CMa & Hydra browsing..

Date: Apr 1st 2009, Wednesday
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 10pm (1.5 hrs)
Location: SD home, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing 4 of 5.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10.

M41 OC: Wasn't impressive at all.. Red hue in background from light pollution..

Tau CMA OC NGC-2362: Easy catch. Not as impressive as seen from dark location KC, but still easily identifiable at 30x (42mm). Higher the mag, more stars are resolvable. with 110x-10mm, can get around 35 stars. Sort of traingle shape of the cluster.

NGC-2354 (New): 3 stars in triangle. really tiny.. TBD (??).. FAILED. Wrong observation.

NGC-2359 Thors Helmet (Failed): Can not watch this one from home at all. Jon had told me that, but still attempted. Star-hopping was fun. I think the locaiton i was pointing was correct, but no nebulosity visible. To look for Thor's, Browsing thru M46-47 line wasn't that useful, but Browsing from Sirius-Iota-Gamma then to NGC-2360 & NGC-2374 OC is better hop. 30x-42mm really helps in star-hop.

NGC-2467 & M93 (Failed): 30x-42mm helps again in star hopping. M93 is easy. NGC-2467 Failed. the starhop seems straightforward from Xi to Omi pupis, but no nebulosity..

Saturn : Best ever view from 10". At 220x, marvelous view. Crispy clear image. It ws one of those views, where you feel like having more magnification. 3 moons on west side, while one on east side. rings were fabulous. The slanted-top view of rings visible. Gap between rings and saturn was poping in the eye. Shadow of rings on disk, below the rings.. like a dark band. Northern and Southern equatorial band clearly visible.. above that towards polar side everything was sort of white. The image indeed was sharply focused and gave perfect 3D feeling.

Wasn;t sure what to observe. so picked up Hydra for first time. Bno browsing was indeed helpful to identify what is visible from patio.

NGC-3242 PN Ghost of Jupiter (New): Star-hopping from east side Nu-Phi Hydra is easier than going thru Alpha-Hydra. Really easy star-hopping. Lil hard to see the ghost in 30x, 42mm.. can be missed..but 32mm, 38x indeed shows the fuzziness..atleast can see the difference betn star and fuzziness..higher mag helps. At 110x, feels blue color. At 220x, the PN size is half saturn disk. 220x indeed shows a ring rather than blue disk. So central part is light in color, the middle part is bright blue colored ring, while outskirts is again light colored.. Averted look, helps to feel the brightness of the blue ring. this will be fun to watch from dark place. TBD (??)