Jupiter Sketch

Date : 4th Sept 08, Thursday
Time : 8:15pm to 9:30pm (1:15 hrs)
Location : SD Home
Weather : Seeing was okay (4/10). Moon with 5th phase on west.
Instruments : My 10” dob.

Observed Jupiter tonight for an hour. "starrynights" email threads were indeed helpful in detailed observation.

Seeing was okay around 4. 9mm eyepiece (135x) was crisp image, but 270x was really blurry and no sharp focus. 6.25mm (12.5mm x 2x) (i.e 194x) was still better than 4.5mm, but going in & out focus. so I guess seeing was 194x/10 - 20x magnificaiton per apperutre..so around of 4/10.

Four moons. Two on each side. All of them at different distances.

With 9mm (135x) indeed sharp image. NEB and SEB were bright and brown in color. NEB is darker than SEB. NEB is closer to equator than SEB. The SEB is almost 1.5 times in size than NEB, still smaller than EZ.

At 194x, NEB on right side (East) is darker than NEB on left side (West). NTB and NNTB were initially hard to see, but once eyes were set, they indeed showed up nicely. Both fainter than SEB. The south polar region or prrbably STB were visible, but both merged together, wasn't able to differentiate. Still clearly saw STZ, the zone between SEB and STB.

In NEB, there was a small white fissure across the center of the belt making 45 deg angle. Moderately visible. Saw the Great Red Spot couple of times, when image was crispy and really in perfect focus. It was on SEB on the upper right corner (South East). It was protruding from the SEB on south side. White in color. In a side view. Almost 40% visible.

It was indeed hard to see GRS. From my last TDS & BO session, it was amazingly clear, but this one wasn't really great. Realized the importance of crayford focuser. Also, would have been great to have double focuser or high speed focuser.

I also made a small sketch of Jupiter texture. Considering my first attempt, its not bad. Observing and Drawing the sketch indeed helped me to improve my visibility in the eyepiece w.r.t distances, size and attention to details. Should do it more often. Drawing complete eyepiece view than just the Jupiter disk is much harder. The tracking on Jupiter would have helped while drawing the sketch.

TBD:
Tracking GRS visibility. (Sky & Telescope - GRS Transit times)

DSO Marathon - Part I

Date: 31st August 08, Sunday. Labor Day Long Weekend
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 1:00pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: Boulevard Oaks campground, CA
Weather: Seeing was Good.. not excellent. Heavy Dew. Lil bit cold because of humidity. All things got wet, but still survived for long time :)
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs. Jon's 12.5” dob, and Astrotech 120ED refractor.
Buddies: Jon and his wife Francis.

Total Objects: 49. The max I have ever seen in one shot :)
New Objects: 16 + Ophiuchus OCs (4)

Had a great session with Jon Isaacs. Jon knows so many “different” objects and their precise locations that otherwise it would have taken me a while to just know them. Had a great DSO marathon.

Venus: Venus was popping on western sky 15 deg above horizon. Because of high clouds on west, the view was bit “shaky” and wasn't able to get sharp image (150x, 96x). As Jon pointed out correctly, because of color aberrations in refractor, upper part of Venus has purple shade, while lower part seems orange in color. While in out of focus, it gets green shade. Jon mentioned that phase was almost full, but because of blurry image didn't see much.

Mercury: It was around 4deg SE of Venus in same binocular view. Was really bright than I hoped. Surely smaller in size and fainter than venus. Thru refractor just seemed to be a “dot” and nothing more. (150x)

Mars (New): 7 deg NE of Venus. Nice and bright. Jon moved his refractor to Jupiter, saying clouds on west are killing everything. so din;t observe it from telescope. Completely missed it.

Jupiter: Fabulous view thru refractor at 150x. I cannot believe that 120mm refractor apperture gives so sharp and crispy views as 250mm (10”) reflector. NEB, SEB, NTZ, STZ were clearly visible. The great red spot was popping into the eye, Shape was prefectly visible, but thecolor seemed to be white. The STZ (upper part) also had some sawtooth structure. All 4 moons were widely spaced. Precisely same view thru my 10” dob at 135x. Cranking up the mags at 270x, killed the view.

Also, because of lil bit “wavy” “shaky” views, Jon suggested not to crank up mags.

M4 & NGC 6144: Antares, M4 and NGC 6144 were not impressive. Because of twilight, 6144 was almost invisible. M4 was just another globular, nothing specacular.

M7-M6: Both of them at 38x were impressive. Red tail star of M6 butterfly, seemed more orangish. Stars in M7 most of them seem yellowish with few seemed to be white.

M28-M22: Quick browsing thru lambda saggi, Kau Borealis, M22 was impressive. Able to resolve outskirts with 38x. M28 was really tiny, but bluish color wasn't as impressive as seen before.

Veil Nebula: I told Jon abt my last observation to see the nebulousity of veil, without filter. On 12.5” dob, Cyg52 veil neb was barely visible to me. I can feel the neb, but not the shape of it. Second part was also disappointing. With filter, some of the shape was perceptible, but again not impressively. Later at night, we saw Veil again and it was fabulous with filter. Veil was overhead and we captured 3 parts of veil. Cyg52 veil was great with its unique broomstick shape. The other end was also impressive from end to end. And in middle of these two, exists another one.. its bit fainter, but visible..also its more close to cyg52 veil component. Veil is Jon's favorite object, he watched it probably 4 times during the whole session.

Sagittarius browsing: Thru refractor, with wide-angle view (~30x), browsed saggitarius. It was marvelous and heavenly sight. It really gives a perspective on all objects at the same time. M8 Lagoon & its cluster, M20 Triffid, M21 OC in same view. M20 is really smaller than M8. M24 star cloud, M25 OC on moving left and M23 OC (New) on moving right looked great. M17 swan and M16 eagle were again in same view at two ends. Swan shape was clearly visible.

M8 Lagoon: Thru 10” dob, with the OIII filter on 24mm eyepiece (~50x), M8 was marvelous. The nebulousity was prominent. Semi circular dark lane seemed to be really wide. The left side neb seemed smaller than right+lower side neb. Hour glass also seemed to be brighter and lil bit bigger than non-filter views. Because of filter, only bright stars were visible and all stars indeed lost their charm. OC Cluster wasn't impressive either. High mags with filter (100x) surely killed all stars. Neb also seemed to be fainter than 50x view.

M20 Triffid: At 50x with filter, the nebula was indeed impressive. Dark lane Y shape was making sense as compared to non-filter views. The middle 3 stars were not that bright and hard to resolve the central star into double. Cranking up the mag to 100x helped lil bit with dark lanes and central double star resolving.

M17 Swan: this is one of the best objects in sky and with filter it became impressive. Along with 2 shape, the right and lower side nebulosity was clearly visible, more-ever like a peacock :). these two parts are extended almost as the same size as 2 shape. The central two bright stars in 2 shape seemed really dim.

M16 Eagle: With non-filter 38x view, the nebulousity was fainter. The characteristic, V hsape and the arc in the middle was impressive. With filter, the nebulousity brightness increased. Not as great as other nebulas, but still decently visible. Neb is just on the upper side of V.

M57 Ring: To have more fun with Filter, I pointed it to M57 and this is first time, I felt the blusish color. Ring was strikingly bright and with high mags it made it more impressive. Jon also mentioned that high mags + filter + planetary nebula combination works great as compared to other nebulas. With 150x, still the central star not visible. Also because of filter lost 2 o'clk star.

M27 Dumbbell: Brighter views with filter. Characteristic dumbbell shape with upper and lower wings. Left and right wings also mix well with dumbbell and are pretty bright..

The use of OIII filter on all 7 nebulas, really enhanced the view and had more fun in observing.

Saggi OC browsing: Thru binocs, captured M24 star cloud, M25 OC on left and M23 OC on right. Also captured fainter M18 OC (New). M18 wasn't much impressive thru 38x either. It was yet another OC.

Continued...

DSO Marathon - Part II

M11 Wild duck cluster: visible naked eye. At 135x, bright tiny yellowish stars. High concentrations of stars for being a open cluster (??). Also didn't see any wild duck shape in there.

M26 & NGC 6712: (New): After M11, 6712 is just next to it. At 135x, tiny bluish GC. M26 was visible thru binocs, but hard to capture in telescope. Accidentally, I left 9mm eyepiece in the view and so not able to find anything. Didn't realize it till I moved to next object. Should have tried with lower mags.

NGC 6441: (New): Tiny globular just next to star G scorpi. (Map 58). Bluish & fainter.

M54: (New) Being a messier object, this GC is really tiny, still bigger than other NGC GCs. Notihng much to say. Just to tick-mark another messier object.

M69: (New): Quick glance to M69. Bigger than M54. Still was fainter as M54. Nothing impressive. Also Saggi was way too close to horizon, so probably I dind't find M54, M69 & 6441 that great.

So being tired, started talking with jon and he kindled my interest with tiny nice objects.

Blue Snowball Nebula: (New): Tiny planetary nebula located in Andromeda. Easy to locate as its next to a bright star. Its like mini M57 ring, but much strikingly bright compared to the size with M57 and that too without filter. The size is probably 1/5th of M57. The bluish color was impressive and better than M57. Tried with my 10” dob. So 38x view shows it, but its so tiny that high chances of interpreting it for blue star..

NGC 253 Galaxy: (New): Just know the location visually, wasn't able to confirm anything from the map. (??). binocular view brightness seemed like M33, but smaller in size. My dob, 38x view and then 76x view really shows the edge-on shape. Its not sculptor dwarf galaxy.

Green Nebula NGC 6572: (New): Tiny planetary nebula in ophiuchus (Map 65), Seemed like bluish in color than green in 12.5 dob. Hard to locate. Smaller than blue snowball nebula. Didn't try it in my dob.

Saturn Nebula: (New) Yellowish planetary nebula in capricorn. Easy to catch. Bigger than snowball nebula. Yellowish color is prominent. Ring and middle darkness visible at 76x. High mags killed it.

Ophiuchus OC browsing (New): Quick bino browsing. (Map 65) Star Beta Ophi → Gamma Ophi → 2 o'clk of Beta is IC 4665 OC → 9 o'clk of Gamma is Cr 350 OC → 2 o'clk of Beta around 6 deg are stars 71 & 72. → 10 o'clk of which is Green nebula 6572 → 11 o'clk of star 71 is OC 6673 and IC 4756 OC.

M72 (New): Tiny globular in capricon. Visble thru binoc. Similar to M54.

M73 (New): Messier mistaken object. Tiny tringular star alignment just next to M72.

M30 (New): Impressive GC. The shape is bizzare. Two parallel lines like H shape merging. Right side vertical line upper end has all stars of GC, like a lollypop :). not sure if the stars in H are part of GC (??) Considering star's H alignment, it seems like they are. Need to spend more time on this one next time (???)

M13: Easy catch with both bino and dob At 38x shows the rich filed of stars and outskirts stars resolvable.. Higher mags increases the beauty.

M92 (New): Fellow GC in Hercules. Easy catch with bino. This one is also impressive as M13 but lil bit smaller. M13 probably being closer seems bigger (or it really is). At 38x, hard to resolve any stars. At 76x, outskirt can be resolved easily.

UGC 10822: Tried to find this galaxy next to M92, but failed: Need to read more (??)

M31-M32-M110: At 38x, the dark lane is visible with averted vision. The core is so bright that it becomes hard to see the dark lane. But 38x indeed shows the bigger size of M31. Probably the dark lane width is bigger than M32 size. With averted vision, I imagined the length of dark lane to really long and nice curvature, than probably it is :-). Need to verify (??). M32 is really tiny fuzzy spot and smaller than M110, but still brighter than M110. Thru refractor, lower mags ~30x & wide-angle, shows the grandness of M31. M32 was almost invisible. But M110 was clearly visible. Again, I think I saw the dark lane of M31.

NGC 404 Galaxy next to Mirach (New): The Beta Andromeda, Mirach, has a small companion galaxy NGC 404. Hard to see at 38x, At 76x, really faint. Fuzziness is also not clear. Seemed like lot of bright dots in concentrated area.

M33 Triangulum: Observed M33 in great detail. With high mags (76x, 150x), with averted vision, the upper arm extending to left is visible. Lower arm extending to right was also visible. Both of them really faint. Lower-right arm vanishes in the middle and ends with bright fuzzy region NGC (??) along with a bright star.

Perseus double cluster: Naked eye. At 38x, both OCs fit in the same view. Upper one seems bigger and wider, while lower is comparatively concentrated. Still, lower one seems to have more brighter stars than upper one.

Had some interesting non-duality discussions, flute session and hot tea break from Jon's wife Francis.

TBDs:
- Buy laser collimator asap
- UHC or OIII filter is must. Investigate on various brands
- Best of NGCs object study