Moon Geological Period & Jupiter Belts

Date: 15 & 16th June 08, Sunday & Monday
Observation Time: 11:30pm to 1am (1:30 hr) on both days
Location: SD Home, CA
Weather: Seeing was excellent. Because of moon light, whole sky was washed out.

Highlight of the Night: Moon geological period and Jupiter disk.

Phase of the moon: 2 days before full moon. Waxing gibbous with 96% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

Watched moon on both sun & mon. Mainly at 194x, with 12mm 2x barlow.

Followed the terminator from SW corner to NW. Crater Schikard, Fourier, humorium basin, Eddington basin and Crater Pythagoras.

The main thing I focused on is to get the angular judgment of the size and distance of these craters compared other prominent feature. e.g. It was fun to measure distances between Crater Kepler to Enke, which was ~4deg.. and Kepler-Mauris around ~12 deg. Again these distances are just rough estimation, but it was fun to get the judgment correct.

Another thing i focused on is to understand the geological time scale of these features. E.g crater Tycho being in Copernitian period, while crater Phtyagoras is in Eratosthenes period... means tycho being much younger than pythagoras, which must be younger than nearby crater babbage which must be younger than crater archimedese or crater plato. This estimation of age was fun to track.

Watched Jupiter on both sun/mon. On sunday, Just watched it for 5 mins and clouds rolled over. On monday spent more than 20mins. Overall, I saw jupiter with really good clarity. On sunday, Calisto was transitioning on Jupiter at the NE edge..

Most of the observations of Jupiter were at 194x, with 12mm 2x barlow. I used blue, green and red filter on it. The blue and green filters were indeed helpful. I also tried the moon filter on jupiter.. it indeed reduced the brightness of jupiter disk.. but din't help anything more than that.

North equatorial belt south equatorial belt were clearly visible. northen belt seems to be darker than southern one, but southern one is surely wider than nourthen one. Also, with some effort, I saw N & S polar regions as well. also, I saw the north tropical zone gap. I felt its existence because that area is like a strip which is brigher/white than the north eq belt.

It must be fun to watch Jupiter without moonlight.. also at 250x and above. Lack of high magnification eyepiece indeed made me sad :) !!

Any way, it was first time, I watched Jupiter so seriously and with such a clarity.. It was indeed a good learning experience on how you can train your eyes to see a object.

Lunar Mare Imbrium

Date: 12th June 08, Thursday
Observation Time: 9:15pm to 10:30pm (1:15 hrs)
Location: SD Home, CA
Weather: Seeing was excellent. Clouds started coming over afterwards.. so was hard to focus with high magnification.

Highlight of the Night: Mare Imbrium and Crater Sarabhai

Phase of the Moon: 10th day after new moon. waxing gibbous with 79% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

Initially took me a while to figure out where is the terminator lying in the map. I thought that it is in Mare Serentatis, but it was in Mare Imbrium. Good part is figuring out N-S-E-W in the eyepiece was easy. so looking into the map was easy afterwards.

Most of the observation was with 184x magnification, 12mm with 2x Barlow. Occasionaly I switched to 96x, with 25mm, 2x barlow. Moon filter was indeed helpful at 96x. At 184x i preferred to observe without it.

Mare imbrium is indeed nice, with bunch of Craters: Copernicus, Eratosthenes, Archimedes and Plato.

Crater Copernicus western wall was striking bright, i guess because of sun light. Its really rough wall, or possibly multiple walls. Crater walls seemed pretty deep. At the center there are 2 prominent peaks, strikingly white in color.

Crater Eratosthenes is at the beginning of mountain range, Its features are like small scale Copernicus...except.. at the center of this crate, it has 3 peaks in triangular fashion.

Map says that the mountain range near Eratosthenes is of ~3000m elevation... but really didn't feel it.. I think if i would have observed couple of days before, i would have able to feel the height because of shadow. The mnt range at W and NW wall of Mare Imbirum seemed pretty tall. these mnt were in the dark, after the terminator, but their peaks were bright in the dark, must be because of their height.. I will watch them again tomorrow and will confirm it.

Crater Archimedes: Its a filled up crater, really smooth. nothing special with walls .. neigther have any central peak... but SW of it, there is some what rough area.. small scale mountain range.

Crate Plato at N of the Mare.. is indeed nice. Compared to other craters, size wise: Plato >> Copernicus > Archimedes > Eratosthenes. This is also a smooth, fllled up crater , no peaks. The W wall of this crater is impressive, the large rock sliding is visible.

As i mentioned in the beginning, I interpreted Mare Imbrium as Mare Serentatis.. so I opened a map of Serentatis.. and guess what... it has a really tiny crater called as "Sarabhai" .. It is named after Dr Vikram Sarabhai, ISRO founder. Felt really good. I should find out, if any other Indian celebrities are reached to the moon.

Crater Sarbhai is nothing special. Its really really tiny. only 7km wide, as compared to Copernicus being 93km It was really hard for me to catch it at 96x. At mag 184x, it was visible clearly, but no details..

TBD:
- Lunar regions named after Indian celebrities.

31st May 08 @ TDS

Date: 31^st May 08, Saturday
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 12:00pm (3:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was “okay” initially, but afterwards it improved, but still not excellent. Cloud cover was always there near horizon. Little bit breezy till 10pm. and it was freaking cold.. 44 deg F. If yahoo weather say “almost clear', then think before heading to TDS.
Buddies: Bill from next pad. Didn't talk with him much..

Highlight of the night: I cracked complete Leo constellation DSOs and surprise look of Omega Centauri.

Another constructive session at TDS. Actually I wasn't sure abt visiting TDS, because of late afternoon lunch at friend's daughter's first birthday party. So was somewhat tired.. but 25 mins nap did the magic, and ended up gong to TDS late evening.

Not many people were around.. probably 6-8 telescopes. Weather was awful when I was driving to TDS. The clear sky clock showed few “faint blues”, while yahoo weather had a doubt with “Almost” clear.

Faced some trouble with collimation.. I think primary mirror is not fully visible in secondary.. I tried my best.. but still I think its still wrong.. wasn't able to focus on Saturn precisely.. I was seeing the double images except the fine tuned point.. I should not see double images.. out of focus is okay.

**** Saturn:
Because of bad weather,, I started with Saturn. In32mm, 38x, Saturn was perfectly visible with 3 moons. 2 on one side, while one on another. Rings were visible with a separation from planet. 97x with 25mm 2x barlow, indeed showed something dark band on Saturn. Ring's overlap over the planet was clearly visible.. still wasn't able to see cassini division. Its hard to keep saturn in high mag view.

*** Leo
I followed again the cloudy night article regarding “Leo”.. page by page..

> M65 – M66 – NGC 3628 Triplet
It was again perfect catch absolutely no trouble. in finding it. all three visible in same view. NGC 3628 was really faint. View was not that great, because of bad seeing I guess.. Didn't try high magnification.

> NGC 3607 – 3608 – 3605 Triplet
Easy to find. all three lined up in a triangle. The one in the middle is really bright, other two were barely visible to me. Required averted vision. Infact I am not sure if I saw correct one.. I have a sketch with galaxy and surrounding stars and its not matching with cloudy nights.. I need to verify with ma10 sky chart.

> M95 – M96 – M105 Triplet
this time I located it precisely and in first shot :) .. The stars “p”, 53, 52 and 43 form perfect trapezoid. and in the same view finder. If we take perfect mid-point of 52 & 53, thats where galaxy triplet can be found. All three can not be in same view, some bright star, M105 and M96 are in perfect view like a right angle triangle.. if we pick up M96, then another 90 deg twist gives M95.. perfectly aligned. so all four objects for one-side angled square.

M96 is the brighter between them. M105 and M95 seemed of same magnitude. M95 seems to be the bigger in size than M96. I need to verify these observations.

> M105 – NGC3371 – NGC3373 Triplet 
3371-73 should have been 3384 and 3389.
M105 itself is a triplet. M105 is at 6 o'clock from the bright star. 3371 is at 8 o'clock. There are 3 stars lined up on right side of 105-3371 line. If we pick up the middle star, then with averted vision, 3373 is clearly visible. Simply fabulous !! 3373 is just too faint and tiny.. 3371 is bigger and brighter than 3373 and can be seen fairly.. Bill from next pad was happy to see the triplet-triplets..but 3373 was too hard for him.

> NGC 2903
Following pocket sky atlas, gave me the precise location of this guy and easy to catch. it looked like as elongated as NGC 3268, Nothing much special..

> Alpha Leonid – Regulus:
I am still not able to resolve this double star. .not able to resolve it with 6mm also, 184x.. Freaking, there is something terribly wrong.

> Gamma Leonid – Algieba:
This double star is fabulous. in 32mm, 38x not able to resolve it, but 76x showed me the “peanut” shape. companion is so close and smaller than gamma, so it looks like uneven 8 or a peanut. Both of them golden yellowish color.

I am done with Leo now.. need to move to new one.. probably virgo !!

*** Cancer
> M44 – Beehive cluster – fabulous as usual !!

> M67 – open cluster – not as impressive as M44.. its really tiny. but its hard to locate.

*** Omega Centauri
This is first time I saw this glob in my life.. From India, for the roof of my place in pune, I have seen it., but I never knew that this is THE BEST glob in whole night sky. and yesterday I saw it.. Initially thru my binocs 10x50. its almost 4 times the size of M13 Hercules glob. M13 is really tiny in front of this one. Its naked eye... 2-3 deg from southern horizon. At 38x with 32mm, it was fabulous.. not able to resolve any stars, but it was too dense more than a cotton.. really fuzzy !! 32mm with 2x barlow, 72x resolved some outskirt stars, but 25mm 2x 98x was indeed impressive... more you look in the eyepiece, the more you have adapted your eyes to the view, the more I was able to resolve the stars in it.. all of them seemed to be of same color. Again as it was too densely packed.. I am just not able to see any shape.. This was-is indeed memorable sight !!

*** Ursa Major
After dinner, I tracked few objects in big dipper. I should have read the cloudy nights article in detail.

> M81 – M82 pair:
M81 is indeed brighter & bigger than M82. M81 is edge on.. again both of them seemed to be too faint to observe anything.. again following sky atlas pointed perfect location and first shot catch !! high mag didn't help much !!

> M108 galaxy – M97 Owl nebula pair:
This was indeed hard to catch because of my stupidity. I misinterpreted the view through finder and was looking on the opposite direction of “beta”.. moment I realized my mistake, in next attempt the pair was in my eyepiece.. its indeed fainter than M81-M82 pair.. the distance between them is more than 81-82 pair. Again high mag really made them faint.. M97 is indeed brighter than M108. M97 is in perfect circular shape while M018 is elongated edge on.

> M109 - It was too faint .. I don't remember much !! it was yet another DSO.. nothing more..

> M51 whirlpool galaxy:
This was indeed great. clearly visible in 32mm, 38x.. pretty bright.. in 8 shaped with left galaxy smaller than right one. but both of them were brighter.. high mag didn't show much !!

Next time I need to watch Ursa DSOs carefully.

** Jupiter
From bill's Orion 6” MAK , it was indeed good, crispy clear image.. all 4 satellites, two on each side.. The bands were clearly visible and impressive.. but still image was not crystal clear.. too bright !! Also Jupiter was low on horizon.. similar view from my scope, but not as crispy as from bill's. I tried the red filter on it, to see the bands.. but total failure.. I think scope needs to be collimated properly..

Mistakes:
- Its freaking cold out there. A sweat shirt and jacket is not enough.
- I should right down each observation.. otherwise i forget

TBD:
- Collimate the scope properly..
- Red torch with a string