Getting Into The Rhythm - I

Date: Sept 13th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 1:00am (5.5 hrs)
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Moderate Seeing, Good Transparency. Windy whole night.. chillier !!
Instruments: Jon's 12.5" dob, My 10" dob, Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Bino browsing.
Buddies: Jon

Had 2 sessions after coming back from India..but in this session I felt like my usual rhythm is back. After normal browsing, spent lot of detailed viewings in Capricorn, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Perseus, Aquila, Hercules etc.. total 5.5 hrs observing was excellent..

Just after sunset, browsed few bright usual candidates thry my scope and Jon's refractor.

M7-M6: Nice viewing. Pin point stars.. butterfly red star seemed orange. there is a GC next to M7, but missed it. need to find out TBD.

6441 Tiny Glb next to G scorpi: while looking for M7, ended up at this GC next to G Scorpi. GC is small, but bright.. Initially felt like shape of 8..but its not.. surprisingly, its also visible thru 10x50 binocs thru averted vision. How much is magnitude of this TBD?

N Jewl box: Quick browsing.. seemed lil tiny in the nagler..

M4 Antares & 6144: M4 next to antares is definitely resolvable in 17mm nagler 76x. 6144 seemed lil smaller.. but its definitely not tiny.. its just really faint so lil tricky to observe.. seemed like egg shaped..

Alberio: In the pair, the green star seemed bluish..probably not dark enough yet after sunset

With Jon's refractor, did lil browsing. Used his Williams 28mm UWAN. Excellent viewing. Lagoon, Triffid, Swan, Eagle, Wild duck M11, M4 Antares.

Pipe nebula in Oph: Its dark nebula. Lil bit visible thru naked eye, if you know what you are looking for. Binoc browsing with Jon.. Refractor browsing with 28mm UWAN wasn;t much helpful

M23 OC: In Saggi, saw thru binoculars. Easy to spot.. preety wide and big.

M25 OC: In saggi, opposite of M23..located at the center of the inverted comma-spiral. Thru binocs.. Not as dense as M23 OC.

M22 GC, M28 GC: Opposite ends of lambda saggi star. M28 smaller, but still visible thru binoculars clearly.. usual bluish in color.

M62 GC (New): Yet another GC in sco. Smaller than M4. Easy to locate.

Veil Nebula: Observed this one multiple times during the night. All viewings were excellent.
- ~8pm: Being at zenith, hard to point the scope. Jon pointed this one thru his 16.5". Both components visible.
- ~8:15pm: In the refractor, filter on, with 28mm UWAN. You can fit complete Veil loop in the view. Excellent. I don't even remember if I have seen the complete Veil before. Tried 35mm Panoptic on this one. UWAN view was definitely better than panoptic. Mag + extra Fov definitely helps to capture better view.
- ~10pm: In Jon's 16.5 scope with his 16T2 nagler, we compared 2 OIII filters on veil, Celestron 2" & Orion 1.25". I wasn't aware abt which filter is ON. Jon was testing both filters blindly without knowing them. First (Ori 1.25") seemed to give brighter view of the nebulosity than second one (Cel 2"). Ori 1.25" was cheaper than Cel 2" filter.
- ~11:45pm: In my 10" dob, 17T4 nagler, with Cel 2" filter, Saw the veil. Without filter the nebulosity is not that clear. In first componet "broomstick", the bigger part on one side of star 52 is clearly visible, but the opposite side wasn't clearly visible. With filter ON, the nebulosity extends and shows its real length.
- In the skyMap, they show third component for veil nebula towards star52, but I/we didn't see it. Need to talk with Jon abt this. TBD.

Capricorn browsing:
M30: Distinctive curved H shape stars with the GC on the right vertical line. Easy to catch and easy to remember. 9x15 Finder shows it faintly. Visited this one after almost an year.

M72 GC: Yet another GC

M73 Asterism: Being close to M72 GC, Easy to spot. Asterism triangle.

Saturn nebula 7009: Easy to spot after observing M72, M73. In 10", 17T4 70x, Bluish. Tiny. Ring shape lil visible. Tried to locate it in Jon's 16.5", 22T4 54x, just wasn't able to find it. instead of following usual m72-m73 line, I went from opposite side with a bright star, but just lost it.

Continued..