustomed to looking at for the last decade. Happy to have seen it with the new scope, it was time to pack everything up and go home. As i pulled onto the driveway at about 4:00am i looked eastward and saw that Orion had already risen. Cool.

Monday August 16th

The transparency was great on Sunday but every time i started to look for Stephan's Quintet, the clouds rolled in. By the time i got another chance to try, the galaxy group had gained more altitude. As it got higher and higher, i sensed an 'accident waiting to happen' if i tried holding my Millennium Star Atlas volume upside down while on a ladder, nudging the scope and leaning over to look through finder scopes. So i (wisely ) decided to catch it earlier on Monday when it was lower... it worked like a charm. With firm ground to stand on and the Atlas volume resting on the music stand at my elbow, it didn't take long at all to work my way to the galaxy group. Even though 'average' transparency had returned, i could easily see (with near-direct vision) ngc7320 and the combined ngc7318A/ngc7318B. Averted vision showed ngc7319 and ngc7317. Powering down showed the most nebulosity, and powering up showed the most core detail.

M33 was a target i should have tried on Sunday night but just didn't think to do it. Even so, on Monday the view was more than i ever could have imagined... so much more than the nebulous blob i'd been seeing for the last 10 years. There was a symmetrical brightness with corresponding 'openness' for lack of a better word. Patterned mottling which i assume were the spiral arms? This was seen using the 26mm QX (70x, 59.7' fov). I'll take another look when the transparency's better. There was something off to the side which i thought was an elliptical galaxy (wish i'd made a rough sketch) but there aren't any satellite galaxies nearby. After comparing what i saw to some online images, i'm pretty sure it was ngc604, a 2' diffuse nebula in the galaxy. It wasn't a point of light, it was a satiny glow with gradiently diffused edges, and was quite bright.

I spent a lot of the session wandering around just window shopping, which is why only two targets are listed. The transparency seemed to be getting worse throughout the session, and when i stood up and looked around i found out why. To the south, northeast and west, there were wisps of ghastly orange cirrus clouds on the horizons, illuminated by the surrounding towns. When you can see them scrunched up like that all around, you can bet there's a thin wax-paper layer covering your sky. I called it a night at 1:30am.

Clear skies, and thanks for reading!

[just looking]

Nice read Carol

makes you feel you are there ;o)

[iamjulian]

I wonder how many comet discoveries are happy accidents like that? The scope views sound impressive as ever but I have to agree, the sight and sound of geese in flight is special. They often stop on a lake not far from here and it is an amazing sight when they circle down to land, honking away.

[Talitha]

Thanks! Yes, the Geese were a nice surprise, just like the comet. Usually you can hear the Geese honking away but these were quiet, maybe they do that when flying so low, i'm not sure. A few years ago at 1:30 in the morning a Great Northern Diver (Gavia Immer, we call them Common Loons here) flew right over the Starpad giving this type of call... luckily i had the digital recorder handy and managed to get most of it.