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 to stargazing... Part 1 / 4

Date: Feb 25th 2012 Saturday
Observation Time: 6pm to 12pm (observing time ~5 hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: good.. few lower clouds on west in the eve..but alter cleared up.. moon 5th day/~30% phase causing light pollution till 8:30pm.. lil windy at sunset and ~11pm. Seeing wasn't that great 5/10.
Instruments: Jon's 16" f/4 scope and np-101 f/7 scope

interesting things of the night were:
- first real dark session after one year gap..
- first observation of Medusa nebula, Rosette nebula, California nebula, Whale Galaxy, Needle Galaxy, plus some more new galaxy fuzzies.
- Comet Garrad C2009/P1 in Draco
- Browsing galaxies from 5" np-101 scope. When sky is clear and its dark, the small scope of np-101 can indeed show so many faint fuzzies. its very impressive. TBD: Should browse Virgo Markarain's chain through this scope next time.

16" scope with parracor: ~2070mm focal length
31mm: 67x
20mm: 103x
16mm: 130x
9mm: 230x
7mm: 295x

np-101 focal length: 540mm
35mm: 15x
31mm: 17x
24mm: 22x
16mm: 34x
7mm:: 77x

Mercury - Just after sunset, mercury visible through binoculars. while locating it, Jon cheated through his digital dumpy level for altitude and I cheated by following jon's scope location thru my binocs. Tried 31mm, 16mm, 7mm nagler on apo... With 7mm @77x, best view. Looked like a solid disk. Environment refraction showing up in apo, with blue/green color on east and orange/red color on west side of mercury disk.

Venus - Next to moon. 7mm @ 77x best view in apo. the phase of Venus is 60% from west. Lil bigger disk than mercury.

Jupiter - good view, but not the brightest view. 16" scope with 20mm Nag2 @ 103x. Big jupter disk with 4 bands visible. sothern side being the thicker band. On second band from south has a lil storm pattern, just next to the center of the band. (TBD: Need to confirm this: ~6pm). 4 moons lurking around, 2 on each side. with binocs, with hand-shaking trouble, western side 2 moons can be easily seen.

Rigel - 16inch scope, With 9mm @ 230x, fabulous view. Rigel looks like white-blue diamond with 4 streaks in each direction, like a sketch. Companion star is visible clearly with very good separation. located on North 89deg from rigel. Very faint as compared to Rigel. Lowed the magnification with 20mm @ 103x. The split is visible, but lil difficult. rigel is way too bright in the view than its companion. Jon mentioned one imp thing.. Lesser the magnification, brighter the star looks in the view. Hence Rigel dominated the view @103x as compared to 230x. this should be an easy split from home as well (TBD)

Orion M42-M43: 16" scope with 20mm @ 103x: Very beautiful view.. 3D perception with dark pillars ad the wings. Can not feet the whole nebula in one view. trapezoid visible, but only 5 stars, bad seeing. Jon mentioned that he can see/feel the red color in the saucer/wing part on upper side. I can't. M43 shows up as mediocre view as compared to M42.

Orion Running Man Neb ngc1973: Made a mistake with location. We pointed from-Inside the wing-to bigger dark pillar-to trapezoid-to dark splitting lane-just above it... its totally wrong.. Infact its outside wing-other side of the wing than m43, and few degrees away from the disk, you can spot the nebulosity. the dark region nearby sort of shows up as running man. Tried with np101, since its easier to get the judgment on location.. overall not very impressive and not very discernible view.

CMa Thor's Helmet - Impressive views with 31mm and 20mm in 16" scope. 20mm @ 103x with O-III filter is the best view. Object shows up as nice big comma shape with think disk at the top. More you focus on the view, more details you get.

CMa Tau - 103x shows up the view.. its a tiny open cluster in the view at this magnification. Central star is brighter than the rest of stars in the cluster. ~25 stars around. All stars are in outward triangular curvature from the central star, as if the ripples flowing outsides.

M93: 10x50 binocs view. Very small and tiny OC, as compared to nearby cousins M46-M47. Nothing impressive. no particular shape either.

Reflection nebula 2467 below m93: very good view in 16" sscope @ 103x with O-III filter. Easier to locate. Fainter and smaller than Thor's helmet. faint C shaped filled disk visible. in np-101, with some efforts, can see something very tiny..

M46-M47 : In np101 with 16mm @32x shows both clusters in same view. Having both of them in same view shows the beauty in both clusters. planetary nebula in m46 not visible. with 7mm@77x, PN shows up nicely with the cluster in the apo. In 16" with 20mm @103x with O-III filter, m46 is marvelous. sprinked stars now seem brighter with bigger apperture. M47 seems very marginal.. Planetory shows up as bright object in intself. neb looks good...

Jon got 10x50 Japanese Celestron regal binoculars. roof prism. but field of view is narrower than my nikkon 10x50. Tried another 7x42 binos. FoV is wider than Regal binocs, but still lower then mine. Still, 7x binocs was nice. Compared m46-m47 and nearby views in the binocs.

Continued..

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.

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.

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..

CMa & Hydra browsing..

Date: Apr 1st 2009, Wednesday
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 10pm (1.5 hrs)
Location: SD home, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing 4 of 5.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10.

M41 OC: Wasn't impressive at all.. Red hue in background from light pollution..

Tau CMA OC NGC-2362: Easy catch. Not as impressive as seen from dark location KC, but still easily identifiable at 30x (42mm). Higher the mag, more stars are resolvable. with 110x-10mm, can get around 35 stars. Sort of traingle shape of the cluster.

NGC-2354 (New): 3 stars in triangle. really tiny.. TBD (??).. FAILED. Wrong observation.

NGC-2359 Thors Helmet (Failed): Can not watch this one from home at all. Jon had told me that, but still attempted. Star-hopping was fun. I think the locaiton i was pointing was correct, but no nebulosity visible. To look for Thor's, Browsing thru M46-47 line wasn't that useful, but Browsing from Sirius-Iota-Gamma then to NGC-2360 & NGC-2374 OC is better hop. 30x-42mm really helps in star-hop.

NGC-2467 & M93 (Failed): 30x-42mm helps again in star hopping. M93 is easy. NGC-2467 Failed. the starhop seems straightforward from Xi to Omi pupis, but no nebulosity..

Saturn : Best ever view from 10". At 220x, marvelous view. Crispy clear image. It ws one of those views, where you feel like having more magnification. 3 moons on west side, while one on east side. rings were fabulous. The slanted-top view of rings visible. Gap between rings and saturn was poping in the eye. Shadow of rings on disk, below the rings.. like a dark band. Northern and Southern equatorial band clearly visible.. above that towards polar side everything was sort of white. The image indeed was sharply focused and gave perfect 3D feeling.

Wasn;t sure what to observe. so picked up Hydra for first time. Bno browsing was indeed helpful to identify what is visible from patio.

NGC-3242 PN Ghost of Jupiter (New): Star-hopping from east side Nu-Phi Hydra is easier than going thru Alpha-Hydra. Really easy star-hopping. Lil hard to see the ghost in 30x, 42mm.. can be missed..but 32mm, 38x indeed shows the fuzziness..atleast can see the difference betn star and fuzziness..higher mag helps. At 110x, feels blue color. At 220x, the PN size is half saturn disk. 220x indeed shows a ring rather than blue disk. So central part is light in color, the middle part is bright blue colored ring, while outskirts is again light colored.. Averted look, helps to feel the brightness of the blue ring. this will be fun to watch from dark place. TBD (??)

Messier Marathon - Part I

Date: Mar 28th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 12:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: KC, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing 4 of 5. nominal winds. Clouds in slow motion from west since 7pm and rolled all over at 12:30pm. Nominal winds.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10, Jon's 16.5' and bunch of naglers, panoptics and uwans :) yey !!
Buddies: Jon


Total Objects : 69 = 57 + Markarains Chain 8 + Virgo Zoo 5
New Objects : 18
Messier Objects : 46 = 42 + Markarains Chain 2 + Virgo Zoo 2

Attempted Messier Marathon.. Objective was to capture as many M objects possible before cloud rolls over around midnight. Spend time with Jon while browsing.

Because of Messier marathon, overall didn't spend much time in oserving objects or puting higher mags. but tries to locate objects and remember their locations. Jon showed few interesting objects along the line.

Print out of messier marathon sequence indeed helped as a observation schedule.

Because of KC valley mountains, lost all objects till M33 i.e around 30deg of W view is blocked, so started with: M45 in binocs and perseus double cluster in 10'.

Double Cluster: Lower one bigger then the upper one. One is loosely connected and contins lot of bright stars while another one is concentrated and full of faint stars.

M103 OC (New): Seems closer to the star Delta, but browsed on wrong side. At low mags, M103 seems to be 3 stars in triangle fashion, but middle one is a pair. At lil higher mag, you can see that left star is full with other faint stars. only left star is the brighter one in the herd. (Need to confirm this observation. (TBD ??)

M52 OC (New): Though away from any nearby star, easy to find. Its indeed a tight faint cluster, but a lone bright star in the cluster.

M76 PN Little Dumbbell (New): Easy catch. Impressive.

M34 OC (New): Next to Algol. Y shape in center. All stars are bright.

M45 Pleiades (New): In 42mm eyepiece, all sisters fit well, there seems to be lot of tight doubles inside this one. No nebulosity. surprisingly this my first entry documented for M45. I have seen it hundred times from binocs.

M42-M43: Impressive view M42. Watched it multiple times during whole night. Just after sunset, trapezoid visible, no nebulosity. After dark, view in 16.5' 35mm panoptic view was the best i have ever seen of M42-M43. All 70deg full of nebulocity. Never realized that M42 nebulocity is so huge and impressive. Trapezoid: Tried for E-F. Seeing was just too bad. never saw them.In the process i realized that, though whole sky seems so impressive from dark place, in reality the seeing can indeed be bad. Thats the difference betn transparency and seeing. Trapeziod or planets are good tests for seeing.

Running Man nebula: Visited near by Nebulosity with 3 bright stars visible. Dark running man didn't show up..obviously.. probably need a filter.

M78 Neb: I told Jon abt my failed M78 attempt couple of days back form home.. Sigma and Alnilam line points to m78, but the object is not nearby any prominent shapes, probably there is UMa shape on right side of this object.

Flame Nebula (New): Also tried flame and horsehead nebula.. both of them seem to be on opposite sides of sigma (TBD ??). Glare from the nearby star kills the nebulosity, so actually you have to keep the nebula and star at the edge and hide the star, so nebulosity is prominently visible.

Horsehead Nebula (Failed): According to Jon, he pointed the scope at precise location, but didn;t see anything at all. We already had H-beta filter on, but still didn;t see anything. this one is really hard.

M79 GC (New): Easy catch. Follow the dagger from Orion to alpha-bet in lupus. Contimue the line and thats where M79 is. Its impressive. At 38x, yo ucan see the bluish globular. high mags help. At 76x outer edge stars are resolvable. 110x didn;t help, not able to focus.. bad seeing.

Tau CMa (New): Jon mentioned abt this Masterpiece. Small concentrated cluster around Tau CMa. Tau is only bright star in this cluster. Infact not sure if its part of the cluster or not. (TBD ??). Should be visible from home.

M41 OC: Impressive. E shape visible clearly. All bright stars.

M47 OC: M47 k shape didn;t impress much. Actually all stars are sort of bright so k shape or oph shape not very impressive. From light pollution at home, this object is better.

M46 OC and PN: Marvellous. Light pollution kills all stars making them too faint. but from dark place, all stars show up smoothly. Planeotry is easy catch.. My averted vision location, seen from home, is indeed correct. From dark place it pops up. higher Mags helps. Size of PN is almost same as lil concentrated stars above it. Thru 16.5' it was beautiful, Also jon's 28mm UWAN 82deg makes it much more impressive. Colors of PN in 28mm UWAN were much better than My 32mm x2 combo.. Good example to see eyepiece differences.

Thor's helmet (New): huge. nebulosity is enormous. Shape not discernible. Jon mentioned won;t be visible from home. Its nearby M46-M47, but i don't know the location. (TBD ??)

Continued..

Orion CMa Pup "M" browsing

Date: 18th March 2009, Wednesday
Observation Time: 8pm to 10pm (2 hrs)
Location: SD Home, CA
Weather: Okay.. Seeing was okay in the beginning 2.5/5. After an hour it improved. 3.5/5
Instruments: Orion 10 XTi

Total Objects: 11
New Objects: 3

I am surprised how many things I can see from my patio itself. It was good a experience.

- Orion
M42 Orion Nebula: Wanted to investigate Trapezium inside orion nebula. With 40mm (30x), stars C, A, D were visible. B was probably there, but wasn't sure. With 32mm (38x) B popped easily. Additional magnifications 76x, 10mm (120x) didn't help. In-fact 240x was really hard to focus. Probably a bad night.. What is the minimum magnification and seeing required for E & F to show up?

M43: Not a great view. Nebulosity was visible at 32mm-38x, but then lost it at 76x.

Running Man Nebula NGC 1977 (New-Failed): Got the location, north of M43. Saw stars of the nebula. But actual nebulosity was missing at 30x or 38x also. All higher mags were hopeless.

- Canis Major
Started usual browsing of sky and M objects.

M41 OC: Preety sight. With 30x. The E shaped fork was visible. 38x and 76x shows the shape, but doesn't give overall perspective as 30x.

Eta CMa (New): Visual double star. Visible in 38x. Still can not judge the star magnitude and distances properly. Companion is probably 3 times fainter. Also with 10mm-120x, its like 1/8th of the eyepiece view. The distance is probably 3' minutes. ((52 deg/120x)*60)/8)

Info here: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/Aludra.html

v1 v3 v2 CMa: More double/variable stars in Canis Major. v3 and v2 are only double, as per the map. Saw only v2 to be double. Indeed tight. but still visible in 38x.

- Monoceros
M50 OC: Fainter than I was expecting, still can not miss it at 30x. Twisted and abstract butterfly shape.

- Puppis
M46-M47 OC: Nice pair. At 30x can not keep both in same view.

M47 is made with all bright stars. Closeup look with 38x shows Ophiuchus constellation shape, with small 'k' shape inside.. k or chair shape. All star seems white.

M46 is not as impressive as M47. Lil fainter and sprinkled like M50. No definite shape visible. I missed the PN inside.

This OC pair is marked by two bright star pairs on each side. Indeed impressive.

M93 OC: Really small. initially i missed it at 38x, but found it again at 30x. High mags show twisted A shape. Impressive.

- Hydra
M48 OC (New): Easy catch. Next to hydra C stars. It shows shape of 7, rotated 180deg inside a rectangular boundary.

- Leo
Saturn: Saturn was the only Leo object I was able to view thru my patio. Saturn was impressive. 32mm-38x shows tiny saturn and existence of rings. 2 moons on left clearly visible. The one inside, had uncollimated bright hue aspect to it. Didn't understand what it was, but 76x clarified it. clearly see 3 additional moons, instead of bright hue. First time ever I captured 5 moons of Saturn. 10mm-120x was again impressive. Saturn rings were nice and were giving a feeling of lil bit of tilt, still not sure. N and S gas bands were going in-out of focus. With barlow, 240x was awesome.. Crispy clear view. Seeing must have been improved by now. Gaseous bands on N-S were clear. Lost 5th moon.. wasn't bright enough. rings were indeed showing the tilt without any doubt. Gaps between the Saturn and rings was clearly visible. Cassinni division wasn't visible, i guess because of the low tilt of rings. Still best ever view of Saturn in my 10" scope.

Showed Saturn to Ashwin and Alankar, but by that time, seeing went bad and in few mins fog rolled over.

First Dark Night with Orion XTi 10 - I

Date: 17th Jan 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 6:00pm to 11:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing and Transparency 8/10.. winds picked up around 11pm.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10, Rick's 12.5" dob, Tony's 8" dob and Bret's 24" dob. Bunch of new eyepieces.
Buddies: Rick, Tony and Bret

Total objects: 40 DSOs + 2 planets
New : 11

Best of the Night: M46 Planetary Nebula and All tiny galaxies in Leo.

First night of the new year.. looks like astronomy for this year started way too early :).. hopefully continues like this..

Objective of the night is to:
- test the new scope
- compare all eyepieces
- check intelliscope performance and functions
- some sky browsing.

Vertical Alignment. Hard.. TDS public pad is indeed slanted a lot.. this is gonna be tricky.. Is vertical stop connection to the scope really required for intelliscope ??

Connected Telerad. Placement is not ideal, but not bad either.. didn't have much choice because of finder location.

Rick from next pad helped to do the collimation with laser collimator.. secondary was lil bit hard to align.. somehow its really tight.. don't know why.. do i need to loose the central screw lil bit ?? ..any way will buy Howe gladder laser collimator this week.. Rick showed me a way to collimate without barlow.. sort of.. he mentioned that barlow is really not required.. only trouble is moving up-down to see and move screws.. that should be okay..

Worst mistake of the night.. Intelliscope battery down.. when i checked the status form home.. it was up.. but i didn't realize that its not good enough to see at night.. i have used this thing in Nov, and it was good.. i must have left it on since then :(..needs new battery now.. the problem was i wasn't able to use it for whole night.. that was one of my objectives at TDS today..zero outcome.. next time !!

Venus: Impressive. 45% phase. Too much waving. Probably scope also wasn't cooled down. MAx magnification with 9mm expanse.. 4.5mm failed.. higher mags didn't help much to see any details.. in the view.. i noticed that when Venus at the edge of eyepiece, it had violet tint on west i.e. bright side. but as the Venus moved to center of the field of view, the violet tinge reduced. Again increased as the movement towards the edge of the eyepiece.. is it indeed eyepiece ?

M42 Orion Nebula: Spent really long time tasting eyepieces.

Tony's celestron axiom 25mm on 8' dob: 82deg field of view.. impressive view.. star crowded sky.. Orion in the middle.. dark tower visible.. trapezoid visible.. second dark tower perpendicular to main one clearly visible..

40mm GSO: View wasn't bad.. 60 deg FOV. but stars at the edge were stretched and looked like streaks.. bad eyepiece at the edges.. Again barrel length was trouble so have to take out the glasses.. second tower wasn't visible..still good view.

32mm E-Lux: Impressive view.. stars were fine. trapezoid barely visible.. i think 3 stars of it visible. second tower was visible, but not yet clear..

25mm 1.25' and 25mm 2': Second tower visible, but not as clearly as tony's. ..hmm eyepiece quality :) .. $150 ?? trapezoid visible.. compared both my 25mm eyepieces. FOV is larger in 2' vs 1.25'.. definitely.. but i felt that 1.25' is lil bit better in contrast as compared to 2'. i was able to focus better on stars with 1.25'.. also m43 nebulous area was better in 1.25'

10mm X-cel: marvelous view.. all nebulous details in second tower visible. Trapezoid 5th star was in. wasn't aware that there is 6th one two..

9mm expanse: surely better field of view.. no other difference than 10mm x-cel.

35mm Teleview Panoptic on ricks 12.5' dob: 07deg FOV. MArvellous view.. second tower was there..lil bit in-out of focus. still picture was marvelous. 3 out of 4 trapezoid visible. Still with high mags didn't see 6th star. rick tried to explain me the location, but didn't find it.

M43: In 25mm dark region within M43 visible.. western part (left) definitely larger than eastern (right)

Perseus double cluster: Rick TV 35mm view impressive.. pinpoint stars.. mine 32mm was fine too.. stars were perfect pint point.. that shows precise collimation..

M31 Andromeda: Rick TV 35mm: Clear view of whole M31..Dust lane was good.. indeed was getting a feeling of it.. M110 and M32 visible.. but too tiny. My 40mm: M32 & M110 wre but too tiny.. but this eyepiece indeed shows the length/glow of m31.. just too large.. dust lane wasn't much impressive. My 32mm showed the dust lane.. but it wasn't as good as rick 35m.. again eyepiece quality..

M33 Triangulum: Forgot the location. Rick got it.. fuzzy object.. no details visible ..m33 thru bret's 24inch and bino-view marvelous.. hydrogen region was visible at right corner.. also watched so many dark lanes in m33.. the whole view was full of it.. also sort of got a 3d perception.. must be because of bino-view. In bino-view mag calculation is different..view was around 150x. thru my 32mm or higher mags, just a fuzzy object, no details visible... aperture helps.

Blue snowball NGC7662: okay.. not that great.. really tiny.. i was expecting more.. compare with Jon's 10' dob.

M81-M82: impressive. M81, on left, seems as big fuzzy.. M82 on right seems edge on.. One tiny galaxy NGC3077 (new) right angled above M81. Used 40mm for finding.. 32mm view good.. 25mm was better and showed the dark edge on M82.. 10 mm possible.. but no other details..impressive view thru Rick's 35mm panoptic 70deg FOV.. Tony's 25mm wasn't that impressive considering 80deg FOV.. too much magnification..

M41 OC in CMa: Visible naked eye - don't remember much.. Thru 40mm: Curved lines

M46-M47 OC pair in Pup: Thru 40mm.. M46-M47 barely fits in same view.. M46 stars are pinpoint and concentrated like double cluster.. while M47 is normal dispersed bright stars. 25inch SDAA scope thru 31mm (2500mm focal) shows a nebula.. impressive view. In the nebula itself there was a concentric circle (i think).. indeed impressive.. Thru my 32mm. barely visible for me.. 25mm impressive.. bluish visible.. cluster and PN in it indeed impressive.. 6mm was still good - 10mm lost it.. M46 farther than M47.. PN is actually not in M46 but much closer to us than OC.

M50 in Mon (new): Yet another OC. Don't remember much.

M93 in Pup (new): Really tiny OC.. salt-paper.. too low on horizon

M36-M38-M37 in Auriga: Quick browse. Was overhead. lil bit hard to catch it.. Visible naked eye m36-m38.. bino view was great for all three.

M44 Beehive OC in Cancer: Thru 40mm eyepiece..impressive.. beehive visible.. but 25mm view better to see beehive triangles.

M67 OC in Cancer: Yet another.. nothing impressive..

M35 OC in Gem (New): SDAA scope impressive.. bright yellowish stars. and tiny OC NGC1258 (new) next to it.. this ngc looked like M93.. fine view in my 32mm also.. seen it before thru binocular

26th April 08 @ TDS

Date: 26th April 08, Saturday
Observation Time: 8pm to 11:30pm (3:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was good, not excellent.. No cloud cover.. lil bit breezy after 10pm.
Buddies: Mark from the next Pad. He was doing some photography.

Highlight of the night: Leo I galaxy triplet: M65-M66-NGC3628

Probably after 5 months, visited TDS. It was full with visitors on this public star party. Lots of laughing, cracking jokes, loud discussions and "wow"s from visitors !!

This night was too systematic for me. I followed predetermined schedule and was taking notes after every object observation. I did that for almost 10 objects. The pre-plan for "Tonight's observations" really helped.. I should always follow that. this time I went alone to TDS and indeed I was able to spend as much time as I want in my observations. I should go to TDS "alone" pretty often.

Tube Mount screws were loosen during SD-TDS drive.. so really need to tighten them.. on they return journey they became loose again.. the way they are located, It’s pretty damn hard to tighten them. I hate Celestron for the bad design of these mounting screws accessibility.

>> Saturn: My night started with "Saturn". This is first time I saw Saturn with my 6' dob. For first round observation, it was feel good object.. then late night I observed it again for details.

In 32mm eyepiece : It is a big dot with a ring shape around it. Hard to see any details. but still I am able to see two moons. One at 6 o'clock was brighter than one at 8:30 o'clock. Second one was visible thru averted vision only.

In 32mm-2x barlow eyepiece: Saturn was clearly visible. Can see the gap between planet and rings. Planet was indeed bright and some dark band at the center. rings were also nice.. wasn't able t to Cassini division, probably because of winds. Image was shaking a lot, requiring constant focusing. I was planning to put filters, but it was too breezy to be patient... so I didn't.

In 12.5mm eyepiece: It is visible really big.. but winds made it bad enough on focusing side.
In 12.5mm-2x barlow eyepiece: It was useless..

** Orion
>> M42 Orion Nebula + M43: As expected, it was a fabulous sight.
In 32mm eyepiece: you can clearly see the whole disk. It is ~0.8 to 1.0 deg wide. It feels like bright sunlight is put on its curved side.. Dark tower in the middle was in deed great.. three star alignment parallel to the tower, on right side, was great. There are 2 stars on the left side of the tower making probably 45 deg angle to the base of the tower. Head of the dark tower was brightly lighten by the trapezoid. It was somewhat hard to resolve the trapezoid with 32mm.. but still I was able to see 3 out 4. (C, A & D)..B wasn't visible. At the left-bottom side of the disk, M43 (??) was visible. It looked like oval shaped fuzzy object with a bright star in the middle. the fuzziness of M43 wasn't clear enough than that of M42 cloud. Initially I wasn't sure if it is indeed M43.. but the fuzziness and its location seems to be it. the size of the M43 oval was bigger than the M42 dark tower.

In 32mm-2x barlow eyepiece: Trapezoid was big and clear enough. I noted down the comparative magnitudes of all stars with M42 and M43. I wish I would have been able to upload my picture. Trapezoid "C" star being brightest. M43 star was also as bright as trapezoid "C" star.

My previous observation from home, indeed helped me during this observation on what I was looking for.

M42 was oriented too low in the sky around 10 deg from horizon, that’s why probably it wasn't that clear enough and it was going out the field of view really fast.

>> M78: Failed in locating M78. Just wasn't able to find it according to the map. Is it too faint for my telescope?

While observing this one and Leo galaxies, I felt that I should have more details maps for TDS. The current one which I have is Mag 7 atlas... but I guess I need like mag 10 star atlas. It helps in star hopping. or tracking in the mount :) !!

>> Cr69 Mrug-Shirsh: In deed fabulous sight. It looks like open cluster for naked eye. From 32mm eyepiece it was like all stars in perfect straight line & 90 deg alignment with a sad face at the corner.

* Canis Major + Puppis
>> M41: This open cluster is always a great sight.. lots of pairs. In 32mm it impressive, but barlow looses it beauty. "E" or twisted 4 shape or "swastika" shape describes bright stars.

>> M46-M47 open cluster pair: While looking for M41, I saw M47 with naked eye. TDS darkness is simply fabulous, most of the messier objects which give really hard time for me to observe from SD, are naked sights from TDS. That’s why TDS trip is always worth. M46-M47 pair is best seen from binoculars. They are ~1-2 deg apart and both clusters are of different type. M47 seems open while M46 seems fuzzy. I guess M47 is closer than M46, so initially I felt that M46 is a globular cluster fuzzy oval, but it is indeed a open cluster, densely packed. Probably it has more stars than M47. M46 is more impressive in 32mm eyepiece than M47. With 2x barlow on it, M46 looses its beauty. bit these clusters are ~12 deg north-east of Sirius. I should be able to find them from SD. My next pad buddy, Mark, said that there is planetary nebula in M46. I tried to look for it, but wasn't visible with 2x barlow either. He mentioned that he can see it through his 8' cassegrian.

While observing M46 from 32mm, I saw a satellite passing by, so I tracked it with telescope for almost couple of minutes. It was going SE parallel to horizon. Infact during whole TDS observing session, I accidentally saw bunch of satellites thru eyepieces.

** Auriga

>> M37-M36-M38 open cluster triplet: As usual, good sight thru binocs.. but not as great as I have previously seen. I realized that these guys are somewhat difficult to catch in telescope. Thru binocs browsing is easier, but thru telescope you really have to know guide stars and your telescope movements. M37, the outsider, is indeed impressive and densely packed than M36, middle one. Again, this packing is not as impressive as the M46 in Puppis. Didn’t look for M38.. lil bit difficult for me.

** Leo
I pre-planned this constellation. "Small wonders" article from "cloudy nights" indeed helped. the only mistake I made is I started too late ~11pm on this one. So lost the enthu to go into details.

>> Alpha & Gamma double stars: I really didn’t see any doubles.. I really messed up here. Need to read more.

>> M65-M66-NGC3628 galaxy triplet: This was the highlight of the observing session. It wasn't too difficult to catch them... and I never knew how didn’t galaxies looks from my dob. I have seen M31, but its too close to enjoy the searching aspect from the dob. The triplet looked fabulous. M65 & M66 aligned on the right side of the eyepiece. M65 on top right corner- M66 is 6 o'clock position and bottom right corner and perpendicular bisector of this alignment shows you NGC3628 on left center of the eyepiece. All of them seem to be similar in magnitude. All of them are edge on, M65 & M66 are oval-circular in shape, but NGC3628 is really elongated in shape. the cloudy nights article picture indeed helped me here. I tried 2x barlow on it, but low light was killing it. More aperture would have really helped. I showed the triplet to Mark, He was trying to photograph NGC3628, but wasn't able to find it thru his 8' Meade. He was indeed impressed with my view. I didn’t go for detailed observation as I was too tired. Need to observe these triplet really carefully. Need to spend atleast half-an-hour on this one. Saw M65-M66 pair thru 22inch. NGC3628 didn’t fir in same view, so saw it separately. The dust lane on 3628 clearly visible thru 22inch.

>> M95-M96-M105 galaxy triplet: I was too tired to for this one.. but the thought of leaving TDS was killing me, so I pointed the telescope to look for this triplet.. and guess what... it was too damn hard to find these guys... it took me almost 15 minutes to find these guys. There is no guide star nearby... Star 53 is there. Tracking star 53 from Regulus & Rho is somewhat tricky.. but after Star53, its like just browsing thru eyepiece.. In first 2 attempts I just didn’t see anything.. but in third attempt, I somewhat hit on M95-M96 pair.. they indeed are too faint than M65-M66.. But I am not sure if I indeed saw M95-M96 pair only and nothing else.. because I wasn't able to see M105.. missing piece... any way, I am sure it will take me some time to find this pair again next time.. Again no detailed observation.

** Misc
>> Double star - Delta Bootis, just above Corona Borealis:
Saw this guy through 22inch SDAA tele. Yellowish in color with blue-green companion at 6 o'clock. My 32mm eyepiece also resolved it. the distance between them seems really far for to be double star. Need to read more or observe carefully.

>> M4 in Scorpio: In SD, I spent hell lot of time to find it, and it was naked eye object from TDS. Awesome sight thru 32mm.

>> M13 in Hercules: How can I leave TDS without seeing M13. The globular cluster is miraculous. Its really bright enough to support both my 32mm and 2x barlow. With 76x, I can clearly resolve lots of stars in this globular cluster. Again, big aperture would have really helped here.. but still great sight from my 6'.

any way, left TDS around 12:30am. Forgot my passport at home, so had nice chit-chat with border patrol female :) on my way to SD.

Mistakes:
- Leo and Ursa Major constellations were going to be the prime focus for this session. But I observed Leo at the end of the session.. missed lots of objects in Leo. Whatever I observed, didn't observe them in detail. Totally missed Ursa Major.. Really need to follow the plan..
- Need couple of more jackets.. its too windy out there.
- IMP: Don't forget the passport :) !!

TBDs:
- Telerad finder. It will help to find the guide star and nearby things.
- Really good red flashlight. Tired of small red lights.
- Always read "Small Wonders" from "Cloudy Nights" before observing anything.

SD Home - 8th March 2008

Date: 8th March 2008, Saturday
Observation Time : 7pm to 8:05pm (1:05 hrs)
Location : Home Patio, SD CA
Seeing : Okay
Transparency : Okay
Cloud Cover : Somewhat
Instrument : My 6' dob

Highlight of the night: M42 - Great Orion Nebula

I took out my dob today, probably after 5 months. Until now, because of bad weather in SD, I really didn't get a chance to observe anything... but today, finally, I made my first observation of this year.

It was somewhat cloudy. From my patio, only SW sky is visible.. so some part of Orion and whole Canis Major was visible. so obviously the first choice was M42.

Its first time I observed M42 from my dob., since I bought it. Being the brightest nebula in the sky, I had high hopes.... and indeed..it didn't disappoint me. Observed through 35mm and 2x barlow eyepiece .

Initially M42 looked like a cloud, but more my eyes set on it, the true shape was visible. The dish structure - "wings" are truly awesome.. The "fish mouth" was dark and pretty big than I expected. 3 bright stars on SE are parallel to "fish moth". The Trapezium cluster at the top of the "fish mouth" is striking. I was easily able to resolve stars A,C,D, B .. From my 10x50 binocs, I guess I have seen only C star (not sure abt D) , but with the 6" dob, without any mistake the trapezium was visible. On SW of "fish mouth" another protruding dark tower is visible (don't know the name)..somewhat perpendicular to "fish mouth"and 1/3 rd in size. At SE of this tower there is bright a star hanging.

(Photo credit:.. from net somewhere.. the "visual" image is somewhat similar to what I saw, but I had clear and zoomed view..)

Had some focusing problem with the dob.. Stars weren't visible as precise points.. probably some parallax.. need to do some alignment.

Missed M43, at NE corner of M42... next time !!

Sirius was beautiful... like a big diamond.. because of clouds (or probably optics), there was some diffraction of light, causing visual of rays spreading out from Sirius.. it indeed gave me a feeling of "Tanishque / Jared" diamond... simply fabulous :) .... I wasn't aware that Sirius is a double star, but difficult to resolve... still.. will try it next time !!

M41 open cluster in Canis Major was easy catch. Its around 5 deg south of Sirius. Seems like it has ~50 stars, with lots of them in pairs. Wasn't able to resolve their colors.. but some of them seem to be reddish.. not sure.. In order to remember it, I tried to visualize some shape in the star cluster... Bright stars in the cluster seemed like forming a shape "E" with central line extended backwards, like a 3 pronged fork.. or its like a small "Trishul".

Any way... didn't spend much time today.. only 45 mins.. but surely a good start for year 2008... was planning for Messier Marathon at TDS today.. but weather sort of disappointed me..

Interesting Links:
- M42 at SEDS
- M42 sketches It looked somewhat similar from my 6" dob.
- Trapezium Cluster
- M42 Regional map