Quick Galloway 12" dob session

[dogfish]

We took possession of a holiday cottage in Galloway the weekend before last. I didn't realise this at the time when we first went to see it, but found out later that the Galloway star party takes place 2 or 3 fields away. So, I was looking forward to seeing what the skies were like. One of the first things I moved there was my Skywatcher 12" Flextube dob

The first weekend was cloudy, but last Saturday night the sky cleared after a blustery, showery afternoon. First thing to note was that there was a clear milky way overhead. It took a while to become properly dark adapted, but when I had, I wasn't blown away. For darkness, the skies looked somewhere between those I'd seen at the Salisbury Star Party and Kielder. However, I reminded myself that skies vary over different nights and that I suspected the transparency wasn't that good after the wet afternoon. Later on, the stars looked distinctly 'blobby' so that might have been a factor.

I'd collimated the Flextube with my new (to me) Hotech laser collimator after following the YouTube directions and it all seemed to go without a hitch. However, looking through the scope, I wasn't happy with the collimation. Discussed this later with my brother (who is a fan of the Hotech) and he recommended collimating the secondary with a Cheshire, reserving the laser for the primary. I'll try that this weekend.

As dusk fell, I had a quick look at Jupiter, calling my 9 and 7 year old step sons to have a look. They both said "oh yeah" and raced off back to the X-Box. As it got properly dark I pointed the scope at M42. I must admit, it looked fantastic. Big gull wings, with a very sharp, dark 'V' where the wings faced M43. I could also make out billowing clouds of gas in one of the wings, with the other side being distinctly less full of bright gas. M43 was also clear and I could see a rounded shape to the nebulosity. Further over in the same field of view using my 35mm Panoptic, I could make out the nebulosity of the running man but not the classic shape, just three stars that really 'bloomed' with averted vision.

I hadn't come well prepared to this session and had not thought out a list of targets. I did have February's edition of Sky and Telescope and they had a tour of the Messier objects in Ursa Major. So, using that I first found M81 and M82. A nice visual pairing in the widefield of the 35mm but not the best view I've had. North is actually the worst bit of the skies there as Wigtown is visible It is only a small town but there is a distinct glow to the North. I should really have increased magnification but I was keen just to get a quick look at objects and knock the rust off my sky navigation skills.

Next was M108, which was a clear elongated fuzz, but I couldn't make out more structure than that even when I upped the magnification using a 22mm Panoptic. Moving quickly on, I next viewed M97. Although I've viewed this object before, it was the first time I'd seen it in this scope and I was surprised at how big this planetary nebula is. There were definitely variations in brightness across the round ball of nebulosity, but I couldn't swear I could see the 'eyes'. I even tried my Astronomic UHC filter, but whilst this darkened the sky, didn't make things much clearer. I then moved to M109, which was obvious but I didn't linger as I was keen to find out what I could see of M51. There were two very clear balls of fuzz, one being bigger and brighter than the other. I tried, but couldn't make out the 'bridge'. I finished off with M101 and I remember mistaking an NGC galaxy for it until I nudged the scope Eastward and saw the obviously bigger M101.

I called it a night after having been out for only an hour and half. It was cold and windy and I'd tried unsuccessfully to find the open clusters in Auriga as I didn't have a star map out with me. I'm looking forward to my next outing and getting some more impressions of the skies under different conditions and with my scope properly collimated. I've already planned some targets in Taurus (M1), Auriga, Canis Major, Monocerus and Gemini.

Cheers, Martin