I am almost done with messier list. Only M102 observation is missing.
M102 is an ambiguous entry in the messier list. People count M101 or ngc 5866 in draco as the candidate. Draco being so low in the sky these days, i don't know when i will get a chance to observe 5866.. damn..
Need to do something..
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Hartley, Neptune, Blue Flash and NGCs.. I
Date: Oct 9th, 2010 Saturday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. No clouds.. Seeing was okay, not the best. 6/10.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Highlight of the night: Detecting movement of Comet 103P/Hartley2 in Perseus, Locating Neptune, NGCs in southern sky, and locating very tiny Blue Flash Nebula.
Comet 103P/Hartley2 - It was fun observing Hartley2 during 5 hrs period.
~8pm: It was above Eta Persei (Miram).. probably 0.4 deg NW it.
~11pm: It was just SW of Eta. Infact becasue of the star brightness, had hard time locating it in binocs also.. It means it traveled that much within 3 hrs.
~11:30pm: It has moved lil more.
~:1145: you can see the location has changed relative to the start.
Apart from earth bound satellites, I have never seen any object moving that fast during one observation. Its indeed impressive
Overall, it was bright and you can clearly see the fuzziness. Again, its not as bright either. People are saying it will become naked eye object, but currently, its even harder to see it in binocs from San Diego as well. Lets see how it goes.
Helix Nebula: Jon showed the precise location of Helix again. Fomalhaut => North => Aqr C1-89-C2 => North => Delta Aqr pair => Jump West 3:30'clk => g Aqr pair => West => Upsilon Aqr. Near by this star is Helix located. Quick hunting in binocs, compared the brightness with comet and helix seemed similar or lil brighter. In 17T4, big, bright probabaly filled up 25% of the eyepiece at the center. Can see 5 stars within helix. 3 on one side in triangle format, one at the center and one on the opposite end. After looking at hubble picture, this view seemed miserable because you can not really see any details in it.
Jupiter: Visited multiple times during the night. Seeing never improved.
~ 7:30pm: 10" dob shows one of the moons, Calisto, close to NE corner (bottom-left) of the Jupiter disk. Not much details on the disk.
~ 9:30pm: Later Jon's 16" scope showed lot of details on the disk. NEB, NP, SEB, SSTB and SP visible. The Great red spot was visible in SEB on Western side (upper-right corner of the disk). GRS wasn't really poping out, but still visible.
~ 11pm: Jupiter moon Calisto moved towards East and just below the N pole of jupiter disk. Disk and Calisto separated by very slight margin. GRS seemed to be at opposite location i.e. upper-left corner. So is GRS and moon moving in opposite directions ?? Implies that Calisto was in the orbit behind Jupiter ... nice :-)
Uranus: Close to Jupiter, sort of blue-green color visible. Seeing was too bad to see the satellite moon of Uranus.
Neptune: Being in Capricorn, very close to a bright star Mu Capri, very easy to locate. Compared to other stars, you can see the disk (white color). Can see it from binocs as well, but seemed like yet another star in binocs.
Had nice binocs browsing session with Jon. Jon wanted to compare my 10x50 with his 10x50 and 10x42 binocs. My 10x50 binocs definitely has bigger field of view. For brightness, wasn;t able to compare much. Jon didn't say anything either. Somehow i feel this binocs is indeed good to have.. (from olympic NP experience as well, when compared with Shardul's and Adwait's binocs)
M8 and M20: M8 visible in binocs and probably a open cluster around it.. M20 doesnt seem to be a reasonable object in binocs. Jon also wasn't sure..
M24: Star cluster above M8 also visible.
M17 Swan: can see the fuzziness in binocs.
M7-M6: butter fly and Potlemy shows bright views in binocs.
M22-28: Bigger brighter, while M28 is compact, still bright.. both can fit in the same view. Observed M22 in 16" scope and compared it with M55 and M13 GCs as well. Mentioned below.
M25: Open cluster, at the end of inverted comma, above M22, visible nicely in binocs.
M55: Sigma-Tau Saggi, upper two stars of the Tea-Pot handle points to M55. Seemed similar to M22, may be fainter.
M22-M55-M13 Comparison: Observed all three in Jon's 16" scope ~100x and my 10 dob ~71x with 17T4.
In 10" scope, M13 core seem fabulous, the longer you look at it, more stars will be resolved at the core. M55 in my 10" shows the core iwth few stars resolved.. it also shows a bright star just outside the GC, probabaly not even a part of GC.. Interesting thing is, if we focus on the bright star and see the core at an angle of an eye, then M55 core gets resolved with more stars..more stars pop at the core.. impressive.. didnt see M22 from 10"...
Jon's 16" scope @ ~170x/200x shows massive and awesome view of M13.. core is well resolved with yellow bright stars.. M55 seemed lil dull after viewing M13. Can resolve those bright stars at the core and they didnt seem that impressive. M22 was resolved fully and showed more brighter stars than M55, but lesser than M13. It also seemed more brighter than M55.
Deer Lick with 7331: In Jon's 16" scope 7331 ~100x looks bright, edge on, can see angled top surface. 7331 shows three companions on top. All three in right-angle format. I can see two of them clearly. The top one 7340 and base one 7335, just above the center of the big 7331 disk. third one 7337 just above the corner of the 7331 disk, its aligned with three bright stars and in betn bottom stars, but closer to the middle star. third one seems to be way fainter and lil hard to even see it. Probably because of not-so-excellent seeing, we were having hard time.
In my 10" dob, 7331 was again easy to locate. In 17T4 @ 71x, it shows up like tiny bright needle. Didn't even bother for high magnification to catch satellite galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet: Jon pointed to this one as well. It was like you are looking into some dark view with stars. When i get adapted with the view, then i can sort of see two faint fuzzies in the middle. These two fuzzies seemed fainter than deer look satellites. (Mag shows that stephans are brighter) Indeed hard to see them. Never saw others. Quintet was a doublet to me. Observing, infact locating, these in 10" must be super hard.
Continued...
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. No clouds.. Seeing was okay, not the best. 6/10.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Highlight of the night: Detecting movement of Comet 103P/Hartley2 in Perseus, Locating Neptune, NGCs in southern sky, and locating very tiny Blue Flash Nebula.
Comet 103P/Hartley2 - It was fun observing Hartley2 during 5 hrs period.
~8pm: It was above Eta Persei (Miram).. probably 0.4 deg NW it.
~11pm: It was just SW of Eta. Infact becasue of the star brightness, had hard time locating it in binocs also.. It means it traveled that much within 3 hrs.
~11:30pm: It has moved lil more.
~:1145: you can see the location has changed relative to the start.
Apart from earth bound satellites, I have never seen any object moving that fast during one observation. Its indeed impressive
Overall, it was bright and you can clearly see the fuzziness. Again, its not as bright either. People are saying it will become naked eye object, but currently, its even harder to see it in binocs from San Diego as well. Lets see how it goes.
Helix Nebula: Jon showed the precise location of Helix again. Fomalhaut => North => Aqr C1-89-C2 => North => Delta Aqr pair => Jump West 3:30'clk => g Aqr pair => West => Upsilon Aqr. Near by this star is Helix located. Quick hunting in binocs, compared the brightness with comet and helix seemed similar or lil brighter. In 17T4, big, bright probabaly filled up 25% of the eyepiece at the center. Can see 5 stars within helix. 3 on one side in triangle format, one at the center and one on the opposite end. After looking at hubble picture, this view seemed miserable because you can not really see any details in it.
Jupiter: Visited multiple times during the night. Seeing never improved.
~ 7:30pm: 10" dob shows one of the moons, Calisto, close to NE corner (bottom-left) of the Jupiter disk. Not much details on the disk.
~ 9:30pm: Later Jon's 16" scope showed lot of details on the disk. NEB, NP, SEB, SSTB and SP visible. The Great red spot was visible in SEB on Western side (upper-right corner of the disk). GRS wasn't really poping out, but still visible.
~ 11pm: Jupiter moon Calisto moved towards East and just below the N pole of jupiter disk. Disk and Calisto separated by very slight margin. GRS seemed to be at opposite location i.e. upper-left corner. So is GRS and moon moving in opposite directions ?? Implies that Calisto was in the orbit behind Jupiter ... nice :-)
Uranus: Close to Jupiter, sort of blue-green color visible. Seeing was too bad to see the satellite moon of Uranus.
Neptune: Being in Capricorn, very close to a bright star Mu Capri, very easy to locate. Compared to other stars, you can see the disk (white color). Can see it from binocs as well, but seemed like yet another star in binocs.
Had nice binocs browsing session with Jon. Jon wanted to compare my 10x50 with his 10x50 and 10x42 binocs. My 10x50 binocs definitely has bigger field of view. For brightness, wasn;t able to compare much. Jon didn't say anything either. Somehow i feel this binocs is indeed good to have.. (from olympic NP experience as well, when compared with Shardul's and Adwait's binocs)
M8 and M20: M8 visible in binocs and probably a open cluster around it.. M20 doesnt seem to be a reasonable object in binocs. Jon also wasn't sure..
M24: Star cluster above M8 also visible.
M17 Swan: can see the fuzziness in binocs.
M7-M6: butter fly and Potlemy shows bright views in binocs.
M22-28: Bigger brighter, while M28 is compact, still bright.. both can fit in the same view. Observed M22 in 16" scope and compared it with M55 and M13 GCs as well. Mentioned below.
M25: Open cluster, at the end of inverted comma, above M22, visible nicely in binocs.
M55: Sigma-Tau Saggi, upper two stars of the Tea-Pot handle points to M55. Seemed similar to M22, may be fainter.
M22-M55-M13 Comparison: Observed all three in Jon's 16" scope ~100x and my 10 dob ~71x with 17T4.
In 10" scope, M13 core seem fabulous, the longer you look at it, more stars will be resolved at the core. M55 in my 10" shows the core iwth few stars resolved.. it also shows a bright star just outside the GC, probabaly not even a part of GC.. Interesting thing is, if we focus on the bright star and see the core at an angle of an eye, then M55 core gets resolved with more stars..more stars pop at the core.. impressive.. didnt see M22 from 10"...
Jon's 16" scope @ ~170x/200x shows massive and awesome view of M13.. core is well resolved with yellow bright stars.. M55 seemed lil dull after viewing M13. Can resolve those bright stars at the core and they didnt seem that impressive. M22 was resolved fully and showed more brighter stars than M55, but lesser than M13. It also seemed more brighter than M55.
Deer Lick with 7331: In Jon's 16" scope 7331 ~100x looks bright, edge on, can see angled top surface. 7331 shows three companions on top. All three in right-angle format. I can see two of them clearly. The top one 7340 and base one 7335, just above the center of the big 7331 disk. third one 7337 just above the corner of the 7331 disk, its aligned with three bright stars and in betn bottom stars, but closer to the middle star. third one seems to be way fainter and lil hard to even see it. Probably because of not-so-excellent seeing, we were having hard time.
In my 10" dob, 7331 was again easy to locate. In 17T4 @ 71x, it shows up like tiny bright needle. Didn't even bother for high magnification to catch satellite galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet: Jon pointed to this one as well. It was like you are looking into some dark view with stars. When i get adapted with the view, then i can sort of see two faint fuzzies in the middle. These two fuzzies seemed fainter than deer look satellites. (Mag shows that stephans are brighter) Indeed hard to see them. Never saw others. Quintet was a doublet to me. Observing, infact locating, these in 10" must be super hard.
Continued...
Labels:
Aqr Helix PN 7293,
Comet 103P-Hartley2,
Her GC M13,
Jupiter,
Location Boulevard,
Peg Gal 7331 Deer Lick,
Peg Stephan's Quintet,
Sco OC M6 Butterfly- OC M7 Ptolemy,
Sgr GC M22-M28,
Sgr GC M55,
Sgr Neb M17 Swan,
Sgr Neb M20 Triffid,
Sgr Neb M8 Lagoon,
Sgr OC M23-M24-M25,
Uranus
Hartley, Neptune, Blue Flash and NGCs.. II
Continued..
Switched to Capri objects.
M30 : Easy catch.. can see it binocular as well. In 16" @ 100x, the H shape is very small, but the GC shows up fine. This object is better with higher magnification. Need to browse thru scientific articles, if they ever talk abt shape.
Saturn Nebula : Easy catch. In 10" dob, the blue disk @ 71x shows up well. You cna clearly differentiate it thank the field stars. Sor of shows the elongated shape.. In 16" @ 100x, defintely shows more in the elongated shape, hard to qualify them as "wings", but you can feel their existence. Blue and bright..
M73 : Moving in correct direction Saturn nebula catches M73 Asterism easily. 4 stars in sort of
triangle shape pops up immediately.
M72 : Moving further down, shows M72 nearby.. brighter, but very compact and smaller.
M2 : Not sure when i visited this fella last time. Very easy catch from: Capricoruns Top line left corner pair => North => bright star of Beta Aqurii => North => M2.
M15 : Again, not sure when i saw this before (NEVER.. hmmm). I remember in 2008, i have tried it once to find it in 6" scope, but didn't get it. M2 => North => Bright star of Epsilon Peg i.e Enif => little North-West => M15. Sort of near Delphenus diamond.
Both M15 and M2 seemed to be of same brightness. When observed thru binoculars, M2 doesn't have any nearby stars, but M15 is within bright star pairs. So M15 seems fainter than M2.. or M2 is easier to see than M15.
Veil : In 10" scope, without the filter, Vel is very depressing. All fuzziness is gone. You can see somewhat fuziness near star 52, but that doesn't show its broomstick shape. Other two components just don't even show up.
North American and Pelican Nebula: I have tried this nebula multiple times before and always failed. This object seems more visible photographically than visually. Jon and I tried it with NP101 and the binoculars. NP101 with the filter with 31 Nagler (~22x), shows very wide field view. Jon ponted to some sort of triangle shape, this must be the narrow part in turn joining south american peninsula. OR Not sure if it was pelican.. All other parts are just invisible..
Tried to browse thru binocs, Tried to locate the dark lanes that made the border of north american nebula, but very hard to feel the shape.
Oph 6633 and one more: Jon pointed to two clusters in Oph. Nothing impressive abt it. very dispersed open star cluster with probably 15-20 stars in it.
Browsed thru Cetus.
M77 : Not so bright galaxy. sometimes its even hard to understand how M found these objects. Seemed elliptical. there are bunch of satellite galaxies and Jon's 16" scope showed them nicely. 1055 is just aligned next to it with bright pair of stars. 1087 on southern side is fainter, but still visible. It seemed to have another companion 1090. So with larger aperture 1087-1090 pair shows up. On the opposite side of M77-1055 can find fainter 1032 again aligned with sort-of-bright stars nearby. Tried to locate 1073, but didn't see it.
Continued..
Switched to Capri objects.
M30 : Easy catch.. can see it binocular as well. In 16" @ 100x, the H shape is very small, but the GC shows up fine. This object is better with higher magnification. Need to browse thru scientific articles, if they ever talk abt shape.
Saturn Nebula : Easy catch. In 10" dob, the blue disk @ 71x shows up well. You cna clearly differentiate it thank the field stars. Sor of shows the elongated shape.. In 16" @ 100x, defintely shows more in the elongated shape, hard to qualify them as "wings", but you can feel their existence. Blue and bright..
M73 : Moving in correct direction Saturn nebula catches M73 Asterism easily. 4 stars in sort of
triangle shape pops up immediately.
M72 : Moving further down, shows M72 nearby.. brighter, but very compact and smaller.
M2 : Not sure when i visited this fella last time. Very easy catch from: Capricoruns Top line left corner pair => North => bright star of Beta Aqurii => North => M2.
M15 : Again, not sure when i saw this before (NEVER.. hmmm). I remember in 2008, i have tried it once to find it in 6" scope, but didn't get it. M2 => North => Bright star of Epsilon Peg i.e Enif => little North-West => M15. Sort of near Delphenus diamond.
Both M15 and M2 seemed to be of same brightness. When observed thru binoculars, M2 doesn't have any nearby stars, but M15 is within bright star pairs. So M15 seems fainter than M2.. or M2 is easier to see than M15.
Veil : In 10" scope, without the filter, Vel is very depressing. All fuzziness is gone. You can see somewhat fuziness near star 52, but that doesn't show its broomstick shape. Other two components just don't even show up.
North American and Pelican Nebula: I have tried this nebula multiple times before and always failed. This object seems more visible photographically than visually. Jon and I tried it with NP101 and the binoculars. NP101 with the filter with 31 Nagler (~22x), shows very wide field view. Jon ponted to some sort of triangle shape, this must be the narrow part in turn joining south american peninsula. OR Not sure if it was pelican.. All other parts are just invisible..
Tried to browse thru binocs, Tried to locate the dark lanes that made the border of north american nebula, but very hard to feel the shape.
Oph 6633 and one more: Jon pointed to two clusters in Oph. Nothing impressive abt it. very dispersed open star cluster with probably 15-20 stars in it.
Browsed thru Cetus.
M77 : Not so bright galaxy. sometimes its even hard to understand how M found these objects. Seemed elliptical. there are bunch of satellite galaxies and Jon's 16" scope showed them nicely. 1055 is just aligned next to it with bright pair of stars. 1087 on southern side is fainter, but still visible. It seemed to have another companion 1090. So with larger aperture 1087-1090 pair shows up. On the opposite side of M77-1055 can find fainter 1032 again aligned with sort-of-bright stars nearby. Tried to locate 1073, but didn't see it.
Continued..
Labels:
Aqr GC M2,
Aqr GC M72 - OC M73,
Aqr Saturn PN 7009,
Cap GC M30,
Cet Gal 1032,
Cet Gal 1055-1087,
Cet Gal 1073,
Cet Gal 1090,
Cet Gal M77 CetusA,
Cyg Neb Pelican,
Cyg NorthAmerican Neb 7000,
Cyg Veil Neb,
Location Boulevard,
Oph OC 6633-IC4756,
Peg GC M15
Hartley, Neptune, Blue Flash and NGCs.. III
Continued..
Hunted bunch of NGC below Sculptor.
NGC 253 Sculptor Gal and 288 GC: The NGC 288 GC is not a typical GC. Its disperesed. Its very faint as well. From Jon's 16" scope also it seemed fainter, but the fuzziness can be felt in the finder as well. Indeed conflicting observation. Need to read more abt this one TBD. Once 288 is found, 253 is easy to locate. Again, can "feel" it in finder. Very large, Very elongated. At one point, felt like it has filled up the eyepiece. Messier wound't have missed it if it would have been on northern side. the galaxy defitnely shows some motelling-spots on it.
NGC 55: Jon showed me this one in NP 101. Very faint. I tried it in 16". Very easy to locate from Alpha Phx (southern constellation Phonix, just below sculptor). Huge, may be lil fainter than 253. Both 55 and 253 seem similar to me, except the mottelling part in 253.
NGC 300: Jon found this one in NP 101, but I wasn't able to locate it in 16". In NP 101 view, 300 seemed again similar to 55, may be lil smaller and fainter.
NGC 247: Don't remember much, except the location. Was an easy catch thru 16" scope as well.
M11 : Wild duck cluster seem fainter and very disperesed in 16" scope at 100x. When the sky rotates overnight, i have observed that its hard for me to locate the familiar object like M11 :).
Blue Flash nebula: Near del and saggita, was the highlight of the night in star hopping and locating this guy. the difficult part is its so small that you have to use lil higher magnification and that makes life lil difficult in low-mag star hopping. Its not like i haven't seen this guy before, but very hard to locate. Jon pointed to this one in NP 101, 16" and then i tried it with 10". In 10" with 17T4 @ 71x. You have imagine flipping the whole saggita constellation from Western to easter side. So its betn 29 Vul and Gamma Sge, with Del on left-southern side. In 71x, with 82deg nagler, you can fit 4 bright stars in a trapezoid shape, in one view. This nebula is at the center of one of the edges on left. It seems like a very-very small cluster of three stars and nebula is at the center. It looks like very-very small fuzzy ring, but still can be differentiated from the star...very hard.. You have to get familiar with the view, and then only you can really see it there. Once found, then high mags shows the details. disk doesn't show any blue color.. not sure why they call it blue flash, it confuses people ( me :-) ), when we look into the eyepiece. disk shows up like a big thick ring. central part shows lil dark hole (??).
M45 : when tired did lil bino viewing, and M45 again impressed me. 10 sisters shows up nicely. very bright blue stars. Fills up the whole view in binocs.
Double cluster : With low mags on Jon's 16" scope (~100x) shows the double cluster nicely. Can clearly see one is smaller than other. smaller is more compact than the bigger being being disperesed (isnt that obvious). Saw this one while looking at the comet.
Some double in orion head: Jon showed some double in the head of the orion, but seeing was way too bad to split the double..
M1 : Crab shows up nicely. In 16" as well cant see much details on the crab.. Its just one big, elongated fuzzy bright disk. absolutely no details inside.
In the end did some bino browsing for the comet..
Hunted bunch of NGC below Sculptor.
NGC 253 Sculptor Gal and 288 GC: The NGC 288 GC is not a typical GC. Its disperesed. Its very faint as well. From Jon's 16" scope also it seemed fainter, but the fuzziness can be felt in the finder as well. Indeed conflicting observation. Need to read more abt this one TBD. Once 288 is found, 253 is easy to locate. Again, can "feel" it in finder. Very large, Very elongated. At one point, felt like it has filled up the eyepiece. Messier wound't have missed it if it would have been on northern side. the galaxy defitnely shows some motelling-spots on it.
NGC 55: Jon showed me this one in NP 101. Very faint. I tried it in 16". Very easy to locate from Alpha Phx (southern constellation Phonix, just below sculptor). Huge, may be lil fainter than 253. Both 55 and 253 seem similar to me, except the mottelling part in 253.
NGC 300: Jon found this one in NP 101, but I wasn't able to locate it in 16". In NP 101 view, 300 seemed again similar to 55, may be lil smaller and fainter.
NGC 247: Don't remember much, except the location. Was an easy catch thru 16" scope as well.
M11 : Wild duck cluster seem fainter and very disperesed in 16" scope at 100x. When the sky rotates overnight, i have observed that its hard for me to locate the familiar object like M11 :).
Blue Flash nebula: Near del and saggita, was the highlight of the night in star hopping and locating this guy. the difficult part is its so small that you have to use lil higher magnification and that makes life lil difficult in low-mag star hopping. Its not like i haven't seen this guy before, but very hard to locate. Jon pointed to this one in NP 101, 16" and then i tried it with 10". In 10" with 17T4 @ 71x. You have imagine flipping the whole saggita constellation from Western to easter side. So its betn 29 Vul and Gamma Sge, with Del on left-southern side. In 71x, with 82deg nagler, you can fit 4 bright stars in a trapezoid shape, in one view. This nebula is at the center of one of the edges on left. It seems like a very-very small cluster of three stars and nebula is at the center. It looks like very-very small fuzzy ring, but still can be differentiated from the star...very hard.. You have to get familiar with the view, and then only you can really see it there. Once found, then high mags shows the details. disk doesn't show any blue color.. not sure why they call it blue flash, it confuses people ( me :-) ), when we look into the eyepiece. disk shows up like a big thick ring. central part shows lil dark hole (??).
M45 : when tired did lil bino viewing, and M45 again impressed me. 10 sisters shows up nicely. very bright blue stars. Fills up the whole view in binocs.
Double cluster : With low mags on Jon's 16" scope (~100x) shows the double cluster nicely. Can clearly see one is smaller than other. smaller is more compact than the bigger being being disperesed (isnt that obvious). Saw this one while looking at the comet.
Some double in orion head: Jon showed some double in the head of the orion, but seeing was way too bad to split the double..
M1 : Crab shows up nicely. In 16" as well cant see much details on the crab.. Its just one big, elongated fuzzy bright disk. absolutely no details inside.
In the end did some bino browsing for the comet..
Monday, September 27, 2010
Late night Jupiter
Date: Sept 25th, 2010 Sat
Observation Time: Late night 1:15-2:00am (45 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: Lil clouds. Full Moon.
Instruments: AT102ED
Jupiter - All 4 moons visible. Best View with 7T1 @ 107x. Tried higher mags with Xcel-10-x2 (@ 140x), TMB 4mm @ 177x, 7T1-x2 @ 202x , but they weren't great. So just stayed with 7T1 @ 107x
Didn't remember the nomenclature, while observing, but now it seems like observed: EZ, NEB NTB NPR, SEB, SPR. A black spot on NTB.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Jupiter_Belt_System.JPG
http://www.astrosurf.com/cidadao/jupiter_obs.htm
Uranus - In Pan35 @ 20x and 17T4 @ 40x, it didn't show distinctive blue color again, but in 7T1 @ 100x, it showed the color, as well you can feel the disk spae, compared to background pin-pointed stars.
Tried NGC 253 Gal and NGC 288 GC located in the nearby regions. the location was spot on, but i didn't see both of them. Considering ~8.0 magnitude, i thought that it will be visible, but again FAILED.
Observation Time: Late night 1:15-2:00am (45 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: Lil clouds. Full Moon.
Instruments: AT102ED
Jupiter - All 4 moons visible. Best View with 7T1 @ 107x. Tried higher mags with Xcel-10-x2 (@ 140x), TMB 4mm @ 177x, 7T1-x2 @ 202x , but they weren't great. So just stayed with 7T1 @ 107x
Didn't remember the nomenclature, while observing, but now it seems like observed: EZ, NEB NTB NPR, SEB, SPR. A black spot on NTB.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Jupiter_Belt_System.JPG
http://www.astrosurf.com/cidadao/jupiter_obs.htm
Uranus - In Pan35 @ 20x and 17T4 @ 40x, it didn't show distinctive blue color again, but in 7T1 @ 100x, it showed the color, as well you can feel the disk spae, compared to background pin-pointed stars.
Tried NGC 253 Gal and NGC 288 GC located in the nearby regions. the location was spot on, but i didn't see both of them. Considering ~8.0 magnitude, i thought that it will be visible, but again FAILED.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Observing Uranus
Date: Sept 22nd, 2010 Wed
Observation Time: Late night 1:00-1:15am (15 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: Lil clouds. Full Moon.
Instruments: Binocs 10x50 Nikon Action Ex.
Uranus: Full Harvest Moon, Jupiter and Uranus are very close to each other tonight. Uranus is always hard to catch, but just being so close to Jupiter its easier to locate. Its only a degree apart from the Jupiter towards NW towards moon. The Uranus magnitude is almost same as 24 Psc which is SW of jupiter on opposite side. mag 5.4. So its indeed Uranus. Uranus-Jupiter-24 Psc were in the same field of view of my binocular.
Can't see the bluish disk. it seemed yellow.. it wasn't really a clean sight. probably because of moon light.. so didn't try it in the APO... but will watch it again after few days and should be able to see the bluish color.
Saw this fella probably after two years.. nice !!
Jupiter: Dazzling bright in the binocs. Ganymede and Europa at two opposite ends. Hard to get IO-Callisto pair near Europa. Too much shaking.
Observation Time: Late night 1:00-1:15am (15 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: Lil clouds. Full Moon.
Instruments: Binocs 10x50 Nikon Action Ex.
Uranus: Full Harvest Moon, Jupiter and Uranus are very close to each other tonight. Uranus is always hard to catch, but just being so close to Jupiter its easier to locate. Its only a degree apart from the Jupiter towards NW towards moon. The Uranus magnitude is almost same as 24 Psc which is SW of jupiter on opposite side. mag 5.4. So its indeed Uranus. Uranus-Jupiter-24 Psc were in the same field of view of my binocular.
Can't see the bluish disk. it seemed yellow.. it wasn't really a clean sight. probably because of moon light.. so didn't try it in the APO... but will watch it again after few days and should be able to see the bluish color.
Saw this fella probably after two years.. nice !!
Jupiter: Dazzling bright in the binocs. Ganymede and Europa at two opposite ends. Hard to get IO-Callisto pair near Europa. Too much shaking.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Moon - First Quarter
Date: Sept 14th, 2010 Monday
Observation Time: 8pm to 8:45pm (45 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: White zone observation. No clouds. Moon (first quarter).
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO. Pan35 (20x), 17T4 (41x), 7T1 (101x), 7T1x2 (202x)
Observed Moon:
Crater Aristoteles and Crater Eudoxus : Just next to terminator, these crater shadows look fabulous. Shows massive depth.
Montes Haemus : Western border to Mare Serenitatis, across N-S. Shows good details on these mountains peaks. These peaks are just on the terminators today. Tomorrow might be better day to observe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montes_Haemus
Crater Posidonious and the wrinkles : On the North-Eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis. Its like small scale Crater Plato. Also has a crater inside its plain surface. the plan surface also shows a big wrinkel across N-E-S border.
Crater TheoPhilius, Crater Cyrillus, Crater Catharina : These three craters in SE region (bottom corner). Cyr-Cath are joined together. Yesterday they were closer to terminator, so they showed this connection very well, because of the shadows. Its like shape of 8 but middle section sort of merged. Today being away from terminator, they were washed out. They didn't show this connection very well today.
Crater Maurolycus: Being closer to terminator the central peak shows good details. It seemed to be made up of 3 mountain pieces in itself. Third one is actually complex in formation.
--
Kaus Australis i.e. Epsilon Saggi: Brightest star of the Saggi constellation. Map shows it as double, but seems like the binary component is too faint to be seen. FAILED.
--
Moon Observation projects to follow:
http://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/lunar/lunar2.html
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/3308811.html
Observation Time: 8pm to 8:45pm (45 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: White zone observation. No clouds. Moon (first quarter).
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO. Pan35 (20x), 17T4 (41x), 7T1 (101x), 7T1x2 (202x)
Observed Moon:
Crater Aristoteles and Crater Eudoxus : Just next to terminator, these crater shadows look fabulous. Shows massive depth.
Montes Haemus : Western border to Mare Serenitatis, across N-S. Shows good details on these mountains peaks. These peaks are just on the terminators today. Tomorrow might be better day to observe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montes_Haemus
Crater Posidonious and the wrinkles : On the North-Eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis. Its like small scale Crater Plato. Also has a crater inside its plain surface. the plan surface also shows a big wrinkel across N-E-S border.
Crater TheoPhilius, Crater Cyrillus, Crater Catharina : These three craters in SE region (bottom corner). Cyr-Cath are joined together. Yesterday they were closer to terminator, so they showed this connection very well, because of the shadows. Its like shape of 8 but middle section sort of merged. Today being away from terminator, they were washed out. They didn't show this connection very well today.
Crater Maurolycus: Being closer to terminator the central peak shows good details. It seemed to be made up of 3 mountain pieces in itself. Third one is actually complex in formation.
--
Kaus Australis i.e. Epsilon Saggi: Brightest star of the Saggi constellation. Map shows it as double, but seems like the binary component is too faint to be seen. FAILED.
--
Moon Observation projects to follow:
http://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/lunar/lunar2.html
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/3308811.html
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Archstone First Light..
Date: Sept 13th, 2010 Monday
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 8:15pm (45 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: White zone observation. Very light polluted.. .No clouds.. Moon (a day before first quarter).
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO. Pan35 (20x), 17T4 (41x), 7T1 (101x), 7T1x2 (202x)
Buddies: Aparna
Observed first time from new Home. Somehow never got a chance to observe, in last 5 weeks, since we moved here.
Apprently, this is highly light polluted area. This is all white zone area. Summerset atleast was in Red zone. The Naked Eye visibility has gone down drastically. NELM ~3. In Saggitarius, Phi Saggi was barely visible.
http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/50420.aspx
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Sagittarius_constellation_map.svg/2000px-Sagittarius_constellation_map.svg.png
Because of this, it indeed gives new respect for dark skies.. Also, just identifying the constellation boundaries is also tough. Good way to test what you know, based on judgment. e.g. Ophiuchus was visible, but i wasn't able to locate the constellation boundary.
Target List:
Moon: Moon is just a day before first quarter. Just above the neighborhood roof. Probably because of that high mag views (202x) weren't sharp.
Scorpion - Antares was red OR deep orange-brown. Moon is closer to Antares. M4 (mag 7.12) not visible. Must have washed out because of moonlight.
M7 Ptolemy - M6 butterfly: was easy catch from Sco tail duo stars. Apparently not many background stars in the view were visible. Still M7 shows bunch of bright stars.. sort of like multiple K shapes joined at various angles. Just above towards sco tail, M6 butterfly visible. The red-orange-brown star in butterfly pops up. cluster is not at all impressive. Also the FoV doesn't have any other stars..
While hunting M6-M7, got a feel of refractor orientations again. L-R swapped. U-D are fine. Need to get a judgment on the True FoV so that hunting will logical. Didn't know the APO+EP combination TrueFoV.
M8 Lagoon - Very depressing. Very little nebulosity visible at the central (probably near hourglass). increasing the mags 35Pan-> 17T4 definitely made the view better. UHC in 35mm pan showed similar..but nothing impressive. Still the open cluster 6530 next to M8 stands out. Compact as compared to M6 butterfly. Circular in shape.
M20 Triffid not visible. considering the magnitudes, indeed surprising. Not sure why i din't see it. Moonlight?
M17 Swan visible: Felt like its brighter than M8. OR surface brightness of swan is evenly spread as compared to M8, so feels like it.
M16 Eagle not visible again. somehow i missed the V shape cluster as well.
M22 and M28 - M22 bigger and brighter. Was an easy catch in washed out light. M28 is tight, small and lil fainter. Can fit the Lambda Saggi and M22 in the same view. Not all three in same view.
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 8:15pm (45 mins),
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: White zone observation. Very light polluted.. .No clouds.. Moon (a day before first quarter).
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO. Pan35 (20x), 17T4 (41x), 7T1 (101x), 7T1x2 (202x)
Buddies: Aparna
Observed first time from new Home. Somehow never got a chance to observe, in last 5 weeks, since we moved here.
Apprently, this is highly light polluted area. This is all white zone area. Summerset atleast was in Red zone. The Naked Eye visibility has gone down drastically. NELM ~3. In Saggitarius, Phi Saggi was barely visible.
http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/50420.aspx
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Sagittarius_constellation_map.svg/2000px-Sagittarius_constellation_map.svg.png
Because of this, it indeed gives new respect for dark skies.. Also, just identifying the constellation boundaries is also tough. Good way to test what you know, based on judgment. e.g. Ophiuchus was visible, but i wasn't able to locate the constellation boundary.
Target List:
CON OBJECT OTHER TYPE RA DEC MAG SUBR SIZE_MAX SIZE_MIN NGC DESCR NOTES 1 SGR NGC 6523 M 8 CL+NB 18 03.7 -24 23 5 13 45 m 30 m !!!;vB;eL;eiF;w L Cl Lagoon Nebula;Cl NGC 6530 invl;dark lane crosses neb 2 SGR NGC 6618 M 17 CL+NB 18 20.8 -16 11 6 13 11 m !!!;B;eL;eiF;2 hooked Omega nebula;Swan Nebula;many F outer loops;use filter 3 SGR NGC 6514 M 20 CL+NB 18 02.7 -22 58 6.3 13 28 m vB;vL;Trifid;D* inv Trifid nebula;sev dark lanes;H IV 41 & V 10;D* HN 40 invl 4 SGR NGC 6656 M 22 GLOCL 18 36.4 -23 54 5.2 11 24 m vB;vL;R;vRi;vmC Stars mags 11...;one of finest globs 5 SGR NGC 6626 M 28 GLOCL 18 24.5 -24 52 6.9 11 15 m vB;L;R;geCM;rrr 45' NW from Lambda Sgr;* mags 14... 6 SGR NGC 6530 OCL 19 OPNCL 18 04.5 -24 21 4.6 99.9 15 m Cl;B;L;pRi;f M8 In Lagoon nebula M8;25* mags 7... 7 SCO NGC 6121 M 4 GLOCL 16 23.6 -26 32 5.4 12 26.3 m Cl;8 or 10 B* in line;rrr Look for central bar structure 8 SCO NGC 6405 M 6 OPNCL 17 40.3 -32 15 4.2 10 20 m Cl;L;iR;lC;st7;10... Butterfly cluster;51 members to 10.5 mag incl var* BM Sco 9 SCO NGC 6475 M 7 OPNCL 17 53.9 -34 48 3.3 12 80 m Cl;vB;pRi;lC;*7...12 80 members to 10th mag;Fine naked eye cluster
Moon: Moon is just a day before first quarter. Just above the neighborhood roof. Probably because of that high mag views (202x) weren't sharp.
Scorpion - Antares was red OR deep orange-brown. Moon is closer to Antares. M4 (mag 7.12) not visible. Must have washed out because of moonlight.
M7 Ptolemy - M6 butterfly: was easy catch from Sco tail duo stars. Apparently not many background stars in the view were visible. Still M7 shows bunch of bright stars.. sort of like multiple K shapes joined at various angles. Just above towards sco tail, M6 butterfly visible. The red-orange-brown star in butterfly pops up. cluster is not at all impressive. Also the FoV doesn't have any other stars..
While hunting M6-M7, got a feel of refractor orientations again. L-R swapped. U-D are fine. Need to get a judgment on the True FoV so that hunting will logical. Didn't know the APO+EP combination TrueFoV.
M8 Lagoon - Very depressing. Very little nebulosity visible at the central (probably near hourglass). increasing the mags 35Pan-> 17T4 definitely made the view better. UHC in 35mm pan showed similar..but nothing impressive. Still the open cluster 6530 next to M8 stands out. Compact as compared to M6 butterfly. Circular in shape.
M20 Triffid not visible. considering the magnitudes, indeed surprising. Not sure why i din't see it. Moonlight?
M17 Swan visible: Felt like its brighter than M8. OR surface brightness of swan is evenly spread as compared to M8, so feels like it.
M16 Eagle not visible again. somehow i missed the V shape cluster as well.
M22 and M28 - M22 bigger and brighter. Was an easy catch in washed out light. M28 is tight, small and lil fainter. Can fit the Lambda Saggi and M22 in the same view. Not all three in same view.
Towards Messier Finishing.. I
....
Mercury - Naked Eye
Venus
Jupiter
Alberio
M57 - ring
Swan
Lagoon
Triffid
Nebulas using filter
M4
M75
M55
M80
Mercury - Naked Eye
Venus
Jupiter
Alberio
M57 - ring
Swan
Lagoon
Triffid
Nebulas using filter
M4
M75
M55
M80
Towards Messier Finishing.. II
..
Ophiuchus GCs.. Various NGCs nearby Messiers
M10 - M12
M107
M14
M9-M19-M62
6355-6293
M13-NGC 6207 galaxy
Double cluster
M92
M92-NGC6229
PN nearby 6210
Ophiuchus GCs.. Various NGCs nearby Messiers
M10 - M12
M107
M14
M9-M19-M62
6355-6293
M13-NGC 6207 galaxy
Double cluster
M92
M92-NGC6229
PN nearby 6210
Labels:
Her Gal 6207,
Her GC 6229,
Her GC M13,
Her PN 6210,
Location Boulevard,
Oph GC M10,
Oph GC M107,
Oph GC M12,
Oph GC M14,
Oph GC M19,
Oph GC M62,
Oph GC M9,
Oph GC M92,
Per Double Cluster 869-84
Towards Messier Finishing III
..
M33
M31
Blue snowball - lil hard to find again
Showed some objects to Aparna before leaving: M31, M57, Jupiter, M13
So only 3 messier are missing now.. Here M40 and M102 are indeed misleading numbers in the list. People observe nearby NGC objects to complete the list.
Const M# Type R.A. Dec Mag Size Notes
h m deg m min
Peg 15 Gb 21 30 12 10 7 12 rich, compact
UMa 40 DS 12 22.4 58 5 9 1 DS Winnecke 4, sep 50"
Dra 102 Gb 15 6.5 55 46 12 2x 1 M102=M101, NGC 5866 used
M33
M31
Blue snowball - lil hard to find again
Showed some objects to Aparna before leaving: M31, M57, Jupiter, M13
So only 3 messier are missing now.. Here M40 and M102 are indeed misleading numbers in the list. People observe nearby NGC objects to complete the list.
Const M# Type R.A. Dec Mag Size Notes
h m deg m min
Peg 15 Gb 21 30 12 10 7 12 rich, compact
UMa 40 DS 12 22.4 58 5 9 1 DS Winnecke 4, sep 50"
Dra 102 Gb 15 6.5 55 46 12 2x 1 M102=M101, NGC 5866 used
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Summer Kickoff - I
Date: July 4th, 2010 Sunday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. lil wind in the beginning, but later calm.. so seeing improved..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Venus - Observed thru APO. Image seemed blurrier.. also lot of green/violet color, considering APO :-). Thru 10" dob, good image. looked like a small scale moon. Venus phase of ~60% lit clearly visible. Thru 16" better image of the same. no surface details visible.. its all white..
Saturn: Rings clearly visible thru 16". Thru 10" dob @ 35x (Pan35mm) the rings are visible.. image is too tiny @ 35x, but can distinguish the rings clearly.. when looked thru eyepiece, can see the light distortion i.e. "seagull".. collimation may be lil off. but by changing the viewing angle, the distortion was going away. Two moons on one side. 171x
M57 Ring Nebula: Visited multiple times. In the twilight and APO, seemed really fainter in APO. no star visible at 2". seemed all gray color. Later in the night thru 10" dob nag17 @ 71x image seems sharp and quite bright.. the star at 2" is visible. bluish color visible. Compared with uhc and then oiii filter. image seems definitely brighter thru filters. Need to try high mag filtered image.
Browsed the whole sky naked eye to get a feel of it.
Omega centauri: Lower on horizon, visible. In twilight, not that sharp. Visible thru bino.
M80: In Scorpio. Jon reminded the location. Above the Antares and twice the distance from Antares-lower star. In 10" dob 17nag 71x seems fuzzier, not clear.. ~171x still non-clear watery image. Visited it later at 11pm and the image seemed clear and sharp. In Jon's scope outer stars well resolved.
Ophiuchus PN NGC 6572: Blue Racquetball: Bright, sharp. In 71x Nag17 it seems like brighter blue star. Hard to differentiate it as the PN. Note the triangle pattern of the PN with other two bright stars. Increasing the mags @ 171x makes it brighter.. but still no details visible on the PN. Addition of OIII filter clearly makes it brighter. Visited multiple times.
Oph OC NGC 6633 and IC 4756: Looked at the OC NGC and IC.. NGC seems to be yet another OC, but IC cluster seems to be impressive.. IC bigger than ngc. In 71x it fills up whole eyepiece.. ~30 stars.. all yellow.. evenly distributed.. Switched to lower mag to get the feel of it. In Pan 35, 35x it seems more beautiful.. can clearly see the cluster at the center. seemed like wide salt-pepper cluster.
Blue Flash nebula NGC 6905: In Delphinus. At 71x itself, lil hard to differentiate than background stars. visited it before 1.5 years back, but forgot the location. 85deg (~90) angle on Delph diamond + bright star and this Neb. Note the 3 stars in straight line alignment. also a bright pair nearby. At 71x, seemed faint circular shape.. seems bigger than previous PN, racquetball, but fainter.. no color visible. At 171x, the circular shape clearly visible. Can not see much pattern on the disk. no color visible. OIII filter helps... but i felt that, for searching this neb, UHC filter really helps, as the neb is definitely visible with background stars. More mag helps.
M71 GC: In Sagitta. In Pan 35, 35x looks impressive.. lil bigger than M80, but defintely smaller than M4. clear, sharp.. and outskirt stars lil resolvable. Didn't try high mags.
M27 Dumbbell: Closer to M71. Compared all above tiny PNs, way bigger and so much nebulous. Tried 71x and 171x.. don't see any colors in it. With OIII filter, brighter.. Can see lil dark spot within the nebula.
Veil nebula - 10" @ 35x No filter. Cyg 52 star, West veil part, witch nebula visible. But can't see the visiblity clearly. Tried to look for eastern veil, but didn't find it. Later visited it again. Tried it with UHC filter. Can see all 3 parts of Veil. West+East+Pickering triangle. Nebulosity visible with background stars. with OIII filter, it just looks marvelous. all background stars are gone. And nebulosty pops up in the OIII filter. Tried the same with APO. Compared UHC/OIII/No-filter in APO on Veil.
Browsed thru Sagittarius Nebulae with UHC/OIII/No-Filter in 10" dob with 17T4 Nag @ 71x.
M8 Lagoon: Without filter it shows the lagoon dark arc clearly. With OIII/UHC filters on, it shows lot of nebulosity filess the 25-30% of EP center. shows the bright part at the center of the nebula. this must be the hour-glass nebula.. need to magnify and have to try it from Jon's 16" scope. M21 cluster nearby.
M20 Triffid: Barely shows the upper Y dark lanes without filter.. shows the cluster on the right. With filter on, it shows more nebulosity near the cluster also. The dark lanes seemed darker.
M23 open cluster above lagoon-triffid line: Visible in the 8x20 finder. Seemed to be yet another OC.
Continued..
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. lil wind in the beginning, but later calm.. so seeing improved..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Venus - Observed thru APO. Image seemed blurrier.. also lot of green/violet color, considering APO :-). Thru 10" dob, good image. looked like a small scale moon. Venus phase of ~60% lit clearly visible. Thru 16" better image of the same. no surface details visible.. its all white..
Saturn: Rings clearly visible thru 16". Thru 10" dob @ 35x (Pan35mm) the rings are visible.. image is too tiny @ 35x, but can distinguish the rings clearly.. when looked thru eyepiece, can see the light distortion i.e. "seagull".. collimation may be lil off. but by changing the viewing angle, the distortion was going away. Two moons on one side. 171x
M57 Ring Nebula: Visited multiple times. In the twilight and APO, seemed really fainter in APO. no star visible at 2". seemed all gray color. Later in the night thru 10" dob nag17 @ 71x image seems sharp and quite bright.. the star at 2" is visible. bluish color visible. Compared with uhc and then oiii filter. image seems definitely brighter thru filters. Need to try high mag filtered image.
Browsed the whole sky naked eye to get a feel of it.
Omega centauri: Lower on horizon, visible. In twilight, not that sharp. Visible thru bino.
M80: In Scorpio. Jon reminded the location. Above the Antares and twice the distance from Antares-lower star. In 10" dob 17nag 71x seems fuzzier, not clear.. ~171x still non-clear watery image. Visited it later at 11pm and the image seemed clear and sharp. In Jon's scope outer stars well resolved.
Ophiuchus PN NGC 6572: Blue Racquetball: Bright, sharp. In 71x Nag17 it seems like brighter blue star. Hard to differentiate it as the PN. Note the triangle pattern of the PN with other two bright stars. Increasing the mags @ 171x makes it brighter.. but still no details visible on the PN. Addition of OIII filter clearly makes it brighter. Visited multiple times.
Oph OC NGC 6633 and IC 4756: Looked at the OC NGC and IC.. NGC seems to be yet another OC, but IC cluster seems to be impressive.. IC bigger than ngc. In 71x it fills up whole eyepiece.. ~30 stars.. all yellow.. evenly distributed.. Switched to lower mag to get the feel of it. In Pan 35, 35x it seems more beautiful.. can clearly see the cluster at the center. seemed like wide salt-pepper cluster.
Blue Flash nebula NGC 6905: In Delphinus. At 71x itself, lil hard to differentiate than background stars. visited it before 1.5 years back, but forgot the location. 85deg (~90) angle on Delph diamond + bright star and this Neb. Note the 3 stars in straight line alignment. also a bright pair nearby. At 71x, seemed faint circular shape.. seems bigger than previous PN, racquetball, but fainter.. no color visible. At 171x, the circular shape clearly visible. Can not see much pattern on the disk. no color visible. OIII filter helps... but i felt that, for searching this neb, UHC filter really helps, as the neb is definitely visible with background stars. More mag helps.
M71 GC: In Sagitta. In Pan 35, 35x looks impressive.. lil bigger than M80, but defintely smaller than M4. clear, sharp.. and outskirt stars lil resolvable. Didn't try high mags.
M27 Dumbbell: Closer to M71. Compared all above tiny PNs, way bigger and so much nebulous. Tried 71x and 171x.. don't see any colors in it. With OIII filter, brighter.. Can see lil dark spot within the nebula.
Veil nebula - 10" @ 35x No filter. Cyg 52 star, West veil part, witch nebula visible. But can't see the visiblity clearly. Tried to look for eastern veil, but didn't find it. Later visited it again. Tried it with UHC filter. Can see all 3 parts of Veil. West+East+Pickering triangle. Nebulosity visible with background stars. with OIII filter, it just looks marvelous. all background stars are gone. And nebulosty pops up in the OIII filter. Tried the same with APO. Compared UHC/OIII/No-filter in APO on Veil.
Browsed thru Sagittarius Nebulae with UHC/OIII/No-Filter in 10" dob with 17T4 Nag @ 71x.
M8 Lagoon: Without filter it shows the lagoon dark arc clearly. With OIII/UHC filters on, it shows lot of nebulosity filess the 25-30% of EP center. shows the bright part at the center of the nebula. this must be the hour-glass nebula.. need to magnify and have to try it from Jon's 16" scope. M21 cluster nearby.
M20 Triffid: Barely shows the upper Y dark lanes without filter.. shows the cluster on the right. With filter on, it shows more nebulosity near the cluster also. The dark lanes seemed darker.
M23 open cluster above lagoon-triffid line: Visible in the 8x20 finder. Seemed to be yet another OC.
Continued..
Labels:
Cen Omega Centauri,
Cyg Veil Neb,
Del PN 6905 Blue Flash,
Location Boulevard,
Lyr PN M57 Ring,
Oph Blue PN 6572,
Oph OC 6633-IC4756,
Saturn,
Sco GC M80,
Sge GC M71,
Sgr Neb M20 Triffid,
Sgr Neb M8 Lagoon,
Sgr OC M21,
Sgr OC M23,
Venus,
Vul PN M27 Dumbbell
Summer Kickoff - II
Continued..
M4 - Visited M80 for a sharper view. For a comparison, checked M4. The M4 seems so bigger, brighter and loose as compared to M80. Also a NGC 6144 next to M4 and Antares seems bigger than M80.. but looser and fainter.. M80 definitely packs more stars in less space than this NGC. Overall M4-M80-6144 is a very good comparison for different types of GCs.
Sagittarius browsing for GC: Browsed the bottom of the Sagittarius. Epsilon-Zeta line
M69: tiny GC.. similar to M80, but it has a bright star next to it.
NGC6652: is on the below the Eps-Zeta line of the constellation. Definitely smaller than Ms.
M70 (New): continued along the same line as 6652, M70 shows up. Next to triple-star-straight-line alignment.
M54: Inside the bottom line. Just no guidepost.. browsing thru gets it there.. All these Ms seems similar.
NGC6723: This GC seems to be bigger than those other messier GCs. Wonder how messier missed this one. Just below Sagittarius.. easy to find.
NGC6624: Next to star Delta. Yet another GC.
NGC pair 6528-6522 near Alnasi/Gamma. These are really tiny-loose as compared to tiny messiers. One of them is denser than other. Infact second one is smaller and looser so hard to qualify.
ngc 6558-6569: Browsing on the opposite side leading to these GCs. not in a par.. lil bit apart.. they seem to be lil bigger than the above pair.
NGC 6563 PN: Seems like blue flash PN. Can be located easily thru star Eps Saggi. two star hops and pn should be in the view.
More GCs near Gamma-Delta M8 line. 6544 6553 6520 6540.. seemed like the 6528-22 pair near gamma.
Continued..
M4 - Visited M80 for a sharper view. For a comparison, checked M4. The M4 seems so bigger, brighter and loose as compared to M80. Also a NGC 6144 next to M4 and Antares seems bigger than M80.. but looser and fainter.. M80 definitely packs more stars in less space than this NGC. Overall M4-M80-6144 is a very good comparison for different types of GCs.
Sagittarius browsing for GC: Browsed the bottom of the Sagittarius. Epsilon-Zeta line
M69: tiny GC.. similar to M80, but it has a bright star next to it.
NGC6652: is on the below the Eps-Zeta line of the constellation. Definitely smaller than Ms.
M70 (New): continued along the same line as 6652, M70 shows up. Next to triple-star-straight-line alignment.
M54: Inside the bottom line. Just no guidepost.. browsing thru gets it there.. All these Ms seems similar.
NGC6723: This GC seems to be bigger than those other messier GCs. Wonder how messier missed this one. Just below Sagittarius.. easy to find.
NGC6624: Next to star Delta. Yet another GC.
NGC pair 6528-6522 near Alnasi/Gamma. These are really tiny-loose as compared to tiny messiers. One of them is denser than other. Infact second one is smaller and looser so hard to qualify.
ngc 6558-6569: Browsing on the opposite side leading to these GCs. not in a par.. lil bit apart.. they seem to be lil bigger than the above pair.
NGC 6563 PN: Seems like blue flash PN. Can be located easily thru star Eps Saggi. two star hops and pn should be in the view.
More GCs near Gamma-Delta M8 line. 6544 6553 6520 6540.. seemed like the 6528-22 pair near gamma.
Continued..
Summer Kickoff - III
Continued..
M28-M22-NGC6638: This triplet reminds me of M4-M80-ngc triplet near antares.
M11 wild duck cluster: Can indeed feel the wild duck flock in V shape flying in the sky.
M30 - quick browsing of m30. Tried it only thru 71x.. seems tinier at that magnification. can feel the H shape star alignment. didn't try high mags.
Andromeda triplet - Andromeda rising on NE. ~15-20deg above horizon. m31 big and bright @70x.. fills the eyepiece. M32 tiny still bright. m110 is very faint, bigger than m32.
Jupiter - Rising in the easter sky. <10deg from horizon.. fluctuating image. 4 moons on one side clearly visible.
Double cluster thru APO: Tried Jon's SWA 24mm in the APO. double cluster rising up. very low in magnification. can see difference in double cluster.
Returned back ~2:45pm..
M28-M22-NGC6638: This triplet reminds me of M4-M80-ngc triplet near antares.
M11 wild duck cluster: Can indeed feel the wild duck flock in V shape flying in the sky.
M30 - quick browsing of m30. Tried it only thru 71x.. seems tinier at that magnification. can feel the H shape star alignment. didn't try high mags.
Andromeda triplet - Andromeda rising on NE. ~15-20deg above horizon. m31 big and bright @70x.. fills the eyepiece. M32 tiny still bright. m110 is very faint, bigger than m32.
Jupiter - Rising in the easter sky. <10deg from horizon.. fluctuating image. 4 moons on one side clearly visible.
Double cluster thru APO: Tried Jon's SWA 24mm in the APO. double cluster rising up. very low in magnification. can see difference in double cluster.
Returned back ~2:45pm..
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Missing Messiers
M102
M107
M10 (1)
M12 (1)
M14 (1)
M15
M18 (1)
M19
M2 (1)
M21 (1)
M26-NGC6712 (1)
M39 (1)
M40 (1)
M5 (1)
M61 (1)
M62 (1)
M69 (1)
M70
M71 (1)
M75 (1)
M77 (1)
M80 (1)
M85 (1)
M9
M107
M10 (1)
M12 (1)
M14 (1)
M15
M18 (1)
M19
M2 (1)
M21 (1)
M26-NGC6712 (1)
M39 (1)
M40 (1)
M5 (1)
M61 (1)
M62 (1)
M69 (1)
M70
M71 (1)
M75 (1)
M77 (1)
M80 (1)
M85 (1)
M9
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Fuzzies Everywhere - I
Date: May 15th 2010 Saturday
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 12:30pm (4.5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. no winds.. probably best night till now in 2010. seeing was lil bad 8/10.. transparency 9/10
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, np101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Venus - telescope not cooled down yet.. pretty bad view from my 10" or jon's 16" scope.. blurry..
Moon - few degrees west from venus.. second day phase of moon.. really slick.. excellent view of venus-moon pair as the darkness evolved.
Saturn - excellent view from 16".. jon's scope more stable than mine.. ring, shadow of the ring.. lil gaseous pattern on the disk, 3 moons on right.. in my 10" scope, 7mm image was good.. but barlowed 7mm really blurry..
Castor - easy split with my scope. 4.7 arcmins is indeed easy to split.
Izar - Indeed interesting. companion is in a diffraction ring of primary star. from APO NP101, its a marvelous view. with my 10" scope, can see it, but not as sharp and clean as the apo.
Gamma Leo - Easy split. Companion seems smaller than Primary.
Porrima - Indeed hard.. higher magnification thru Join's 16".. don't remember how much. Its not an easy split. I am able to manage it with my scope. with 7mm ep i.e. 171x (i guess)
M44 - Beehive thru my 10" 35mm pan @ 35x.. looks marvelous. Are there any doubles in here???
M3 - Lost a track to locate this one. Not sure why it happens. Excellent view. Darker the sky better view..
-- Hot chocolate break --
Virgo All messiers: After last week's vrgo browsing, I have gained some confidence in how to browse through fuzzies in this area. In fact last time i missed few nearby messiers.. with smaller 10" scope + 35 Pan @ 35x, shows whole area clearly. should observe this when it real dark and calm, to see more fuzzies at such a low magnification. I was expecting lil better view in my scope, probably lower mag didn't show much. Still can clearly see lot of messiers and ngc objects too in markarains chain.
6 Com star-M98-M99-M100-Markarains chain with M84-M86-4388-4387-4402-Eyes4438-4435-4461-4473. Also M88 and M91 were clearly visible because of low mags. I missed these two las time. Again, M87-M89-M90 visible. On eastern side, M58-M59-M60 were also visible. Lil down M49 was an easy catch. I also mentioned to Jon abt missing M61 (New).. both of us located it and looked at it together. Easier to locate.. Jon noticed few NGCs nearby too..
Did I miss M85, which lil above M100 ??? Hmmm...
Continued..
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 12:30pm (4.5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. no winds.. probably best night till now in 2010. seeing was lil bad 8/10.. transparency 9/10
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, np101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Venus - telescope not cooled down yet.. pretty bad view from my 10" or jon's 16" scope.. blurry..
Moon - few degrees west from venus.. second day phase of moon.. really slick.. excellent view of venus-moon pair as the darkness evolved.
Saturn - excellent view from 16".. jon's scope more stable than mine.. ring, shadow of the ring.. lil gaseous pattern on the disk, 3 moons on right.. in my 10" scope, 7mm image was good.. but barlowed 7mm really blurry..
Castor - easy split with my scope. 4.7 arcmins is indeed easy to split.
Izar - Indeed interesting. companion is in a diffraction ring of primary star. from APO NP101, its a marvelous view. with my 10" scope, can see it, but not as sharp and clean as the apo.
Gamma Leo - Easy split. Companion seems smaller than Primary.
Porrima - Indeed hard.. higher magnification thru Join's 16".. don't remember how much. Its not an easy split. I am able to manage it with my scope. with 7mm ep i.e. 171x (i guess)
M44 - Beehive thru my 10" 35mm pan @ 35x.. looks marvelous. Are there any doubles in here???
M3 - Lost a track to locate this one. Not sure why it happens. Excellent view. Darker the sky better view..
-- Hot chocolate break --
Virgo All messiers: After last week's vrgo browsing, I have gained some confidence in how to browse through fuzzies in this area. In fact last time i missed few nearby messiers.. with smaller 10" scope + 35 Pan @ 35x, shows whole area clearly. should observe this when it real dark and calm, to see more fuzzies at such a low magnification. I was expecting lil better view in my scope, probably lower mag didn't show much. Still can clearly see lot of messiers and ngc objects too in markarains chain.
6 Com star-M98-M99-M100-Markarains chain with M84-M86-4388-4387-4402-Eyes4438-4435-4461-4473. Also M88 and M91 were clearly visible because of low mags. I missed these two las time. Again, M87-M89-M90 visible. On eastern side, M58-M59-M60 were also visible. Lil down M49 was an easy catch. I also mentioned to Jon abt missing M61 (New).. both of us located it and looked at it together. Easier to locate.. Jon noticed few NGCs nearby too..
Did I miss M85, which lil above M100 ??? Hmmm...
Continued..
Labels:
Boo DS Izar,
Cnc OC M44 Beehive,
Com Gal M88-M91,
Com Gal M98-M99-M100,
CVn GC M3,
Gem Castor DS,
Leo GammaLeonis DS,
Location Boulevard,
Saturn,
Venus,
Vir DS Porrima,
Vir Gal M49,
Vir Gal M58-M59-M60,
Vir Gal M61,
Vir Gal M87 VirgoA-M89-M90,
Vir MarkarainsChain
Fuzzies Everywhere - II
Continued..
Nearby M99 and M100 lies NGC pair 4302-4928 (New).. not sure if they are related? SkyVoyeger doesn't show distances..
M104 Sombrero: Thru my scope 17T4 70x definitely looks nice. dark lane and halo seems impressive. Can't see it clearly in the finder.
Antenna Galaxies: Can clearly see the fuzzy pair @ 70x in my scope. Can not see any antennas.
M68 GC: Haven't seen this in a while.. Easier to locate below corvus. Left side of the bright star. While switching betn Jon's and my Scope, realized the confusion betn right-angled finder and straight finder.
M83 Gal: Easier to catch. Need to observe it carefully. show lot of details in spiral structure with higher aperture.. i missed all.. I was just elated that i was able to locate it :).. seems like it is referred as seashell or southern pinwheel.
Omega Cen GC - Clear view thru 10" scope. Really need to observe this one without light pollution. Jon's place has lil light pollution near Southern horizon.
Hamburger Cen A Gal: Clearly see the huge dust lane in 17T4 @ 70x.
After this, I switched to Leo galaxies, while Jon continued with NGC objects near M83 hydra. He spent probably 30 mins in this region looking for really faint fuzzies.
He showed me hydra fuzzies 5292 (New), IC 4329-4329A pair (New), 5298 (New) and 5302 (New). It was indeed hard to locate this and see them clearly, just because of 16" aperture, you can feel their existence.
Continued..
Nearby M99 and M100 lies NGC pair 4302-4928 (New).. not sure if they are related? SkyVoyeger doesn't show distances..
M104 Sombrero: Thru my scope 17T4 70x definitely looks nice. dark lane and halo seems impressive. Can't see it clearly in the finder.
Antenna Galaxies: Can clearly see the fuzzy pair @ 70x in my scope. Can not see any antennas.
M68 GC: Haven't seen this in a while.. Easier to locate below corvus. Left side of the bright star. While switching betn Jon's and my Scope, realized the confusion betn right-angled finder and straight finder.
M83 Gal: Easier to catch. Need to observe it carefully. show lot of details in spiral structure with higher aperture.. i missed all.. I was just elated that i was able to locate it :).. seems like it is referred as seashell or southern pinwheel.
Omega Cen GC - Clear view thru 10" scope. Really need to observe this one without light pollution. Jon's place has lil light pollution near Southern horizon.
Hamburger Cen A Gal: Clearly see the huge dust lane in 17T4 @ 70x.
After this, I switched to Leo galaxies, while Jon continued with NGC objects near M83 hydra. He spent probably 30 mins in this region looking for really faint fuzzies.
He showed me hydra fuzzies 5292 (New), IC 4329-4329A pair (New), 5298 (New) and 5302 (New). It was indeed hard to locate this and see them clearly, just because of 16" aperture, you can feel their existence.
Continued..
Fuzzies Everywhere - III
Continued..
During this time, I started with Leo fuzzies. With low mag 35 pan @ 35x can clearly see 2903. Its indeed small but still bright.
Leo Triplet 3193 ben Gamma and ?? star.
Leo Gamma doublet, Again i looked at wrong location (inside the sickle) on this one. Its outside the sickle towards the body. Its on eastern side of Gamma Leo. Can easily see it thru my 10" scope 17T4 combo.
While looking for M95-M96-M105 triplet, i accidentally ended up at k-leo galaxies. They seem lil different than what i have seen thru Jon's scope.. two of them were really bright (i.e. 3367 and 3377), didn't see any other.. Again after relocating I got 95-96-105 triplet.. triplet within 105 was also visible. and thru that was able to move to k-leo gals also.
When moved to M65-M66-3628 combo, M95 triplet is definitely separated more than m65 triplet.. my expectations from m65 were really high being brighter, but din't get any impressive view thru my scope 17T4 70x. Mentioned it to Jon, if seeing/transparency is okay.
Checked for 3607. In 17T4 @ 70x can clearly see 3607-3608 pair. 3605 was also not clearly visible.. required lil higher mags. I believe I also looked at 3599 (New) nearby, thru jon's and my scope.
Jon was tired of fuzzies, so he moved to Saggi and Scorpio, while i continued my fuzzy hunt with Ursa Major.
Started hunting fuzzies in UMa systematically star-by-star.
From Alpha UMa - 1st star - Dubhe:
M81-M82 - indeed marvelous with low mags and high mags. With 17T4 @ 35x can also clearly see two nearby ngc objects. M81 being at center, M82, ngc3077 (new) and ngc 2976 (new) forms perfect Y shape prongs. 3077 is way smaller than 2976. Infact data sheet shows that, though smaller, 3077 is a magnitude brighter than 2976.
Near Beta UMa - second star - Merak:
M97-M108 - Fits in same view (17T4 ??) M97 brighter and more bluish than m108.. m108 seemed to be edge-on type. Nearby NGC 3631 (New) is also an easy catch. Moving from 108-97 in direct straight line or from finder to a nearby bright star HR 4363 helps.
Near Gamma UMa - third star :
M109: don't remember much..seems like it has bright core (??).. missed the nearby ngc object.
M106 - Opposite to alignment of M81-82-Alpha-Gamma stars, lies 106 towards CVn. Observed ngc 4490 near Alpha Cvn. Dont remember much. switched to M106, which is at exact center of Alpha Cvn and Gamma UMa. seems visible thru finder.. M106 seems to have brighter core.. nearby satellite ngc object clearly visible thru jon's scope.. must be 4217 (New) (or 4248 ??)... hardly visible in my 10" scope 17T4 @ 70x..requires more magnification.
Had a quick glance at M63 and M94. just saw so many galaxies that don't even remember much in t details.. need to spend some time on these objects with higher mags.
M51 whirlpool: marvelous view of the pair. Can clearly see the spiral lanes. More time i spend on this one, more details pop up in the eye. In M51 seemes like brighter star-like spot on the spiral arm. NGC-M51-Brighter star like spot. Need to read more abt this one. ???
M101 : closer to 7th UMa star. M51 is on southern-easter side of this tar, while this one is on northen easter side. almost at the same distance. don't remember much.. just too many fuzzies for one night. It needs to be observed with high mag ???
Continued..
During this time, I started with Leo fuzzies. With low mag 35 pan @ 35x can clearly see 2903. Its indeed small but still bright.
Leo Triplet 3193 ben Gamma and ?? star.
Leo Gamma doublet, Again i looked at wrong location (inside the sickle) on this one. Its outside the sickle towards the body. Its on eastern side of Gamma Leo. Can easily see it thru my 10" scope 17T4 combo.
While looking for M95-M96-M105 triplet, i accidentally ended up at k-leo galaxies. They seem lil different than what i have seen thru Jon's scope.. two of them were really bright (i.e. 3367 and 3377), didn't see any other.. Again after relocating I got 95-96-105 triplet.. triplet within 105 was also visible. and thru that was able to move to k-leo gals also.
When moved to M65-M66-3628 combo, M95 triplet is definitely separated more than m65 triplet.. my expectations from m65 were really high being brighter, but din't get any impressive view thru my scope 17T4 70x. Mentioned it to Jon, if seeing/transparency is okay.
Checked for 3607. In 17T4 @ 70x can clearly see 3607-3608 pair. 3605 was also not clearly visible.. required lil higher mags. I believe I also looked at 3599 (New) nearby, thru jon's and my scope.
Jon was tired of fuzzies, so he moved to Saggi and Scorpio, while i continued my fuzzy hunt with Ursa Major.
Started hunting fuzzies in UMa systematically star-by-star.
From Alpha UMa - 1st star - Dubhe:
M81-M82 - indeed marvelous with low mags and high mags. With 17T4 @ 35x can also clearly see two nearby ngc objects. M81 being at center, M82, ngc3077 (new) and ngc 2976 (new) forms perfect Y shape prongs. 3077 is way smaller than 2976. Infact data sheet shows that, though smaller, 3077 is a magnitude brighter than 2976.
Near Beta UMa - second star - Merak:
M97-M108 - Fits in same view (17T4 ??) M97 brighter and more bluish than m108.. m108 seemed to be edge-on type. Nearby NGC 3631 (New) is also an easy catch. Moving from 108-97 in direct straight line or from finder to a nearby bright star HR 4363 helps.
Near Gamma UMa - third star :
M109: don't remember much..seems like it has bright core (??).. missed the nearby ngc object.
M106 - Opposite to alignment of M81-82-Alpha-Gamma stars, lies 106 towards CVn. Observed ngc 4490 near Alpha Cvn. Dont remember much. switched to M106, which is at exact center of Alpha Cvn and Gamma UMa. seems visible thru finder.. M106 seems to have brighter core.. nearby satellite ngc object clearly visible thru jon's scope.. must be 4217 (New) (or 4248 ??)... hardly visible in my 10" scope 17T4 @ 70x..requires more magnification.
Had a quick glance at M63 and M94. just saw so many galaxies that don't even remember much in t details.. need to spend some time on these objects with higher mags.
M51 whirlpool: marvelous view of the pair. Can clearly see the spiral lanes. More time i spend on this one, more details pop up in the eye. In M51 seemes like brighter star-like spot on the spiral arm. NGC-M51-Brighter star like spot. Need to read more abt this one. ???
M101 : closer to 7th UMa star. M51 is on southern-easter side of this tar, while this one is on northen easter side. almost at the same distance. don't remember much.. just too many fuzzies for one night. It needs to be observed with high mag ???
Continued..
Labels:
CVn Gal 4217,
CVn Gal M106,
CVn Gal M51 Whirlpool,
CVn Gal M63 Sunflower,
CVn Gal M94,
Leo Gal Triplet 3193-3190-3187,
Leo Gal 2903,
Leo Gal 3226-3227,
Leo Gal 3599,
Leo Gal 3607-3608-3605,
Leo Gal M65-M66-3628,
Leo Gal M95-M96-M105,
Leo Gal Triplet M105–3384-3389,
UMa Gal 3631,
UMa Gal M101 Pinwheel,
UMa Gal M108,
UMa Gal M109,
UMa Gal M81-M82,
UMa Gal M81-M82-3077-2976
Fuzzies Everywhere - IV
Continued..
Continuing the galaxy hunt, switched to Coma.
Coma 4565 Triplet: Easy catch. this one is comparable to 2903 in leo.. but 4565 seems bigger than it. The elliptical 4494 and irregular gal 4559 companions are in the vicinity.. saw both. The elliptical is lil difficult to locate.
M53 GC: I wanted to look at M64 Black eye galaxy, so to confirm switched to Alpha Com and saw M53.. bright-bluish very rich GC.
M64 Black Eye Galaxy: (New): Dont even remember when i watched this one last time. with 17T4 @70x looks definitely nice in my scope. the dark pattern just below the bright core is somewhat visible. with Jon's scope, its clearly visible. Need to try higher mags on this one.
M13: Naked eye.. Thru the scope, can resolve lot of stars outside the core. looks nice.
M80 (New) GC: Never looked at it before.. tiny, compact but seems densely packed. Can somewhat make it in the finder. Looks impressive from both 10 and 16" scopes.
M4 : Big brother of M80.. but after watching M80, this one seems little loose in star packing. Not sure if its the distance-magnification or really physical. Need to read more ??
M57 Ring: bluish disk.. very impressive in Jon's scope. 2" star visible.. din't try higher mags.
Saggi browsing thru M7, M6, M8 Lagoon, M20 Triffid. Lagoon dark lane and ngc cluster clearly visible. Triffid way smaller than lagoon, dark lanes sort of visible to make distinct shape. 17T4 @ 70x.
Open cluster M23: In direct line of M8 and M20. Indeed rich.
M16 Eagle nebula and then M17 Swan Nebula. Swan and background stars look beautiful through nagler 17T4. For eagle nebula, still can't see the nebula clearly. Stars are clearly visible. probably can feel it lil bit, but not as expected..
M54 GC: Bluish.. tiny and very compact.. really close to horizon so didn't go into details. Also tried for M70..but way too low..
Alberio: At the end, quick look at Alberio.. again orange-bluish pair looks marvelous with all other stars in 17T4.
Continuing the galaxy hunt, switched to Coma.
Coma 4565 Triplet: Easy catch. this one is comparable to 2903 in leo.. but 4565 seems bigger than it. The elliptical 4494 and irregular gal 4559 companions are in the vicinity.. saw both. The elliptical is lil difficult to locate.
M53 GC: I wanted to look at M64 Black eye galaxy, so to confirm switched to Alpha Com and saw M53.. bright-bluish very rich GC.
M64 Black Eye Galaxy: (New): Dont even remember when i watched this one last time. with 17T4 @70x looks definitely nice in my scope. the dark pattern just below the bright core is somewhat visible. with Jon's scope, its clearly visible. Need to try higher mags on this one.
M13: Naked eye.. Thru the scope, can resolve lot of stars outside the core. looks nice.
M80 (New) GC: Never looked at it before.. tiny, compact but seems densely packed. Can somewhat make it in the finder. Looks impressive from both 10 and 16" scopes.
M4 : Big brother of M80.. but after watching M80, this one seems little loose in star packing. Not sure if its the distance-magnification or really physical. Need to read more ??
M57 Ring: bluish disk.. very impressive in Jon's scope. 2" star visible.. din't try higher mags.
Saggi browsing thru M7, M6, M8 Lagoon, M20 Triffid. Lagoon dark lane and ngc cluster clearly visible. Triffid way smaller than lagoon, dark lanes sort of visible to make distinct shape. 17T4 @ 70x.
Open cluster M23: In direct line of M8 and M20. Indeed rich.
M16 Eagle nebula and then M17 Swan Nebula. Swan and background stars look beautiful through nagler 17T4. For eagle nebula, still can't see the nebula clearly. Stars are clearly visible. probably can feel it lil bit, but not as expected..
M54 GC: Bluish.. tiny and very compact.. really close to horizon so didn't go into details. Also tried for M70..but way too low..
Alberio: At the end, quick look at Alberio.. again orange-bluish pair looks marvelous with all other stars in 17T4.
Labels:
Com Gal 4565-4494-4559,
Com Gal M64 BlackEye,
Com GC M53,
Her GC M13,
Location Boulevard,
Lyr DS Alberio,
Lyr PN M57 Ring,
Sco GC M4,
Sco GC M80,
Sgr GC M54,
Sgr Neb M16 Eagle,
Sgr Neb M17 Swan,
Sgr Neb M20 Triffid,
Sgr Neb M8 Lagoon,
Sgr OC M23-M24-M25
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Hunting Virgo Fuzzies I
Date: May 7th 2010 Friday
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 11:30pm (3.5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Lil clouds on western horizon. Transperancy okay.. no wind..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, NP101 APO, AT102ED
Buddies: Jon
Friday evening drive after work.. was definitely worth because of virgo fuzzies..
- Venus: Checked the APO ED lateral colors in AT102ED and NP101. with focused image, no colrrs in any APO. With out of focus venus, the AT shows the lateral color, while NP just doesn't show anything.. does it bother? nope :).. I iwsh Celestron refractor would haven been.. it would have showed heavy color with focused image itself.
Porrima: Split very very hard hard for me. 396x in Jon's scope..
Castor: Split failed.
- Izar - don't remember..
- Eskimo Nebula.. bluish nebula.. need to get familiar with the location, before it goes away..
- Double planetory - way too faint and tiny in Jon's scope itself.
Browsing thru finder without using red-dot or telerad was lil hard.. is using telerad consdered to be cheating :)? Finder is not focused either. Need to get comfortable with the view in the finder.. right angled finder helps..
- M35 - faint and tiny image in my M35. Need to watch out for the size of the object in low magnifications.
- Saturn - ???
M95-96-k-leo: Quic browsing thru K-leo gals..
Coma 4565 and the irregular one.. moteling ??
M3: GC
M53: GC
NGC GC next to M53: Really faint and dispersed. Hard to tell if its a faint open cluster or the GC itself. How do they identify it ?
- M63 Sunflower galaxy: Elliptical. Easy to catch. CVn visible cluster. M63-M51 and Alkaid Seventh UMa forms a line.
- M51 whirlpool: Spiral feel. Spiral arms. NGC object on the right arm of M51
- M94 in CVn: Easy to spot..
- Black eye galaxy missed..
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 11:30pm (3.5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Lil clouds on western horizon. Transperancy okay.. no wind..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, NP101 APO, AT102ED
Buddies: Jon
Friday evening drive after work.. was definitely worth because of virgo fuzzies..
- Venus: Checked the APO ED lateral colors in AT102ED and NP101. with focused image, no colrrs in any APO. With out of focus venus, the AT shows the lateral color, while NP just doesn't show anything.. does it bother? nope :).. I iwsh Celestron refractor would haven been.. it would have showed heavy color with focused image itself.
Porrima: Split very very hard hard for me. 396x in Jon's scope..
Castor: Split failed.
- Izar - don't remember..
- Eskimo Nebula.. bluish nebula.. need to get familiar with the location, before it goes away..
- Double planetory - way too faint and tiny in Jon's scope itself.
Browsing thru finder without using red-dot or telerad was lil hard.. is using telerad consdered to be cheating :)? Finder is not focused either. Need to get comfortable with the view in the finder.. right angled finder helps..
- M35 - faint and tiny image in my M35. Need to watch out for the size of the object in low magnifications.
- Saturn - ???
M95-96-k-leo: Quic browsing thru K-leo gals..
Coma 4565 and the irregular one.. moteling ??
M3: GC
M53: GC
NGC GC next to M53: Really faint and dispersed. Hard to tell if its a faint open cluster or the GC itself. How do they identify it ?
- M63 Sunflower galaxy: Elliptical. Easy to catch. CVn visible cluster. M63-M51 and Alkaid Seventh UMa forms a line.
- M51 whirlpool: Spiral feel. Spiral arms. NGC object on the right arm of M51
- M94 in CVn: Easy to spot..
- Black eye galaxy missed..
Hunting Virgo Fuzzies II
Continued..
- Omega Centauri: Easy capture..i really need to see this one from some dark place.. or from india :)
- Centaurus A - Hamburger galaxy - From the refractor NP101, it seemed like a faint loose cluster.. i don't know why.. when i saw omega centauri cluster nearby, i told jon i dont remmeber nay cluster nearby, but there is hamburger galaxy nearby.. and precisely that was it, when we looked thru the 16" scope.. I think Jon was forgotten abt this one.. that was interesting :).. any way the hamburger shape looks perfect.. again lil faint than what i expteted.. It looked awesome thru SDAA scope.. i guess its bad transparency..
- Virgo Fuzzies: I have browsed thru these before, but just never get a confidence of which one is where or how to browse.. So this time, planned it before coming to the observation. got all the prints to locate the objects correctly..
Starting with Epsilon Vir or Vir 33 or Vir 34 always gets me to wrong location. Found M49 (New) easily with this.
Because of Jon's heavier scope and virgo being overhead, also loose the sense of direction. so wasn;t able to locate Markarain's chain correctly.
If you start through Com 6, then its lil easier, because there are not too many fuzzies on the way, to be lost. Also 6 com is easy to locate from Leo Denebola.
M98 on west side while M99 on SE. M100 is also not far from 6 coma.
If you extend the line of M98-6Com-M99 then it goes all the way to Markarain's chain. No other fuzzies in the middle.
Markarain's chain (New in details): M86 bigger than M84. 4388 also seems impressive being edge-on. 4387 clearly visible. also, Jon's 16" aperture shows 4413 and 4425 clearly. 4402 below M86 is visible. Next, Pair of 4438-4435, Eyes Galaxies, visible. 4438 definitely seems to have bright off-core material. Next set of galaxy pair 4461-4458 visible, though smaller.. and then brighter 4473-4477 is visible.. Also, 4479 which is next to 4477 is also visible.. so complete Markarains chain visible.. In the process, I missed M88 and M91.. tried it in Jon's scope, but somehow lost the direction.. I should be able to see all these 16 galaxies from my 10" scope as well..
Once back to M86-M84, can move to east of M84-4388 line to go to M87 (New). 4478-4476 clearly visible next to m87.. really tiny..
If we follow the same line M84-M87, it leads to M58 (New)... otherwise in triangle fashion lies M89 (new) next to a bright star. M90 (New) is close by. 4531 next to M90 is also visible. Also, betn M89 and M58 likes the galaxy pair 4450-4551.
Same line of M84-M87-M58 goes to M59 (New) and M60 (New). 4667-4638 are also visible.
I reversed the whole sequence again back to markarains chain-> M98..
Overall i ended up browsing 31 gals + missed two (M88-M91).. wow.. indeed a galactic zoo..
M81-M82: Just before packing up, thought will take a look.. but failed :) not sure why i wasn't able to find them.. too tired..
- Omega Centauri: Easy capture..i really need to see this one from some dark place.. or from india :)
- Centaurus A - Hamburger galaxy - From the refractor NP101, it seemed like a faint loose cluster.. i don't know why.. when i saw omega centauri cluster nearby, i told jon i dont remmeber nay cluster nearby, but there is hamburger galaxy nearby.. and precisely that was it, when we looked thru the 16" scope.. I think Jon was forgotten abt this one.. that was interesting :).. any way the hamburger shape looks perfect.. again lil faint than what i expteted.. It looked awesome thru SDAA scope.. i guess its bad transparency..
- Virgo Fuzzies: I have browsed thru these before, but just never get a confidence of which one is where or how to browse.. So this time, planned it before coming to the observation. got all the prints to locate the objects correctly..
Starting with Epsilon Vir or Vir 33 or Vir 34 always gets me to wrong location. Found M49 (New) easily with this.
Because of Jon's heavier scope and virgo being overhead, also loose the sense of direction. so wasn;t able to locate Markarain's chain correctly.
If you start through Com 6, then its lil easier, because there are not too many fuzzies on the way, to be lost. Also 6 com is easy to locate from Leo Denebola.
M98 on west side while M99 on SE. M100 is also not far from 6 coma.
If you extend the line of M98-6Com-M99 then it goes all the way to Markarain's chain. No other fuzzies in the middle.
Markarain's chain (New in details): M86 bigger than M84. 4388 also seems impressive being edge-on. 4387 clearly visible. also, Jon's 16" aperture shows 4413 and 4425 clearly. 4402 below M86 is visible. Next, Pair of 4438-4435, Eyes Galaxies, visible. 4438 definitely seems to have bright off-core material. Next set of galaxy pair 4461-4458 visible, though smaller.. and then brighter 4473-4477 is visible.. Also, 4479 which is next to 4477 is also visible.. so complete Markarains chain visible.. In the process, I missed M88 and M91.. tried it in Jon's scope, but somehow lost the direction.. I should be able to see all these 16 galaxies from my 10" scope as well..
Once back to M86-M84, can move to east of M84-4388 line to go to M87 (New). 4478-4476 clearly visible next to m87.. really tiny..
If we follow the same line M84-M87, it leads to M58 (New)... otherwise in triangle fashion lies M89 (new) next to a bright star. M90 (New) is close by. 4531 next to M90 is also visible. Also, betn M89 and M58 likes the galaxy pair 4450-4551.
Same line of M84-M87-M58 goes to M59 (New) and M60 (New). 4667-4638 are also visible.
I reversed the whole sequence again back to markarains chain-> M98..
Overall i ended up browsing 31 gals + missed two (M88-M91).. wow.. indeed a galactic zoo..
M81-M82: Just before packing up, thought will take a look.. but failed :) not sure why i wasn't able to find them.. too tired..
La Posta Dinner with Late night Moonset - I
Date: Sept 26th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 11pm (2.5hrs), 00:30am to 4:30am (4 hrs): Total 6.5 hrs.
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: first session: moon 60% illuminated. Cloudy on SWS. Second session: moon set. No winds. No clouds. Excellent seeing and transparency. Best weather seen after a while.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob (FL 1800mm with parracor), Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Didn't carry my 10" dob.
Buddies: Jon
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 11pm (2.5hrs), 00:30am to 4:30am (4 hrs): Total 6.5 hrs.
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: first session: moon 60% illuminated. Cloudy on SWS. Second session: moon set. No winds. No clouds. Excellent seeing and transparency. Best weather seen after a while.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob (FL 1800mm with parracor), Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Didn't carry my 10" dob.
Buddies: Jon
While helping Jon in moving furniture, decided to also have a late night stargazing session once moon sets. didnt carry my 10" dob. Jon decided to keep 16" scope at blvd house only.
At 8:30pm, first quarter moon was pretty bright with 60% disk illuminated.
Jupiter: In refractor, clear view. The disk bands were visible. Achro color abberation was killing the image. Two moons on left while other two on right side. In 16" dob @ 9mm 200x awesome view. One of the best views. Two bands + the shade on remaining part of south was clearly visible. Also there was dark black spot exactly at the center on south. Not sure what it is.. but i have seen it before in last dark night observation. Jon also didn't know what it was.
M30: Way too faint in refractor. I realized that without the red-dot founder or telerad, hunting the objects are lil tricky. It does have 6x20 finder, but still I get confused with where its pointing. Just trying to understand the refractor. In the dob, with lil magnification, M30 it its specific shape visible. Not really a crispy clear image. Moonlite washed out the view.. Just no point watching any objects on S or W side.
M13: With dob, clearly resolved and shows how huge it is. Not the usual crispy image. shows clearly in refractor finder. Refractor low mag shows as nice GC similar to M22.
M27 Dumbbell: Jon pointed to this guy.. indeed crispy clear in 28mm UWAN @ 65x. shows the typical shape.
M52: To avoid moon, decided to stay on NE side, exactly opposite of moon. Jon pointed to this one, but "discovered" it. He wasn't sure what this faint lil OC is. cosndering the lcoation and the bright star next to cluster, it was indeed M52. With thig mag 120x on dob, it kills the cluster beauty. Better in low mags.
Mu Cephi (New): Wanted to browse all Cephus objects on this night, so started with Mu Cephi. Jon has never seen this before. Perfect Garnet-Red star. More the mags, more red color i can see. Means in refractor with 40x shows it as red-orangish star, while dob @ 120x shows it as big dark-red orangish star. Indeed an impressive object considering its history.
Iota Cassiopeia (New): don't remember too many details. Jon pointed to it. I remember watching two bright white stars very close to each other. I even tried the refractor, just don't remember what i saw.
At 9:30pm, Jon decided to take a nap for a while till moon sets. I continued..
NGC6939 OC - NGC 6946 Galaxy (New): OC in Cephus, while galaxy in Cygnus at the border. Indeed seemed like salt paper cluster. Individual stars are not that bright. but cluster seems to be rich, like small scale M46. CN small wonders also mentioned abt the galaxy 6946 near cephus-cygnus boundary but din't see it... again must have washed by moonlite.
Revisited this object again late night ~2am. Excellent cluster. In 28mm UWAN ~65x, can fit both cluser and galaxy in same view.. Galxy is indeed faint.. but definitely bigger in size.
M31-32-110: To test the moon effect on galaxies, pointed the refractor to M31. Not a great image.. Infact M32 and M110 wasn't that obvious either. So decided to give up on all fuzzies as well as tiny little objects till moon sets.
Alberio: Color of the pair seemed okay.. orange and bluish-white.
Double Double: Wasn't able to split individual pairs that clearly with 65x.
M103: Don't remember the shape. Clearly visible in the finder itself.
Continued..
La Posta Dinner with Late night Moonset - II
Continued..
There are bunch of clusters in nearby area of m103, so started browsing them. considering moonlite, probably OCs are better to observe.
NGC663 OC: While browsing for m103, saw another cluster next to it, which was probably better/bigger than m103.
NGC654 OC: Yet another tiny OC, but still can be identified easily.
NGC637 OC: Seemed to have "gun" shape, bright smaller. but because of tight concentration, feels like a cluster.
NGC559 OC: don't remember anything special in this one..
NGC457 OC: This is definitely bigger and had a curved alignment of stars.
NGC436 OC: Not impressive..also lil bit difficult identify the cluster.
NGC225 OC: Easy catch betn Gamma and Kappa Cas. Bigger..wider.. don't remember the shape again..
M29 OC: Easily visible in 16".typical shape.. seemed tiny.
Perseus double cluster: At high mags, completely looses its charm, At 28mm UWAN, seemed nice.
~11pm, was lil bit tired, also lil cloudy.. so decided to lie down for a while in the car trunk. The space is huge as compared to it seems. Can comfortably fit in two people without any trouble. Still wasn't able to sleep.. Pleiads on east, while Jupiter on west clearly visible thru car windows. Jon got up around ~00:30..everything was clear by then..no clouds and no moon.. excellent seeing.
M42 Orion - m43: At horizon, the trapezium was too wavy. visited it again after an hour when it was lil up in the sky.. It was excellent.. 6 stars in trapezium clearly visible. Awesome seeing. In 28mm UWAN, the nebulousity was fabulous, feeling up the whole 80deg EP. M43 next to it was showing the nebulosity too.. Easily supported high mags.. the internal details of two dark clouds near trapezium was also clearly visible.. indeed gives 3D feeling. The nebulosity near running nebula cluster was also visible.. still ll hard to discern the dark running man. is this just a photo graphic object? probably it is.. Jon has never seen it either.
M78 - bump up mags... nebulosity on next star also. 2071??
M1 Crab
Auriga clusters with 2 ngc objects
M44 cancer
ngc7331
Cephus, cluster + galaxy
stephans quintet
Cephus u cephi IC OC fuziness
sculptor gal 253, gc 288
new scultor gal 247 easy find.. huge ..faint.. with refractor also
M41 - CMa
M46 - planetory
M47
Gemini M35 - ngc next
Eskimo nebula
Double planetory
Asterism 37 OC 2169
Tau CMa
Thors helmet
M74 - next to aries
Doubles:
Rigel
Castor - refractor reflector refractor,
Beta Mono ceris - triplet
lambda orionis - almost like cancer
sigma orionis - 6 star system
milky way alignment - cephus alignment, scultor alignment
Labels:
Aur OC M37-M36-M38,
Aur OC1893-IC410,
Cas OC 225,
Cas OC 457-436,
Cas OC 637-559,
Cas OC 663-654,
Cyg OC M29,
Location Boulevard,
Mon Beta DS,
Ori DS Lambda,
Ori DS Sigma,
Ori Neb M42-M43,
Ori Neb M78,
Ori OC 2169,
Peg Stephan's Quintet,
Per Double Cluster 869-84,
Psc Gal M74,
Scl Gal 247,
Scl Gal 253,
Scl GC 288
Monday, May 3, 2010
Night of Leo Fuzzies - I
Date: 1st May 2010, Saturday
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 12:00pm (~4hrs)
Location: Jon's @ Blvd
Weather: Heavy winds till 9, lower windy till 11pm and calm till 11:30
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, NP101 APO, my/Jon's AT102ED APO.
Buddies: Jon+Francis+Aparna
Heavy winds when we landed at Jon's place. After some house treasure hunts, started with refractors. Dusk light after sunset was still there..
Venus: Way too shaky image.. can't see any phases.. good comparison of lateral color in NP101 and AT102ED. When out of focus, AT shows lot of violet and green color. While NP doesn't show anything at similar magnification. At really high magnification, NP showed lil color.
Castor: Though it was shaky, casto was good split in both scopes. how much is the separation TBD ?? 4.7" arcsec.
Sigma Ori: Tried sigma Ori 5 star system. winds killed it.. can see it, but worst view..
Eskimo Nebula: Okay view of Eskimo through 16" dob. Because of slight dusk light.. wasn't that bright view.. also wasn't too focused either.. cannot see the middle star..just a fuzzy object..
M35: Tried through 102ED-Pan35. Nothing impressive.
M38 - Same like M35. Northern side outside Auriga. Way fainter than M35.
M65-M66-3628 Galaxies: In Jon's 31 Nagler, in single view. excellent and pretty bright. Tried it in on AT102ED. Lil tricky to point the APO for the overhead objects. You can not really get the red pointer directed. Have to get on the ground. Still pointed to it. Excellent view in Pan35.
NGC 4565 Coma Bernices Galaxy - Needle Galaxy: Excellent needle view through Jon's 16" scope. didn't see much details.. Too windy I guess. The location of the gal is easy to catch. Next to Mel 111 cluster.
NGC 4559 (New): Irregular one next to Needle: Can see irregular shape.. larger than Needle, but probably lil fainter (or almost same) than needle.. Also couple of stars on top of the galaxy.. probably there are in field of view. With current view, both are 2-8 o'clk pattern.
NGC 4494 (New): Elliptical one next to Needle: Jon found this one. smaller and fainter than both above gal.
I tried both needle and irregular 4559 gal from my AT102ED scope. Definitely, perfect catch in Pan35. Can't fit both of them in same view.. Both seem really tiny, but still bright.
Tried same from Jon's NP101.
Aparna also joined us to look at 4565-4559-4494.
M104 Sombrero Gal: To show some impressive stuff to Aparna, pointed to Sombrero. Excellent.. really bright view in Nag31 on 16". somehow keep on forgetting the location.
M3: Another master piece of spring night. Easy to track it from Mel-111 from Coma Bernices.
Continued...
Observation Time: 8:00pm to 12:00pm (~4hrs)
Location: Jon's @ Blvd
Weather: Heavy winds till 9, lower windy till 11pm and calm till 11:30
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, NP101 APO, my/Jon's AT102ED APO.
Buddies: Jon+Francis+Aparna
Heavy winds when we landed at Jon's place. After some house treasure hunts, started with refractors. Dusk light after sunset was still there..
Venus: Way too shaky image.. can't see any phases.. good comparison of lateral color in NP101 and AT102ED. When out of focus, AT shows lot of violet and green color. While NP doesn't show anything at similar magnification. At really high magnification, NP showed lil color.
Castor: Though it was shaky, casto was good split in both scopes. how much is the separation TBD ?? 4.7" arcsec.
Sigma Ori: Tried sigma Ori 5 star system. winds killed it.. can see it, but worst view..
Eskimo Nebula: Okay view of Eskimo through 16" dob. Because of slight dusk light.. wasn't that bright view.. also wasn't too focused either.. cannot see the middle star..just a fuzzy object..
M35: Tried through 102ED-Pan35. Nothing impressive.
M38 - Same like M35. Northern side outside Auriga. Way fainter than M35.
M65-M66-3628 Galaxies: In Jon's 31 Nagler, in single view. excellent and pretty bright. Tried it in on AT102ED. Lil tricky to point the APO for the overhead objects. You can not really get the red pointer directed. Have to get on the ground. Still pointed to it. Excellent view in Pan35.
NGC 4565 Coma Bernices Galaxy - Needle Galaxy: Excellent needle view through Jon's 16" scope. didn't see much details.. Too windy I guess. The location of the gal is easy to catch. Next to Mel 111 cluster.
NGC 4559 (New): Irregular one next to Needle: Can see irregular shape.. larger than Needle, but probably lil fainter (or almost same) than needle.. Also couple of stars on top of the galaxy.. probably there are in field of view. With current view, both are 2-8 o'clk pattern.
NGC 4494 (New): Elliptical one next to Needle: Jon found this one. smaller and fainter than both above gal.
I tried both needle and irregular 4559 gal from my AT102ED scope. Definitely, perfect catch in Pan35. Can't fit both of them in same view.. Both seem really tiny, but still bright.
Tried same from Jon's NP101.
Aparna also joined us to look at 4565-4559-4494.
M104 Sombrero Gal: To show some impressive stuff to Aparna, pointed to Sombrero. Excellent.. really bright view in Nag31 on 16". somehow keep on forgetting the location.
M3: Another master piece of spring night. Easy to track it from Mel-111 from Coma Bernices.
Continued...
Night of Leo Fuzzies - II
Continued..
M81-M82-ngc3077 - Can't fit these together in Nag31 16" view..probably just at edge-to-edge.. really surprised. infact next to m81, there is ngc3077. indeed nice view.. somehow never seen it before..
Omega Centuari - Jon pointed to the masterpiece.. Lil low on the horizon.. Scope was almost horizontal. Easy to catch.. you can feel like you can see it naked eye. Marvelous view through the Nag31.
M4 - Scorpio on SE horizon, tried M4.. indeed smaller and fainter than expected.
Antares - bright red view..
Markarains chain - browsed through markarains chain.. Again i don't know what are the galaxy numbers.. need to do more research and get comfortable with it.
M95-M96-M105-NGC 3371-3373 - Went back to Leo again.. Location was correct... When looked throu the view, can clearly see the triplet. but felt that the messier triplet is too small for the view. I mentioned to Jon that M105 is the triplet in itself.. we zoomed in with 20T2, but didn't see anything..i mentioned to jon i had definitely better view of whole thing thru my 10" than our current view.. After a while, when Jon browsed thru, we realized the real mistake.. the initial triplet we looked at itself was M105 triplet :).. and M95 and M96 were way too apart from each other..with lowest magnification, the scope 2000mm FL with 31 Nag 66x was still high to fit all messiers in same view.. indeed surprising.. need to read more abt comparision betn 65-66 and 95-96-105.
Fuzzies next to K Leo 3367-3377-3412-3346-3348 - The K leo star is next to m105, but interesting thing is there are 5 more galaxies near it.. though they are fainter than M objects, they may be of similar brightness as triplets in m105. 3 of them are on one side and closer to k leo.. 3367 is betn m105 and k leo.. 3377 is 2' clk of k-leo, while 3412 is aligned with 3377 and k-leo... Easy to catch.. while 4th one 3346 on opposite side and lil farther. The 5th one 3338 wasn't able to find it.. was loosing the direction.. any way just browsing thru these gals was just awesome.. the iphone s/w is infact showing more gals in this area.
Triplet 3193-3190-3187 - While looking for Gal pair next to Gamma Leo, Jon pointed to me to this triplet betn gamma and zeta leo stars.. First one on right next to a star, second one on lil-further and top of the star. third one still further above second one.. third one seemed to be really faint and edge-on style.
Continued...
M81-M82-ngc3077 - Can't fit these together in Nag31 16" view..probably just at edge-to-edge.. really surprised. infact next to m81, there is ngc3077. indeed nice view.. somehow never seen it before..
Omega Centuari - Jon pointed to the masterpiece.. Lil low on the horizon.. Scope was almost horizontal. Easy to catch.. you can feel like you can see it naked eye. Marvelous view through the Nag31.
M4 - Scorpio on SE horizon, tried M4.. indeed smaller and fainter than expected.
Antares - bright red view..
Markarains chain - browsed through markarains chain.. Again i don't know what are the galaxy numbers.. need to do more research and get comfortable with it.
M95-M96-M105-NGC 3371-3373 - Went back to Leo again.. Location was correct... When looked throu the view, can clearly see the triplet. but felt that the messier triplet is too small for the view. I mentioned to Jon that M105 is the triplet in itself.. we zoomed in with 20T2, but didn't see anything..i mentioned to jon i had definitely better view of whole thing thru my 10" than our current view.. After a while, when Jon browsed thru, we realized the real mistake.. the initial triplet we looked at itself was M105 triplet :).. and M95 and M96 were way too apart from each other..with lowest magnification, the scope 2000mm FL with 31 Nag 66x was still high to fit all messiers in same view.. indeed surprising.. need to read more abt comparision betn 65-66 and 95-96-105.
Fuzzies next to K Leo 3367-3377-3412-3346-3348 - The K leo star is next to m105, but interesting thing is there are 5 more galaxies near it.. though they are fainter than M objects, they may be of similar brightness as triplets in m105. 3 of them are on one side and closer to k leo.. 3367 is betn m105 and k leo.. 3377 is 2' clk of k-leo, while 3412 is aligned with 3377 and k-leo... Easy to catch.. while 4th one 3346 on opposite side and lil farther. The 5th one 3338 wasn't able to find it.. was loosing the direction.. any way just browsing thru these gals was just awesome.. the iphone s/w is infact showing more gals in this area.
Triplet 3193-3190-3187 - While looking for Gal pair next to Gamma Leo, Jon pointed to me to this triplet betn gamma and zeta leo stars.. First one on right next to a star, second one on lil-further and top of the star. third one still further above second one.. third one seemed to be really faint and edge-on style.
Continued...
Night of Leo Fuzzies - III
Continued...
Double pair next to Gamma Leo/Algeiba 3226-3227 : Initially wasn't able to find it. Was looking on the other side. Very close pair of galaxies.. somewhat bigger version of planetary double PN.
NGC 2903 - Way below 1st star in sickle epsillon leo. Easy to find. Seemed fainter than 4565. (its brighter but lil smaller than 4565, so i guess considering surface brightness 4565 seemed brighter)
Antenna galaxies in moonlite - moonrise glow was on east. Still can clearly see antenna fuzziness.
Rising Moon: Awesome sight when moon was coming up.. being on horizon lil bigger.. because of clouds up ahead, the moon light was stable.. 70% wanning.. excellent view.. one of the best moon risings even seen.
Double pair next to Gamma Leo/Algeiba 3226-3227 : Initially wasn't able to find it. Was looking on the other side. Very close pair of galaxies.. somewhat bigger version of planetary double PN.
NGC 2903 - Way below 1st star in sickle epsillon leo. Easy to find. Seemed fainter than 4565. (its brighter but lil smaller than 4565, so i guess considering surface brightness 4565 seemed brighter)
Antenna galaxies in moonlite - moonrise glow was on east. Still can clearly see antenna fuzziness.
Rising Moon: Awesome sight when moon was coming up.. being on horizon lil bigger.. because of clouds up ahead, the moon light was stable.. 70% wanning.. excellent view.. one of the best moon risings even seen.
Stargazing at GC South Rim
Date: 1st April 2010, Thursday
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10:00pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. really dark sky.. few lights from bright-angles lodge
Instruments: 10x50 binocs
Had quick 30min binocular observing session from GC South Rim.
The NELM: can clearly see all stars in Ursa Minor. M44 Beehive cluster was naked eye.
Double Cluster.
M45 Pleides.
Mizar Alcor
M81-M82 barely visible.
M35 Gemini
M42
Mruga shirsha
Cma M41 ??
M46-M47
Alberio Winter
Tau wasn't cleanly visible.
M97
M50 in hydra ? 2 binocular fields apart from m46-47 pair
M44-M67
M3
Tried to look for Virgo galaxies but nothing visible.
M96-97 Leo Gal.. but too overhead and nothing visible.
Mars
Saturn
Deers on the road... while wild cows on the back side of Bright Angels Lodge.
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10:00pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. really dark sky.. few lights from bright-angles lodge
Instruments: 10x50 binocs
Had quick 30min binocular observing session from GC South Rim.
The NELM: can clearly see all stars in Ursa Minor. M44 Beehive cluster was naked eye.
Double Cluster.
M45 Pleides.
Mizar Alcor
M81-M82 barely visible.
M35 Gemini
M42
Mruga shirsha
Cma M41 ??
M46-M47
Alberio Winter
Tau wasn't cleanly visible.
M97
M50 in hydra ? 2 binocular fields apart from m46-47 pair
M44-M67
M3
Tried to look for Virgo galaxies but nothing visible.
M96-97 Leo Gal.. but too overhead and nothing visible.
Mars
Saturn
Deers on the road... while wild cows on the back side of Bright Angels Lodge.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Quick Browsing before dinner at PB.
Date: 19th March 2010, Wednesday
Observation Time: 7:45pm to 8:30pm (~45mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted..as well as Moon waxing on 4th day.
Instruments: AT102ED. Tried new Pan 35 and UHC filter.
Had quick browsing session with Aparna. Moon was waxing 4th day.
M42: Pan35 20x shows whole orion nebula M42 + M43 + running man nebula stars area. BEcasue of light pollution the nebulosity is not as impressive as dark sight..still the middle dark pier pops up in 20x itself. theta Orionis, trapezium, is barely visible. Nag 17T4 41x shows M42 better. Only 4 stars in Theta are resolvable. Nag 17T4 + UHC filter definitely shows more nebulosity, but it made whole image blue.. thats lil bizarre.. first time i used this UHC filter. whats the blue color indicates ?
Hmmm... "UHC (ultra-high contrast) filter has a wider bandpass (22 to 26 nanometers [nm]) than other narrowband filters but a much narrower one than any broadband filter. Through a UHC filter, the background sky appears darker and stars take on a blue color. Emission nebulae benefit most from this filter."
Sigma Orionis: (New): Treated Sigma to be Mintaka. This one is excellent. In 20x Pan35, you can see another trapezium here as Theta Orionis. Right part of the trapez is Sigma, while the left part is STF761. igma shows AB-E pair. With 17T4 41x, star D pops up betn AB-E pair, closer to AB. with 7T1 ~101x, clearly see star C really close to AB, but opposite side of D. Indeed excellent. The 4 stars in 3 different views definitely shows the beauty of magnification and how the magnitude pops up incrementally. Need to observe more carefully.
Description abt Sigma.
M45 Pleiades: In Pan35 20x, looks impressive. 9 stars. Its upside-down and the ? angle switched to Right.
Moon: Naked eye, can see the phase as well as whole dark side sort of lit up.. In Pan35, 20x, its marvelous. The dark side really lits up and can clearly see the difference betn bright and dark side. Picture is so crisp to see the crates on terminator. 17T4, 41x, improved the image with more details on the craters. Aparna went crazy with Pan35 view. Infact best i have ever seen..
Later, went for nice dinner at Cafe Athena at PB with Aparna, Dilip and Ashwin.
Observation Time: 7:45pm to 8:30pm (~45mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted..as well as Moon waxing on 4th day.
Instruments: AT102ED. Tried new Pan 35 and UHC filter.
Had quick browsing session with Aparna. Moon was waxing 4th day.
M42: Pan35 20x shows whole orion nebula M42 + M43 + running man nebula stars area. BEcasue of light pollution the nebulosity is not as impressive as dark sight..still the middle dark pier pops up in 20x itself. theta Orionis, trapezium, is barely visible. Nag 17T4 41x shows M42 better. Only 4 stars in Theta are resolvable. Nag 17T4 + UHC filter definitely shows more nebulosity, but it made whole image blue.. thats lil bizarre.. first time i used this UHC filter. whats the blue color indicates ?
Hmmm... "UHC (ultra-high contrast) filter has a wider bandpass (22 to 26 nanometers [nm]) than other narrowband filters but a much narrower one than any broadband filter. Through a UHC filter, the background sky appears darker and stars take on a blue color. Emission nebulae benefit most from this filter."
Sigma Orionis: (New): Treated Sigma to be Mintaka. This one is excellent. In 20x Pan35, you can see another trapezium here as Theta Orionis. Right part of the trapez is Sigma, while the left part is STF761. igma shows AB-E pair. With 17T4 41x, star D pops up betn AB-E pair, closer to AB. with 7T1 ~101x, clearly see star C really close to AB, but opposite side of D. Indeed excellent. The 4 stars in 3 different views definitely shows the beauty of magnification and how the magnitude pops up incrementally. Need to observe more carefully.
Description abt Sigma.
M45 Pleiades: In Pan35 20x, looks impressive. 9 stars. Its upside-down and the ? angle switched to Right.
Moon: Naked eye, can see the phase as well as whole dark side sort of lit up.. In Pan35, 20x, its marvelous. The dark side really lits up and can clearly see the difference betn bright and dark side. Picture is so crisp to see the crates on terminator. 17T4, 41x, improved the image with more details on the craters. Aparna went crazy with Pan35 view. Infact best i have ever seen..
Later, went for nice dinner at Cafe Athena at PB with Aparna, Dilip and Ashwin.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Mars - First Time
Observed Mars twice in Jan-Feb. Just feeling the gaps in the blog..
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Jan Second week:
From my home: ~11pm: XTi10 with TMB4 i.e. ~300x: Mars was overhead lil on east. Saw the northen polar ice-caps. First time in life.. Clear white.. Can also see a dark line surrounding that ice cap. Not sure what it was.. Seeing was in-out.
---
Jan Last week:
From Jon's place in Clairmont: ~7pm-9:30pm : Meade 12" f/6 research grade reflector: with 4.5mm nagler ~ ~400x: Excellent image of Mars.. had never seen it before like this.. Clear white ice-cap, better than my home viewing (because of scope and mags).. can see dark areas going from North to south on Mars 's face. We were at jon's for ~2.5 hrs.. and checking it every now and then.. and according to jon's friend, Jeff, it seemed like the face has rotated.. lil hard for me to keep track.. i wasnt aware that the face changes so fast..
Also had quick browsing thru 12" on M41, M42, M46, M47.
---
Jan Second week:
From my home: ~11pm: XTi10 with TMB4 i.e. ~300x: Mars was overhead lil on east. Saw the northen polar ice-caps. First time in life.. Clear white.. Can also see a dark line surrounding that ice cap. Not sure what it was.. Seeing was in-out.
---
Jan Last week:
From Jon's place in Clairmont: ~7pm-9:30pm : Meade 12" f/6 research grade reflector: with 4.5mm nagler ~ ~400x: Excellent image of Mars.. had never seen it before like this.. Clear white ice-cap, better than my home viewing (because of scope and mags).. can see dark areas going from North to south on Mars 's face. We were at jon's for ~2.5 hrs.. and checking it every now and then.. and according to jon's friend, Jeff, it seemed like the face has rotated.. lil hard for me to keep track.. i wasnt aware that the face changes so fast..
Also had quick browsing thru 12" on M41, M42, M46, M47.
Binocular Browsing
Date: 17th March 2010, Wednesday
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted
Instruments: Nikon 10x50 binoc
I really never browsed thru skies from new home. though i have mounted the telescope, I really invested time into how much i can see from my patio. Also it was good refresher for some winter/spring constellations.
Heavy light pollution.. Can only see bright stars by naked eye.. NELM may be betn 3-4. Thats based on Ursa Minor. Polaris (alpha), beta clearly visible.. Gamma was in-out.. and i didn't see any other stars.
Double Cluster: It wasn't visible by naked eye.. probably few stars in there, but really hard to tell if its a cluster.. hence bino is required. Cassiopeia Gamma-Delta line directly points to double cluster. Clearly see one of the clusters. With lot of bright stars, but the second cluster is lil hard to detect..
Pleiades: Nice star cluster. 7 stars visible naked eye. 9 stars visible thru binoc. All bright stars in the Perseus upper arm are clearly visible and they point to Pleiads. Interesting thing i notices is the number of stars in the background of pleiades.. they are like bunch of stars, way fainter, but heavy in concentration behind it.. i never noticed them before.
Algol: The lower arm has only 3 bright stars. One at the joint with the upper arm Alpha-Mirfak, Algol, and one more star Rho-Per. Algol was brighter than Rho, but fainter than Alpha. dont know abt Algol's current magnitude.. need to follow it more..
M1: Failed.. Picked up the wrong location. Tried to look for it above zeta Tuari, but it should be below, inside the V shape.
M35: Can clearly see whole Gemini constellation. M35 is on Tau side way above Zeta Tau. V-Mu-Eta-M35 form rotatated parallelogram. M35, fainter..still visible..seems bigger.
M36-M38-M37: M36 is the middle one, while M38 is inside Auriga. Either M36-M38 or M36-M37 fit in the same view. ~4-5 deg apart from each others. M36 seems to be brighter and seems smaller than other two. M38 bigger than other two ??
Quick Orion browsing: M42 nebula visible. Mintaka fainter than belt stars. Mruga-Shirsha Cr69 visible. really widespread..
Quick browsing for Canis Major: M41 seemed lil brighter than M35. Probably bigger than M35?
Tau CMa: Cluster is not visible in binoculars.. it just seemed to be a bright star..
M46-M47: M47 the brighter and widespread one is clearly visible.. again the M46 the fainter one feels like to be there but not sure.. These are like two FoV away from sirius.. i.e. 10-12 deg away from Sirius.
M93: Because of recent browsing, found it easily. Seemed to be like M35.. probably fainter than it.. can clearly see it.
M44: FAILED. I thought this should have been easier to see in binocs.. but as it was overhead, was tricky.. got the location correct, betn lion sickle and proceyon, but still didn't find it.
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10pm (~30mins)
Location: Home.
Weather: clear sky.. but light polluted
Instruments: Nikon 10x50 binoc
I really never browsed thru skies from new home. though i have mounted the telescope, I really invested time into how much i can see from my patio. Also it was good refresher for some winter/spring constellations.
Heavy light pollution.. Can only see bright stars by naked eye.. NELM may be betn 3-4. Thats based on Ursa Minor. Polaris (alpha), beta clearly visible.. Gamma was in-out.. and i didn't see any other stars.
Double Cluster: It wasn't visible by naked eye.. probably few stars in there, but really hard to tell if its a cluster.. hence bino is required. Cassiopeia Gamma-Delta line directly points to double cluster. Clearly see one of the clusters. With lot of bright stars, but the second cluster is lil hard to detect..
Pleiades: Nice star cluster. 7 stars visible naked eye. 9 stars visible thru binoc. All bright stars in the Perseus upper arm are clearly visible and they point to Pleiads. Interesting thing i notices is the number of stars in the background of pleiades.. they are like bunch of stars, way fainter, but heavy in concentration behind it.. i never noticed them before.
Algol: The lower arm has only 3 bright stars. One at the joint with the upper arm Alpha-Mirfak, Algol, and one more star Rho-Per. Algol was brighter than Rho, but fainter than Alpha. dont know abt Algol's current magnitude.. need to follow it more..
M1: Failed.. Picked up the wrong location. Tried to look for it above zeta Tuari, but it should be below, inside the V shape.
M35: Can clearly see whole Gemini constellation. M35 is on Tau side way above Zeta Tau. V-Mu-Eta-M35 form rotatated parallelogram. M35, fainter..still visible..seems bigger.
M36-M38-M37: M36 is the middle one, while M38 is inside Auriga. Either M36-M38 or M36-M37 fit in the same view. ~4-5 deg apart from each others. M36 seems to be brighter and seems smaller than other two. M38 bigger than other two ??
Quick Orion browsing: M42 nebula visible. Mintaka fainter than belt stars. Mruga-Shirsha Cr69 visible. really widespread..
Quick browsing for Canis Major: M41 seemed lil brighter than M35. Probably bigger than M35?
Tau CMa: Cluster is not visible in binoculars.. it just seemed to be a bright star..
M46-M47: M47 the brighter and widespread one is clearly visible.. again the M46 the fainter one feels like to be there but not sure.. These are like two FoV away from sirius.. i.e. 10-12 deg away from Sirius.
M93: Because of recent browsing, found it easily. Seemed to be like M35.. probably fainter than it.. can clearly see it.
M44: FAILED. I thought this should have been easier to see in binocs.. but as it was overhead, was tricky.. got the location correct, betn lion sickle and proceyon, but still didn't find it.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dark night kickoff in freezing cold - I
Date: 12th March 2010, Sat
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 12pm (~3 hr)
Location: Jon's home, Blvd CA
Weather: Initially really windy.. cold: below freezing.. intermittently cloudy.. intermittently foggy.. heavy dew.. Seeing was mediocre till 11pm.. later improved, but dew made life miserable.
Instruments: Jon's 16.5", TV NP101 APO. Didn't open my XTi-10.
Buddies: Aparna + Jon's friend Elli.
After India trip and dual-mode status :), this was first dark night session.
Had nice hot chocolate session ~8pm and shrimp curry ani Jeera rice session ~9pm. Aparna was with me till 9pm and later stayed in the house to keep herself warm.
M42 Orion Nebula: Nice view thru NP101. Aparna immediately noticed the quadrilateral stars. seeing wasn't that good. Tried 16T4 and 35mm pan.
Pleides: thru NP101.. 10 stars. Pan 35mm. Some of the main stars seems to be double.
Double cluster: Excellent view thru NP 101. Clearly shows the differences betn 2 clusters. lower right one is salt-pepper type while upper-left one seems more widespread.
M41 - NP101, Pan35 view of M41 want that great... lil tiny cluster.. thru jon's 16.5" dob, definitely a bright cluster.
M46 - M47: Impressive view of both clusters in NP101-Pan35 combo. Can fit both clusters together in same view. Again clearly see differences in both clusters. In Jon's 16.5", planetary in M46 was definitely big and bright.. filter wasn't required.
Rosette nebula in orion [New]: Saw this one for first time. NP101-Pan35. Its lil hard to grasp this object. Its really widespread and hence too faint.. if jon wouldn't have mentioned abt it, I can't even make out the nebulousity.. I am sure its hard to find.
M1 crab: Easy to locate. Crab was bright, but hard to see any details. I had better view of Crab before. Definitely seeing was poor.
Tau CMa: for got the location, Jon reminded me. Two star pairs above the CMa dog hind-leg. Pick up the uppermost pair, thats Tau. Central bright star with the star cluster around it.. sort of in a triangle shape..
M93 - NGC: Lil N-E of the Tau, lies M93.. Pick up the brigh star.. NW of is M93, while SE of bright star is the NGC ?? Don't remember anything specfic about M93. NGC is another fuzzy.. never read abt this one before. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: NGC seems to be 2467)
M76 Little dumbbell: Couple of stars from Andromeda lined up to point to the double cluster.. just above these stars you have little dumbbell. Too faint.. can see lil dumbbell shape.
Gamma Leonoid: Initially when split it from home, i think i messed up. This is lil hard to split with 60x magnification. you need lil higher mags to split it up.
M35 - Browsed thru binocs. Easy catch..
Continued..
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 12pm (~3 hr)
Location: Jon's home, Blvd CA
Weather: Initially really windy.. cold: below freezing.. intermittently cloudy.. intermittently foggy.. heavy dew.. Seeing was mediocre till 11pm.. later improved, but dew made life miserable.
Instruments: Jon's 16.5", TV NP101 APO. Didn't open my XTi-10.
Buddies: Aparna + Jon's friend Elli.
After India trip and dual-mode status :), this was first dark night session.
Had nice hot chocolate session ~8pm and shrimp curry ani Jeera rice session ~9pm. Aparna was with me till 9pm and later stayed in the house to keep herself warm.
M42 Orion Nebula: Nice view thru NP101. Aparna immediately noticed the quadrilateral stars. seeing wasn't that good. Tried 16T4 and 35mm pan.
Pleides: thru NP101.. 10 stars. Pan 35mm. Some of the main stars seems to be double.
Double cluster: Excellent view thru NP 101. Clearly shows the differences betn 2 clusters. lower right one is salt-pepper type while upper-left one seems more widespread.
M41 - NP101, Pan35 view of M41 want that great... lil tiny cluster.. thru jon's 16.5" dob, definitely a bright cluster.
M46 - M47: Impressive view of both clusters in NP101-Pan35 combo. Can fit both clusters together in same view. Again clearly see differences in both clusters. In Jon's 16.5", planetary in M46 was definitely big and bright.. filter wasn't required.
Rosette nebula in orion [New]: Saw this one for first time. NP101-Pan35. Its lil hard to grasp this object. Its really widespread and hence too faint.. if jon wouldn't have mentioned abt it, I can't even make out the nebulousity.. I am sure its hard to find.
M1 crab: Easy to locate. Crab was bright, but hard to see any details. I had better view of Crab before. Definitely seeing was poor.
Tau CMa: for got the location, Jon reminded me. Two star pairs above the CMa dog hind-leg. Pick up the uppermost pair, thats Tau. Central bright star with the star cluster around it.. sort of in a triangle shape..
M93 - NGC: Lil N-E of the Tau, lies M93.. Pick up the brigh star.. NW of is M93, while SE of bright star is the NGC ?? Don't remember anything specfic about M93. NGC is another fuzzy.. never read abt this one before. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: NGC seems to be 2467)
M76 Little dumbbell: Couple of stars from Andromeda lined up to point to the double cluster.. just above these stars you have little dumbbell. Too faint.. can see lil dumbbell shape.
Gamma Leonoid: Initially when split it from home, i think i messed up. This is lil hard to split with 60x magnification. you need lil higher mags to split it up.
M35 - Browsed thru binocs. Easy catch..
Continued..
Dark night kickoff in freezing cold - II
Continued..
Eskimo nebula: The middle star jumps right at you.. if seeing is better, probably can see more details. bluish disk..very bright in the center and fainter outside..
Double planetary - In Jon's 28mm UWAN ~75x, way too tiny to see this one..but definitely you can see it. The clear 8 shape visible.
M81-M82: location. I always miss the location of this one. Pick up first and 3rd star in square of UMa and draw the digonal line that points to 2-3 star cluster, just below SW of it is M81 and M82. You can defintely see the pattern/texture on the edge galaxy. The pair is clearly visible thru binocs, once you know the location.
M51 Whirlpool galaxy: Not the greatest view of whirlpool. bad seeing..
M next to the third UMa star (seems M109): in jon's 28mm UWAN, 3rd UMA star and M?? (M109) is visble in the same FoV.
M36-37-38: binocular browsing.. Jon mentioned about some ngc next to M37??
Leo triplet M65-66-3628: Jon pointed to it. 3628 fainter than other two. All 3 in same view (with uwan 28 75x ??). 3628 elongated and bigger in length than others ??
Jon's galaxy pair in UMA: Two faint galaxies in the view. If you continue the tail of UMa, same distance as 5th & 7th star along the tail. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: From the location, seems to be Hickson 68 in CVn)
M3: Jon pointed the location.. bit tricky.. visible thru binocs.. Outskirt stars are clearly resolvable. higher mag helps..
Sombrero Galaxy: Jon pointed the location.. lil tiny than what i was expecting. elongated.. but no sombrero structure visible.
Eskimo nebula: The middle star jumps right at you.. if seeing is better, probably can see more details. bluish disk..very bright in the center and fainter outside..
Double planetary - In Jon's 28mm UWAN ~75x, way too tiny to see this one..but definitely you can see it. The clear 8 shape visible.
M81-M82: location. I always miss the location of this one. Pick up first and 3rd star in square of UMa and draw the digonal line that points to 2-3 star cluster, just below SW of it is M81 and M82. You can defintely see the pattern/texture on the edge galaxy. The pair is clearly visible thru binocs, once you know the location.
M51 Whirlpool galaxy: Not the greatest view of whirlpool. bad seeing..
M next to the third UMa star (seems M109): in jon's 28mm UWAN, 3rd UMA star and M?? (M109) is visble in the same FoV.
M36-37-38: binocular browsing.. Jon mentioned about some ngc next to M37??
Leo triplet M65-66-3628: Jon pointed to it. 3628 fainter than other two. All 3 in same view (with uwan 28 75x ??). 3628 elongated and bigger in length than others ??
Jon's galaxy pair in UMA: Two faint galaxies in the view. If you continue the tail of UMa, same distance as 5th & 7th star along the tail. (UPDATE 03/10/2011: From the location, seems to be Hickson 68 in CVn)
M3: Jon pointed the location.. bit tricky.. visible thru binocs.. Outskirt stars are clearly resolvable. higher mag helps..
Sombrero Galaxy: Jon pointed the location.. lil tiny than what i was expecting. elongated.. but no sombrero structure visible.
Dark night kickoff in freezing cold - III
Continued..
Ant galaxies: Too faint.. can see two fuzzy lil things.. but cannot discern much. Tried it multiple times during the night, but wasn't much clear.
Saturn: Multiple views. Seeing was improving over the period, ring shadow is visible. 3 of the moons on right side visible.
Virgo Markarain's chain: 3 in the middle. Two on the right of it. one more on right of the pair.
Jon mentioned about coma borealis - second star - double - 0.7 arcsecond... can not split it with normal optical scope. needs excellent seeing. the day before jon was able to split 1.3 arcsecond double.. so surely this is not even possible in best seeing.
Ant galaxies: Too faint.. can see two fuzzy lil things.. but cannot discern much. Tried it multiple times during the night, but wasn't much clear.
Saturn: Multiple views. Seeing was improving over the period, ring shadow is visible. 3 of the moons on right side visible.
Virgo Markarain's chain: 3 in the middle. Two on the right of it. one more on right of the pair.
Jon mentioned about coma borealis - second star - double - 0.7 arcsecond... can not split it with normal optical scope. needs excellent seeing. the day before jon was able to split 1.3 arcsecond double.. so surely this is not even possible in best seeing.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Recap 2009
Here is the summary for last years observations.
Total Observations: 16
Mountain/Dark Place Observations: 9
Lost the tempo lil bit after June 09 :) and took a while to get back and then again has to leave during nov-dec !!
In 08 recap blog, I mentioned to finish Messier, SAC and RASC list. I wasn't able to.
- Finished almost 75% objects from messier (Details below) and 50% from SAC and RASC.
- First dark night with Orion XTi in Jan 09
- Watched comet Lulin in March 09.
- Managed ~half messier marathon in March 09
- Co-hosted SDAA 22" scope in April 09.
- First "Friday" night dark site observation in April 09 and Sept 09.
- Purchased first Nagler: 17T4 in May 09.
- Purchased iPhone in July 09. Tried the voyager software on it. Definitely helpful.
- Used Virtual moon atlas.
- Sent Celestron 102 f/5 refractor to India in Dec. Sent 35mm, 25m, TMB 6mm EPs and 2x barlow with it.
For coming year,
- Already borrowed Jon's AT102ED Virtual-APO. Jon has switched to TV NP-101 APO
- Already observed Mars for first time. Northern Polar cap is awesome.
- Need to train Aparna lil bit :)
- Will definitely bag all messiers.
Missing Guys: M9, M10, M19, M49, M58, M59, M60, M61, M70, M80, M87, M89, M90, M102.
One time observed guys: M2+, M5+, M12+, M14+, M18+, M21+, M26+, M39+, M40+, M54+, M62+, M64+, M68+, M69+, M71+, M74+, M75+, M77+, M83+, M84+, M85+, M86+, M88+, M91+, M98+, M99+, M100+, M106+, M107+.
M1 Crab (2)
M2 (1)
M3 GC (3)
M4 (3)
M4-GC6144 (3)
M5 (1)
M7-M6 (7)
M8 Lagoon (8)
M10 (1)
M11 WildDucks (4)
M12 (1)
M13 (8)
M14 (1)
M16 Eagle (3)
M17 Swan (5)
M18 (1)
M20 Triffid (6)
M21 (1)
M22 (6)
M22-M28 (2)
M23- M24- M25 (3)
M26-NGC6712 (1)
M27 Dumbbell (6)
M28 (3)
M29 (3)
M30 (5)
M31 Andromeda- M32- M110 (8)
M33 Triangulum (7)
M34 (3)
M35 (3)
M37-M36-M38 OC Triplet (2)
M39 (1)
M40 (1)
M41 (6)
M42 Orion-M43 (7)
M44 Beehive (3)
M45 Pleiades (2)
M46-M47 OC Pair (5)
M48 (2)
M50 (3)
M51 Whirlpool (6)
M52 (3)
M53 GC (3)
M54 (1)
M55 (2)
M56 (2)
M57 Ring (12)
M62 (1)
M63 (2)
M64 Black Eye (1)
M65-M66-3628 Gal (6)
M67 (3)
M68 GC (1)
M69 (1)
M71 (1)
M72-M73 (6)
M74 (1)
M75 (1)
M76 Little Dumbbell (2)
M77 (1)
M78 (3)
M79 (2)
M81-M82 Gal Bodes Neb (6)
M83 Seashell (1)
M84-M86 (1)
M85 (1)
M88-M91 (1)
M92 (3)
M93 (4)
M94 (2)
M95-M96-M105 (4)
M97 Owl (3)
M98-M99-M100 (1)
M101 (3)
M103 (2)
M104 Sombrero (3)
M106 (1)
M107 (1)
M108 (3)
M109 (3)
Total Observations: 16
Mountain/Dark Place Observations: 9
Lost the tempo lil bit after June 09 :) and took a while to get back and then again has to leave during nov-dec !!
In 08 recap blog, I mentioned to finish Messier, SAC and RASC list. I wasn't able to.
- Finished almost 75% objects from messier (Details below) and 50% from SAC and RASC.
- First dark night with Orion XTi in Jan 09
- Watched comet Lulin in March 09.
- Managed ~half messier marathon in March 09
- Co-hosted SDAA 22" scope in April 09.
- First "Friday" night dark site observation in April 09 and Sept 09.
- Purchased first Nagler: 17T4 in May 09.
- Purchased iPhone in July 09. Tried the voyager software on it. Definitely helpful.
- Used Virtual moon atlas.
- Sent Celestron 102 f/5 refractor to India in Dec. Sent 35mm, 25m, TMB 6mm EPs and 2x barlow with it.
For coming year,
- Already borrowed Jon's AT102ED Virtual-APO. Jon has switched to TV NP-101 APO
- Already observed Mars for first time. Northern Polar cap is awesome.
- Need to train Aparna lil bit :)
- Will definitely bag all messiers.
Missing Guys: M9, M10, M19, M49, M58, M59, M60, M61, M70, M80, M87, M89, M90, M102.
One time observed guys: M2+, M5+, M12+, M14+, M18+, M21+, M26+, M39+, M40+, M54+, M62+, M64+, M68+, M69+, M71+, M74+, M75+, M77+, M83+, M84+, M85+, M86+, M88+, M91+, M98+, M99+, M100+, M106+, M107+.
M1 Crab (2)
M2 (1)
M3 GC (3)
M4 (3)
M4-GC6144 (3)
M5 (1)
M7-M6 (7)
M8 Lagoon (8)
M10 (1)
M11 WildDucks (4)
M12 (1)
M13 (8)
M14 (1)
M16 Eagle (3)
M17 Swan (5)
M18 (1)
M20 Triffid (6)
M21 (1)
M22 (6)
M22-M28 (2)
M23- M24- M25 (3)
M26-NGC6712 (1)
M27 Dumbbell (6)
M28 (3)
M29 (3)
M30 (5)
M31 Andromeda- M32- M110 (8)
M33 Triangulum (7)
M34 (3)
M35 (3)
M37-M36-M38 OC Triplet (2)
M39 (1)
M40 (1)
M41 (6)
M42 Orion-M43 (7)
M44 Beehive (3)
M45 Pleiades (2)
M46-M47 OC Pair (5)
M48 (2)
M50 (3)
M51 Whirlpool (6)
M52 (3)
M53 GC (3)
M54 (1)
M55 (2)
M56 (2)
M57 Ring (12)
M62 (1)
M63 (2)
M64 Black Eye (1)
M65-M66-3628 Gal (6)
M67 (3)
M68 GC (1)
M69 (1)
M71 (1)
M72-M73 (6)
M74 (1)
M75 (1)
M76 Little Dumbbell (2)
M77 (1)
M78 (3)
M79 (2)
M81-M82 Gal Bodes Neb (6)
M83 Seashell (1)
M84-M86 (1)
M85 (1)
M88-M91 (1)
M92 (3)
M93 (4)
M94 (2)
M95-M96-M105 (4)
M97 Owl (3)
M98-M99-M100 (1)
M101 (3)
M103 (2)
M104 Sombrero (3)
M106 (1)
M107 (1)
M108 (3)
M109 (3)
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