M56 GC failed from City lights

 

Date: July 27th 2026, Monday
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 10:30pm (observing time ~1hr), 
Location: SC Home
Weather: clear Skies, but heavy light pollution because of street light & moon white-wash 
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO  

On South side (right), moon is shining bright in gibbous phase 2 days shy of full phase. On North left side bright white street light has caused white wash. So I am hiding away behind patio wall. That's the whole city light pollution. 

Fantastic star hopping from Alberio towards M56 GC up north within 7deg FoV i.e. 2 jumps in 35pan eyepiece. Stellerium app helped in this. Decent map with not too many stars at this 20x mag helped well. But was never able to see the GC or even the faintest idea. If Ring nebula of Mag8 was visible, why not GC of Mag8..not really sure. Need to watch this without moon whitewash, then will have better judgement.

Showed moon to Rohit and family. Since now we are only 1 day away from full moon, not much to see at the edge of the moon. 

In the end, some laser show for satellight tracking in the sky with Dhruv and Rohit. Revived the laser after long time. 

That's possibly the last session for next 3 weeks, as heading to EU trip to A & B. Ciao! 

 

M57 Ring Nebula in City lights

 

Date: July 26th 2026, Sunday
Observation Time: 9:30pm to 11pm (observing time ~1.5hrs), 
Location: SC Home
Weather: clear Skies, but heavy light pollution because of street light & moon white-wash 
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO  

9:30pm. Watching towards East. On South side (right), moon is shining bright in gibbous phase 2 days shy of full phase. On North left side bright white street light has caused white wash. So I am hiding away behind patio wall. That's the whole city light pollution. 

Just for fun was browsing Zenith sky near Vega and Alberio, 

Alberio was fantastic & crisp. Even Aparna clearly saw the split, orange-blue colors in default 20x. 

From there, kept on browsing the sky upward North towards Lyra in 20x with 35mm Pan. During Houge park, telescope showed the ring nebula nicely, so I just wanted to see how it looks thru my scope from city lights. Alberio to Sulafat and the line of parallelogram. I can clearly see a faint object at mid-center. Bingo. Even in so much light pollution its visible Mag-8 object. 42x Nag17 shows it clearly. Even Dhruv was able to see the dark ring, when I explained it to him. Tried UHC filter on it. Slightly brighter (but it may be psychological perspective)

Overall it's impressive what you can see. If moon and street light can be fully avoided, I am sure it will pop up nicely. 

Moon: Later switched it to moon. Dhruv enjoyed it quite a lot. Also lot of Q&A on moon geology.

 

     

Astrotech 102 ED observation specs

AstroTech 102 ED specs and eyepiece combos data

Detailed review from Jon: https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/user-reviews/telescopes/100mm-110mm-refractors/astro-tech-at102ed-r1690/

All details in spreadsheet here: 

Specs: 

Aperture: 102mm

Focal length: 709mm

F-ratio: 6.95 i.e. ~F/7

Weight 9.6lbs

Magnifications with my eyepieces: 

35mm Pan:  20x

26mm E-lux: 26x

17mm Nagler: 42x

10mm X-cel: 70x

7mm Nagler: 101x

4mm TMB: 177x

Rebooting..

Date: July 24th 2026, Friday
Observation Time: 9pm to 10:30pm (observing time ~1.5hrs), 
Location: SC Home
Weather: clear Skies, but heavy light pollution because of street lights.  
Instruments: Astrotech 102ED APO  

Trying to reboot myself after a long time. It's been 8 years (i.e. SD to SC move) since I did star gazing. Workplace has kept me so interested and busy that I didn't even bother to even watch moon thru my scope. But since last week, I am trying to get back in the game. 

Last week, visited Houge park for SJAA - In town star party. It was a good reboot. 4-5 scopes. Couple of them on Alberio, Venus. Coupel of photography gears pointing to Veil nebula, Whirlpool galaxy (M??). There was 1 scope pointing to M57 rung nebula. This was was a fantastic view. Digital lives photography but view thru the eyepiece. Something unique indeed. 

So today opened my APO 102ED scope. Goal was just get familiar with the instrument and browse the "light polluted" sky. 

Moon: Fabulous view. Crate details clearly visible. Tried 35mm panoptic, 17 Nagler, 7 Nagler and 7x 2xBarlow magnifier. Views in 17 Nagler were the best. higher magnification was hard to focus. Seeing might not be good. Even with 17 Nagler, crater edges were clearly visible. Also the mountain peak at the center of the crater was visible thru 7mm. Though I know geographical map, forgot the names of most the craters and mares. Looking at the map on the phone also confused me in the orientation because of telescopic view vs digital map on the phone. Need to find a good map/app that matches APO/diagonal image alignment. Showed this to Aparna as well. She was quite impressed. 

Vega and Epsilon Lyrae double-double: in 35mm, Vega was crisp. some stars around Vega confused me with double double. Then realized that they are on opposite side of Epsilon lyre, so moved to opposite side of Vega to find empisolon. Can clearly see "double"... higher magnification didn't help resolving double to double-double. It was ay up in the sky close to home roof. So image was wavy and wasn't able to focus. Also eyepiece holder / diagonal doesn't stay at one place because of gravity and had to hold it by hand to get image in focus. Bit of a trouble. Overall, failed.

Alberio: Took lil bit time to locate it because of light pollution and without the finder scope. browsing thru 35mm, finally found it. Beautiful and crisp. 17mm and 7mm nailers did well as well. Crisp image and sharp focus. Orange/yellow bigger star with blue/greenish smaller star.. Higher the mag, the color contrast goes dimmer. So watching in lower mag was good. 

Since not much visible in the light-polluted sky, tried to browse thru Sagittarius thru 35mm. Not having finder scope or binocs was not healthy. Wasn't even sure if I was browsing thru Sagi or Opphicus, Scorpio. Possibly saw some big open cluster in 35mm. Not sure what it is. Overall, failed

I think in light polluted sky, it's good to have the intelliscope, so at least locations where telescope is pointed at is clear so its easier to locate things, when not visible to naked eye. 

Any way, overall a good reboot! Btw, I noticed that I had tried to reboot myself in 2020, but didn't publish the blog post or didn't capture the details. Hopefully, this time I can continue my observing bit in a regular cadence. GN!

  

 

Back In the Game - Part 1 / 3

Date: Sat 1st Feb 2014, from 6pm to 11pm: 5hrs
Location: Jon's @ Boulevard
Weather:  Seeing 6/10, Transparency 4/10. No wind. Around 5pm it was completely under cloud and later it was crystal clear... Seeing wasn't great, but absolutely no winds. 
Instruments: Jon's Obsession 25" dob, My Orion 10" dob and TV101 apo. Nikon and Celestron 10x50 binocs

Highlight of the night: Supernova in M82 and Horsehead Nebula

Mercury
Rigel
Jupiter
M47
M23
Orion
Horsehead

?? Lupus pn
Flame neb
?? Pacman neb
Double cluster
?? Neighbors of db
Crab
M81
M82
2 ngcs

??Owl and gal

Sunflower
M94
M101
Leo 65 95 ngc (new)
?? Leo antenna 4

- Aplha gal

Hubble variable
Pleiades
Thor

M44


Mercury, Ori DS Rigel, Jupiter, Pup OC M46-M47, CMa OC M41, Ori Neb M42-M43, Ori Horsehead, Ori Flame Neb 2024, Ori Running Man Neb 1973-5-7, Location Boulevard, 

Per Double Cluster 869-84, Tau Neb M1 Crab, UMa Gal M81-M82-3077-2976, UMa PN M97 Owl, CVn Gal M63 Sunflower, CVn Gal M94, UMa Gal M101 Pinwheel, Leo Gal M65-M66-3628, Leo Gal M95-M96-M105, Mon Hubble Variable Neb 2261, CMa Thors Helmet Neb 2359, Cnc OC M44 Beehive, UMa Gal M108, Leo Gal 3370, Leo Gal 2903, 

Back In the Game - Part 2 / 3

Back In the Game - Part 3 / 3

New Year Kickoff

Date: Sat 5th Jan 2013, from 6pm to 8pm: 2hrs
Location: Jon's @ Boulevard
Weather:  Seeing 7/10, Transparency 4/10. No wind. in the beginning clouds on wester horizon.. central and eastern horizon clear... after two hours transparency messed up and cloud cover was almost everywhere.
Instruments: jon's 16" and TV101. Two Nikon and one Celestron 10x50 binocs

Highlight of the night: kickoff for 2013 after almost two years..


M38, 37, 36: All three clusters looked beautiful in both scopes and binocs. Crystal clear pinpoint stars.

M35: Looked way bigger than the above triplet.. never noticed it before.. in binocs, the difference in  clearly visible

Pleides: simply beautiful in both scopes.. no nebulosity.

Jupiter: watched multiple times. because o no winds, fantastic view.. main two belts + 1 more belt line visible.. southern fainter wider band visible..  5 satellites: 2 on each side and one on southern side..

Veil nebula: spent lot of time on this one.. very nice.. in 16" scope main two components visible.. the middle third one visible as well plus some fuzziness visible around.. in TV101..you can see both easter and western part... but you will notice that western is much brighter than the eastern part (next to the star).. never noticed it before.. no other components visible.. OIII filter was on.

california neb: in TV101, with H-Beta filter. some fuzziness visible.. somewhat hard.. no discernible shape either... without the filter, it was just impossible..

north american neb:  OIII (???) was on.. Large fuzziness object visible..seemed like divided in two parts... no discernible shapes.. again nothing visible without filter.

M42: fabulous. trapezoid was pin point. 4 stars visible with nag31, lowest magnification. very nice nebulous cloud, brightly lit.

ngc2301: Long elongated star cluster with some circular/heart shape cluster in the middle. Clearly visible in binocs or finder.

binoc comparision: compared jon's nikon 10x50 Action with mine nikon 10x50 Action EX. FoV is same. jon'd are not sealed, so image is not crispy in his, when humidity was high.
 
called off the night earlier because of cold and cloud cover.. i have lost my survivial skills in cold.. have to get back in schedule soon..

Recap 2012

TBD

Little one @ Blvd

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.