Orion CMa Pup "M" browsing

Date: 18th March 2009, Wednesday
Observation Time: 8pm to 10pm (2 hrs)
Location: SD Home, CA
Weather: Okay.. Seeing was okay in the beginning 2.5/5. After an hour it improved. 3.5/5
Instruments: Orion 10 XTi

Total Objects: 11
New Objects: 3

I am surprised how many things I can see from my patio itself. It was good a experience.

- Orion
M42 Orion Nebula: Wanted to investigate Trapezium inside orion nebula. With 40mm (30x), stars C, A, D were visible. B was probably there, but wasn't sure. With 32mm (38x) B popped easily. Additional magnifications 76x, 10mm (120x) didn't help. In-fact 240x was really hard to focus. Probably a bad night.. What is the minimum magnification and seeing required for E & F to show up?

M43: Not a great view. Nebulosity was visible at 32mm-38x, but then lost it at 76x.

Running Man Nebula NGC 1977 (New-Failed): Got the location, north of M43. Saw stars of the nebula. But actual nebulosity was missing at 30x or 38x also. All higher mags were hopeless.

- Canis Major
Started usual browsing of sky and M objects.

M41 OC: Preety sight. With 30x. The E shaped fork was visible. 38x and 76x shows the shape, but doesn't give overall perspective as 30x.

Eta CMa (New): Visual double star. Visible in 38x. Still can not judge the star magnitude and distances properly. Companion is probably 3 times fainter. Also with 10mm-120x, its like 1/8th of the eyepiece view. The distance is probably 3' minutes. ((52 deg/120x)*60)/8)

Info here: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/Aludra.html

v1 v3 v2 CMa: More double/variable stars in Canis Major. v3 and v2 are only double, as per the map. Saw only v2 to be double. Indeed tight. but still visible in 38x.

- Monoceros
M50 OC: Fainter than I was expecting, still can not miss it at 30x. Twisted and abstract butterfly shape.

- Puppis
M46-M47 OC: Nice pair. At 30x can not keep both in same view.

M47 is made with all bright stars. Closeup look with 38x shows Ophiuchus constellation shape, with small 'k' shape inside.. k or chair shape. All star seems white.

M46 is not as impressive as M47. Lil fainter and sprinkled like M50. No definite shape visible. I missed the PN inside.

This OC pair is marked by two bright star pairs on each side. Indeed impressive.

M93 OC: Really small. initially i missed it at 38x, but found it again at 30x. High mags show twisted A shape. Impressive.

- Hydra
M48 OC (New): Easy catch. Next to hydra C stars. It shows shape of 7, rotated 180deg inside a rectangular boundary.

- Leo
Saturn: Saturn was the only Leo object I was able to view thru my patio. Saturn was impressive. 32mm-38x shows tiny saturn and existence of rings. 2 moons on left clearly visible. The one inside, had uncollimated bright hue aspect to it. Didn't understand what it was, but 76x clarified it. clearly see 3 additional moons, instead of bright hue. First time ever I captured 5 moons of Saturn. 10mm-120x was again impressive. Saturn rings were nice and were giving a feeling of lil bit of tilt, still not sure. N and S gas bands were going in-out of focus. With barlow, 240x was awesome.. Crispy clear view. Seeing must have been improved by now. Gaseous bands on N-S were clear. Lost 5th moon.. wasn't bright enough. rings were indeed showing the tilt without any doubt. Gaps between the Saturn and rings was clearly visible. Cassinni division wasn't visible, i guess because of the low tilt of rings. Still best ever view of Saturn in my 10" scope.

Showed Saturn to Ashwin and Alankar, but by that time, seeing went bad and in few mins fog rolled over.