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..

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..

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..