Aparna's @ School and that means... :-)

Date: 10th March 2011, Thu
Observation Time: 7pm - 8pm (1hr)
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: No clouds, lil windy. Moon 6th day.
Instruments: AT102ED f/7, 7x20 Finder.

Pan 35 - 20x
Nagler 17 - 42x
Xcel 10 - 71x
Nagler 7 - 102x
Nag 7 x2 - 204x

Rigel -
35mm Pan : Can not split it.
17mm Nagler : when switched from 35 to 17mm, can not see the split, but when switched from 10mm to 17mm, then can sort of see the companion star, but its lil hard.
10mm Xcel : Not very clean split, but can see the companion star just below rigel.
7mm Nagler : Clear split. The magnitude difference is clearly visible. Rigel is not that bright and doesn't emit rays like Sirius, hence can observe the brightness of the companion. After previous dark night observation from Jon's place, can get the feeling of 10" seconds separation. Its very close at this magnification as well.
7mm x2 : Not a sharp image. 7mm was the best image.

M41 - Can locate it from the finder. Pan 35 and Nag 17 shows the best view. C shape and 2 V shapes of bright stars should be the distinctive mark for this one. (TBD: older observations)

Tau CMa -
Can not see the cluster in the finder. Hence Possible to get confused with the wrong star.
Pan 35 : barely shows the cluster, you can see very faint stars around the brighter Tau CMa, but nothing distinctive.
Nag 17 : Shows better view of the cluster. Can see around 10-12 faints stars in the vicinity. no distinctive shape. but all stars are well surrounding the brighter Tau.
Xcel 10 : More fainter stars visible. Total star count is 20-25.
Nag 7 : More fainter stars. ~35. Probably this is the best view.

M93 :
Don't remember much about this one. (Write the observation immediately. I am writing this one 4 days later.)

M46-M47 : From dark sight like Jon's place, M46 is very impressive and better than M47. But from polluted place like our mission valley home, M46 is totally washed out. M47 shows more brightness.

In M47, k shape visible, with arcs instead of straight lines. As magnification is increased, more fainter stars are visible. M47 clearly visible in finder as well.

M46 is totally washed out. Finder doesn't show it at all. Very hard to see in Pan 35 as well. It needs to be located based on M47 and nearby two brighter stars, as mentioned in the star map. Nag 17 shows some fainter stars.

NGC 2423 Near M47 : Quickly tried NGC above M47.. but nothing impressive at all. In Nag 17 barely 5 stars visible. Proabaly better from darker sight.

M48 : is out of reach. APO is almost going vertical form the patio.

M42 - M43 with UHC : M42 visible from finder.
Pan 35 shows M42, lil bit of saucer and then dark pillar is visible. two stars in trapezoid are resolvable. M43 not visible. Pan 35 fits in other two stars of the orion belt as well. Apparently each star is a small open cluster in itself.

Nag 17 magnifies the image well. Trapezoid 4 stars visible. Saucer and dark pillar visible nciely, 3 stars in parallel to the pillar are visible nicely. When added UHC filter, stars turned blue. Can only resolve 3 stars in the trapezoid. but the nebulosity increased noticeably. Saucer shows more nebulosity than Pan 35 view itself. M43 is now visible as well. The dark piller and surrounding area stars showing more depth. the nebulosity around the trapezoid seems more brighter. Second pillar shows up from the saucer, pointing towards trapezoid, but at right-angled position from the main pillar. I have see nthis pillar before, but i had totally forgoten it. but tonights view brought it back. Surprisingly, I missed this second pillar shape in Jon's 25".. I wonder how..

Nag 7 wasn't able to resolve the trapezoid. Also image wasn't stable. Nag 17 + UHC view was the best for the night.

Sigma Orionis - Read my past observations about this one in the morning. So visited it. Easy catch.
Pan 35 : shows 2-2-1 star alignment. (i.e. pair-pair-single stars). First pair is STF 761, second pair, in the middle, Sigma Orionis. Can resolve only two stars (A & E). 'A' is definitely brighter than 'E'.

Nag 17 : shows one more star in A-E.. D shows up. Fainter than E. Very close to A.

Nag 7 : C pops up in this one. Lil Further from A than D.

Overall A-B was never split. I dont know how much mags it requires (??). I should tried the barlow. (Description below says that i can not")

From internet: "Sigma Orionis consists of 5 components, the main components A and B at present only 0.3 "apart, and thus for amateur telescopes hardly separable. The components C, D and E each have a distance of 11.5", 12.7 " and 41.4 "of AB"

Mintaka : Nice binary. Easily split in Pan 35. Primary is brighter my huge margin than secondary.

Moon : Observed moon for ~10 mins In Pan 35, Nag 17 and Nag 7. Details TBD.

Recap 2010

Total Observations : 17
Mountain/Dark night observations : 9

Seems like number of observations are same as previous year of 2009.. no improvement.. Wonder why :)?

2010 Events:

- In Jan, Observed Mars for first time. Northern Polar ice cap was fabulous.
- In March, first observation with Aparna in mountains..it was damn cold.
- In April, Jon gifted his APO 102ED as a wedding present. That was mind blowing. He gave me a sweet surprise, by announcing it on Cloudy Nights.
- In April, observation from Grand Canyon. Marvelous.
- In May, Systematic observation of Virgo fuzzies. It was rewarding.
- In Aug, Moved to house in mission valley.. From orange zone to red zone... Damn.
- In Oct, Comet Hartley observations. the impressive part is in one night, over 3-4 hrs, comet movement in the sky can be noticed very easily.
- In Oct, Observed Uranus again. Not that difficult, once you know where to look at i.e. which pin-point star is indeed Uranus.
- In Oct, almost finished all messier objects except M102. M102 is almost set in western skies, so need to wait for 2011. Damn.
- In Dec, Gogol/Ulka :) surprised us, still made our life heavenly.

2011 Events:

- Jon got a new scope.. Obsession 25" F/5. Its massive.
- In Mar, Observed through the big canon. Marvelous views.
- In Mar, Finished all Messier objects. Took almost three years to bag all of them.
- From July onwards, going to miss astronomy for a while :). So I better collect some photons in next three months.

Mar 2011 : Messier status

M1 Crab (6)
M10 (2)
M101 Pinwheel (5)
M102 Spindle (2)
M103 (3)
M104 Sombrero (6)
M106 (2)
M106-4217 (1)
M107 (2)
M108 (3)
M109 (4)

M11 WildDucks (6)
M12 (2)
M13 (11)
M13 GC-6207 Gal (1)
M14 (2)
M15 (1)
M16 Eagle (4)
M17 Swan (9)
M18 (1)
M19 (1)

M2 (2)
M20 Triffid (10)
M21 (2)
M22 (6)
M22-M28 (5)
M23 (1)
M23- M24- M25 (5)
M26-NGC6712 (1)
M27 Dumbbell (8)
M28 (3)
M29 (4)

M3 GC (7)
M30 (8)
M31 Andromeda- M32- M110 (11)
M33 Triangulum (8)
M34 (3)
M35 (7)
M37-M36-M38 OC Triplet (6)
M39 (1)

M4 (6)
M4-GC6144 (4)
M40 (1)
M41 (8)
M42 Orion-M43 (11)
M44 Beehive (4)
M45 Pleiades (6)
M46-M47 OC Pair (8)
M48 (2)
M49 (2)

M5 (1)
M50 (3)
M51 Whirlpool (11)
M52 (4)
M53 GC (4)
M54 (3)
M55 (4)
M56 (2)
M57 Ring (15)
M58 (2)
M58-M59-M60 (1)
M59 (1)

M60 (1)
M61 (1)
M62 (2)
M63 (5)
M64 Black Eye (2)
M65-M66-3628 Gal (10)
M67 (3)
M68 GC (2)
M69 (2)

M7-M6 (9)
M70 (1)
M71 (2)
M72-M73 (7)
M74 (2)
M75 (2)
M76 Little Dumbbell (4)
M77 (1)
M77-1055-1087 (1)
M78 (5)
M79 (2)

M8 Lagoon (12)
M8 Lagoon - 6530 OC (1)
M80 (4)
M81-M82 Gal Bodes Neb (10)
M81-M82-3077-2976 (1)
M83 Seashell (3)
M84-M86 (3)
M85 (1)
M87 (1)
M87-M89-M90 (1)
M88-M91 (3)
M89 (1)

M9 (1)
M90 (1)
M92 (4)
M93 (7)
M94 (4)
M95-M96-M105 (6)
M97 Owl (3)
M97 Owl - M108 (1)
M98-M99-M100 (3)

Being Obsessive.. Part I

Date: Mar 5th 2011 Saturday
Observation Time: 7pm to 11:30pm (observing time ~3:30 hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: not great.. partly cloudy so looking thru patches. No wind. Seeing wasn't great 5/10.
Instruments: Jon's new 25" f/5 Obsession telescope
Buddies: Jon & Ashwin

Lot of new things to begin with for this observing session.
- Jon's new 25" obsession scope. Its massive. Need to climb 8 foot ladder to observe at zenith.
- First session of 2011
- Welcome Gogol session.
- Finished all 110 messier objects.. not in one night, but in 3 years period :). All messier objects are observed atleast once now. It was sort of 3-year messier marathon.

Ashwin joined for this session, first time at Jon's place.

Recently Jon purchased 25" obsession telescope. It is a used telescope and has a chip on the back side of the mirror. Jon got an excellent deal for the scope without much compromise. Its obsession scope #511.

Irrespective of the massive size, the scope movement is very smooth from the top of the ladder. It shows really nice views.
Mirror: 25"
Focal Length : f/5 3110mm. With parracor : ~3658mm
So now a 31mm Nagler low mag eyepiece from 16" scope, suddenly gives 100x view in 25" scope. Its not low mag eyepiece anymore.

Can clearly show 500x zooming with sharp images. Can easily go to 800x with decent views.

The Collimation took longer than expected. Jon is still getting familiar with the movement of secondary mirror screws. Primary alignment was quick. Also, the collimation stayed fine whole observing session. Considering the amount of scope movement, its indeed stable.

For such a big scope, generally it makses sense to observe all the objects in the vicinity and then to move on to the next location in the sky. But becasue of clouds, we ended up jumping from one location to opposite one and moved the scope and ladder a lot. We ended up doing ~10-15 circles/360deg rotations with the scope, during the night. Still, I am listing the objects per constellation and with the flow of the observing sessions.

Perseus
========
M76 - little dumbbell nebula: Started the night with M76. not a object that will impress immediately, but details on M76 was nice. Can clearly see two lobes, sort of in hourglass shape. The brightness was enough. Considering mirror cool-down time and cloudy weather, it indeed showed more than enough details on the object.

Orion
=======
M42 - M43 orion nebula : Switched to Orion M42 masterpiece. In 31 Nagler @ 118x, the eyepiece was fully covered under the nebula. the saucer, the pillar and the trapezoid was fabulous. Very bright. More you look at it, can feel the depth.. Had3D effect. Trapezoid clearly shows 6 stars. Double speed focuser indeed gives pinpoint stars of #5 and #6 in trapezoid. With 20mm Nagler @ 182x, magnifies it to the dark pillar. In contrast, the trapezoid and the illumination of the gas around it was very bright. Because of bright nebulousity all around and the central pillar being so dark, sort of looses the typical shape. M43 itself shows lot of bright nebulosity. Talked about running man nebula nearby, but wasn't sure about the location. Next time TBD.

M78 - The nebulosity pops up because of bigger aperture. A Bright star in the view. Hard to remember, because of lack of discernible shape, but definitely filled ~10% of the eyepiece.

Rigel - Visited Rigel multiple times in the night. At 118x can clearly see the companion. Rigel was sharp, but the companion wasn't.. tried to focus, but it still seemed like blurry disk. companion ~9.8" separation. Very close to Rigel. Later visted it again with ~400x. This is to compare with Sirius. Just wanted to get a judgment on how 10" separation looks like at ~400x.

Canis Major
============
M46-47 : with 20 Nagler, at 182x, the hwole view was filled with bright stars of M46. In reality, M46 has fainter stars than M47, but with large aperture of 25" makes M46 such a bright object. the planetory nebula is in the view on the right-bottom side. A faint star at the center of it is visible. not sure if its part of the cluster or the planetory star itself. At 182x, M47 is infact dull object, though it has bright stars its really sparse object. Hence nothing impressive in their. With 31 Nagler, 118x, both objects never fit in the same view and hence the beauty of observing both in wide-view is sort of lost. but 31 nagler still shows M46 as an impressive object.

M93 - This was yet another OC.

NGC 2467 - object opposite to M93. - The nebulosity in the object is very distinct in the big aperture. Sort of big C shaped nebulosity. Next to it is the Open cluster in V shape, similar to Taurus.

Sirius - Tried splitting Sirius. Difficult part here is Sirius is too bright compared to the companion and hence very difficult to observe the companion. Also its only 10" seconds apart. Only thing I knew tabout it is that its following sirius. Hence i kept Sirius barely out of the view and tried to look for the companion, but it was hard. Sirius light rays were causing trouble. Secondly wasn't sure how much 10" distance seems at 400x. So thought that another faint star is its companion. To get the judgment on 10" separation in 400x, tried Rigel. that proved that the faint star i was looking at was wrong. 10" is still too close in 400x. FAILED to observe the companion. Need better seeing/stability for this one.

Beta Monoceros - Observed the triplet, during the last session of observing. Triplet system with a tight bright pair. No colors, all three were yellow.

Ursa Major
===========
M81-M82 : M81 seemed like a big elliptical fuzzy object. Very bright. But M82 was more impressive, with distinct edge-on and some motteling on it at the center in Y axis.

M51 : Visited M51 probably 3 times during the night. The object moved from horizon - 5deg to -30-45 deg in 3 hrs. In the last session, the details on the object were clear, Can easily trace the spiral structure fomr the center to the connecting NGC galaxy. Actual Connector betn both of them was not visible. Some Nebulas or brighter regions in the spiral of M51 were visible. Don't remember the exact location of these regions. More eyepiece time + dark adaptation, gives more details on this object. Definitely saw more details on M51 visually for first time.

M101 : The brighter part at the core is visible. Jon mentioned that this is a big object and can not fit in the view itself.. I didn't see much in this one except the fuzziness at the core.

Canes Venatici
===============
Galaxy Quintet near M51 - Hickson 68 - NGC 5354 + 4 more : This is actualy in CVn and not in UMa. Jon pointed to this one.. Seemed like typical Jon object :). Very faint galaxy group, made up of 5 galaxies. Two of them were (relatively) bright, while remaining were barely visible. Very faint. The brighter NGC 5354 is of mag +11.38, while the lowest one on the left NGC-5358 is of 14.57. this is just to know that Jon's scope goes till +15 mag, without much trouble. Have I seen this one before? (YES, I have. check older observations)

Continued..

Being Obsessive.. Part II

Continued..

Draco
========
M102 spindle and galaxy 5907 next to it : M102 was my missing messier and we found it this time. While looking for it, we ended up 5907. Just based on Telerad location, it didn't seem like the right one. 5907 is still very impressive. long, edge-on. not that faint. Took us a while to get to M102. M102 is definitely smaller than ngc, but brighter. Its very close to a star, which is barely visible through naked eye.

So if we have been looking through smaller scope, then i believe m102 will pop up first and ngc would be hard to catch. Now thats a big gotchaa in this big scope, everything seems to be relatively brighter and so will get confused often.

Finally.. I have bagged all messiers now. Still need to observe these more than once.

Gemini
=======
Eskimo Nebula: When I asked Jon, what was the most interesting object for him in his new big aperture scope, he had mentioned to me about Eskimo nebula. so visited it tonight again. Jon located this one. At 400x, very bright circular disk. Core is brighter. Inside the circular disk and outside the core, you will see some inner ring. With more magnification of 522x in 7mm Nagler, the inner ring was clearly visible. Seeing wasn't so great, so had lil hard time to get the sharp view. Jon observed it at 760x as well with 4.8 Nagler.

Taurus
=======
M1 : Crab nebula : Very big, bright elliptical fuzzy. no internal details visible. but definitely one of the bigger objects in messier list.

Leo
====
M65-M66-3628 triplet : Indeed beautiful and bight triplet. Fainter 3628 was edge-on. probably brightness is same as Draco 5807 gal and similar in size.

Bootes
======
M3 GC : Looks nice in the big scope. Stars can be resolved at the core. Stars really weren't pinpoint because of seeing (i guess).

Virgo
======
Markarains Chain : Browsed through Markarains chain and near by fuzzies. Probabaly observed in following order: 1 (4429) + 1 (4440) + Markarains chain {{ 4 (M86+M84)-+ 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 }} + 1 (M88) + 1 (M91)

Also, while relocating, observed few more : M58 + 4564 + antenna galaxy type pair (4567-68) + some more fuzzies that i don't remember now :). The fainter galaxies also seem brighter in the big scope, So really need to watch out.

Browsing through this region gives idea about all types of galaxies : brightness, size and shape.

Saturn
=======
Visited twice during the session. Seeing was always bad. Rings were bright. Saw a darker band on the Saturn's surface. According to Jon, it should be the shadow of the rings on front side. this dark band-shadow was aligned with back side of the ring. Ashwin got confused, wondering how we can see the rear part of rings like this. Instead it was the shadow of front part of the rings. Wish the view would have been more sharp. It was the last object of the night.