Date: August 18th 2012, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 11pm (observing time ~3.5hrs),
Location: Jon's @ Blvd
Weather: fine.. 4/5 seeing.. before sunset it was cloudy, but later clouds just disappeared. Moon - 1st day
Instruments: Jon's 16" scope and his Williams 80mm scope
Our little one visited Jon's place in mountains for first time. Slept all the way during the drive. But played for a while at their place. Later got into daycare anxiety mode and just made everybody go nuts..later got back to normal.
Moon: FAILED. Started observation with locating first day phase moon. But it was way too hard. Never found it. It was Ramadan Ed 1st day moon.
Saturn: Saturn-Mars-Spica triplet as visible in evening dusk. Saturn visible nicely. Tried thru Williams 80mm with 9mm, 4mm TMB eyepieces. Saturn rings clearly visible, front rings are on bottom, while the back side f the ring moves upwards. As night moved on, can clearly see the dark gas lanes on the saturn disk. No details / gaps on rings. Still it was impressive what 80mm scope showed from the dark place.
Mars: 80mm is not enough for mars details. Seemed like big orange bright spot in the scope. Going closer to horizon, so dint get a chance to see thru 16" scope.
M6-M7: naked eye visibility. Fits in same view in the binocs ~6deg FoV. Jons 16" scope lot of details on both. Butterfly shape. apparently i got this pair confused with m46-m47 and ended up looking for the planetary nebula in it. Jon reminded me of absence of last year. Hsshh..
Antares GC M4: Visible thru bincs. 800mm with 24mm EP, shows the GC nicely. Very tiny though. With 9mm, i think can resolve some outskirt stars.
Northern Jewel Box: Looks nice from all three instruments. Binocs show 5-7 stars low on horizon. 80mm has the best view. Cluster fills up 50% of the view. bright stars with some E + 4 + curved shape visible. In Jons 16", view was fully filled with eyepiece. Can see very faint stars.
M8 - M20: Quick browse thru. Lagoon without filter still shows lot of nebulosity and C shaped dark lane separation clealt from 16" scope. Triffid looks smaller as compared to Lagoon, but whole nebulosity is nice. More I spent time in EP for Triffid, the dark lanes started popping up.
Swan M17: Quick browse again.. but impressive.. distinctive shape and bright stars at the bottom and another one at the center in the curvature shape.
Eagle M16: no nebulosity... typical star formation like a symbol of an angle.
M22 GC above star: quick browse thru binocs and 80mm.. is it bigger than Antares GC
M25 OC Flipped comma: Binocs show the 3 deg view of this object with inverted comma shape. OC at the center of the comma is smaller, but the whole spae makes it beautiful.
M23: While looking for Crescent nebula ended up on this one. very bright and impressive object. 16" scope view is just lightend bright with this object. lot of yellow white stars.
Crescent Nebula: Very tiny fuzzy object from the 16" scope.. but its definitely bigger than other planetary nebula objects like saturn nebula or ghost of jupiter. Can not miss the object frm 16" scope.. next to a star. Infact i found this one first rather than way bigger M23 :). Increasing the mags didn't make much difference though in the visibility... There is a GC nearby it.. i think you can definitely distinguish betn the type of these objects i.e. GC vs nebula.
M10-M12: Browsed the Ophiuchus GCs. Very impressive. looks similar in size as well brightness..somehow binocs gave impression that m12 is bigger, but scope shows m10 t be bigger. Hshh.. must be feeling sleepy. Very easy to locate. Probably saw these after a long time. no discernible shape.. but these are definitively bigger than m92 in Hercules (later).
Planetary ngc 6445 Box Nebula (New): Jon showed this planetary. seemed like bright blue circle...very very tiny.. dont remember anything else. Later i was able to locate it smoothly. There is another GC next to it ngc 6440. In moderate view the pair looks nice.. very tiny and faint..probably only possible in high apperture 16" scope
Ngc oc - Ic oc - Ic oc: NGC is definitively looks nice from the16" scope.. but IC objects are better in binocs. ngc-ic and the planetory fits in same view.
Gc near spica: Jon showed this one. wasnt able to locate it by myself. its seemed like OC, but its loosely connected GC.
M13: Took a long time just to locate HER constellation. I sort of lost the scale of quadrilateral size. It is smaller than what I was thinking. One year gap in observation made me forget lot of things. M13 is fabulous.. supports magnification really well. yellow white stars.. very bright..
Gal: Gal near M13.. very faint and tiny as compared the M13. Wasnt able t fit both in the same view of 16" scope.
Planetary: Again.. yet another planetary..
M92: Tiny as compared to M13.. but i compared it immediately with m10-12 pair.. and m92 seems smaller and fainter than those.. Its sort of lost beauty in front of other fabulous GCs in the sky.
Saturn Neb: Easy to locate. White bluish object.. tiny..
M Gc.. M oc: browsing all three objects including saturn neb, is an interesting experience. It shows the differences in the object size. The triagnle is so tiny.. OC is very tiny as well.
M30: Viewed thru binocs.. very tiny.. the typical shape sort of shows up but not discernible well from binocs.
Milkyway: the orion and Perseus arms were marvelous.. its like very bright white cloud belt in the sky.. Dark skies rules... simply breathtaking.
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 11pm (observing time ~3.5hrs),
Location: Jon's @ Blvd
Weather: fine.. 4/5 seeing.. before sunset it was cloudy, but later clouds just disappeared. Moon - 1st day
Instruments: Jon's 16" scope and his Williams 80mm scope
Our little one visited Jon's place in mountains for first time. Slept all the way during the drive. But played for a while at their place. Later got into daycare anxiety mode and just made everybody go nuts..later got back to normal.
Moon: FAILED. Started observation with locating first day phase moon. But it was way too hard. Never found it. It was Ramadan Ed 1st day moon.
Saturn: Saturn-Mars-Spica triplet as visible in evening dusk. Saturn visible nicely. Tried thru Williams 80mm with 9mm, 4mm TMB eyepieces. Saturn rings clearly visible, front rings are on bottom, while the back side f the ring moves upwards. As night moved on, can clearly see the dark gas lanes on the saturn disk. No details / gaps on rings. Still it was impressive what 80mm scope showed from the dark place.
Mars: 80mm is not enough for mars details. Seemed like big orange bright spot in the scope. Going closer to horizon, so dint get a chance to see thru 16" scope.
M6-M7: naked eye visibility. Fits in same view in the binocs ~6deg FoV. Jons 16" scope lot of details on both. Butterfly shape. apparently i got this pair confused with m46-m47 and ended up looking for the planetary nebula in it. Jon reminded me of absence of last year. Hsshh..
Antares GC M4: Visible thru bincs. 800mm with 24mm EP, shows the GC nicely. Very tiny though. With 9mm, i think can resolve some outskirt stars.
Northern Jewel Box: Looks nice from all three instruments. Binocs show 5-7 stars low on horizon. 80mm has the best view. Cluster fills up 50% of the view. bright stars with some E + 4 + curved shape visible. In Jons 16", view was fully filled with eyepiece. Can see very faint stars.
M8 - M20: Quick browse thru. Lagoon without filter still shows lot of nebulosity and C shaped dark lane separation clealt from 16" scope. Triffid looks smaller as compared to Lagoon, but whole nebulosity is nice. More I spent time in EP for Triffid, the dark lanes started popping up.
Swan M17: Quick browse again.. but impressive.. distinctive shape and bright stars at the bottom and another one at the center in the curvature shape.
Eagle M16: no nebulosity... typical star formation like a symbol of an angle.
M22 GC above star: quick browse thru binocs and 80mm.. is it bigger than Antares GC
M25 OC Flipped comma: Binocs show the 3 deg view of this object with inverted comma shape. OC at the center of the comma is smaller, but the whole spae makes it beautiful.
M23: While looking for Crescent nebula ended up on this one. very bright and impressive object. 16" scope view is just lightend bright with this object. lot of yellow white stars.
Crescent Nebula: Very tiny fuzzy object from the 16" scope.. but its definitely bigger than other planetary nebula objects like saturn nebula or ghost of jupiter. Can not miss the object frm 16" scope.. next to a star. Infact i found this one first rather than way bigger M23 :). Increasing the mags didn't make much difference though in the visibility... There is a GC nearby it.. i think you can definitely distinguish betn the type of these objects i.e. GC vs nebula.
M10-M12: Browsed the Ophiuchus GCs. Very impressive. looks similar in size as well brightness..somehow binocs gave impression that m12 is bigger, but scope shows m10 t be bigger. Hshh.. must be feeling sleepy. Very easy to locate. Probably saw these after a long time. no discernible shape.. but these are definitively bigger than m92 in Hercules (later).
Planetary ngc 6445 Box Nebula (New): Jon showed this planetary. seemed like bright blue circle...very very tiny.. dont remember anything else. Later i was able to locate it smoothly. There is another GC next to it ngc 6440. In moderate view the pair looks nice.. very tiny and faint..probably only possible in high apperture 16" scope
Ngc oc - Ic oc - Ic oc: NGC is definitively looks nice from the16" scope.. but IC objects are better in binocs. ngc-ic and the planetory fits in same view.
Gc near spica: Jon showed this one. wasnt able to locate it by myself. its seemed like OC, but its loosely connected GC.
M13: Took a long time just to locate HER constellation. I sort of lost the scale of quadrilateral size. It is smaller than what I was thinking. One year gap in observation made me forget lot of things. M13 is fabulous.. supports magnification really well. yellow white stars.. very bright..
Gal: Gal near M13.. very faint and tiny as compared the M13. Wasnt able t fit both in the same view of 16" scope.
Planetary: Again.. yet another planetary..
M92: Tiny as compared to M13.. but i compared it immediately with m10-12 pair.. and m92 seems smaller and fainter than those.. Its sort of lost beauty in front of other fabulous GCs in the sky.
Saturn Neb: Easy to locate. White bluish object.. tiny..
M Gc.. M oc: browsing all three objects including saturn neb, is an interesting experience. It shows the differences in the object size. The triagnle is so tiny.. OC is very tiny as well.
M30: Viewed thru binocs.. very tiny.. the typical shape sort of shows up but not discernible well from binocs.
Milkyway: the orion and Perseus arms were marvelous.. its like very bright white cloud belt in the sky.. Dark skies rules... simply breathtaking.
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