La Posta Dinner with Late night Moonset - I

Date: Sept 26th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 8:30pm to 11pm (2.5hrs), 00:30am to 4:30am (4 hrs): Total 6.5 hrs.
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: first session: moon 60% illuminated. Cloudy on SWS. Second session: moon set. No winds. No clouds. Excellent seeing and transparency. Best weather seen after a while.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob (FL 1800mm with parracor), Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Didn't carry my 10" dob.
Buddies: Jon

While helping Jon in moving furniture, decided to also have a late night stargazing session once moon sets. didnt carry my 10" dob. Jon decided to keep 16" scope at blvd house only.

At 8:30pm, first quarter moon was pretty bright with 60% disk illuminated.

Jupiter: In refractor, clear view. The disk bands were visible. Achro color abberation was killing the image. Two moons on left while other two on right side. In 16" dob @ 9mm 200x awesome view. One of the best views. Two bands + the shade on remaining part of south was clearly visible. Also there was dark black spot exactly at the center on south. Not sure what it is.. but i have seen it before in last dark night observation. Jon also didn't know what it was.

M30: Way too faint in refractor. I realized that without the red-dot founder or telerad, hunting the objects are lil tricky. It does have 6x20 finder, but still I get confused with where its pointing. Just trying to understand the refractor. In the dob, with lil magnification, M30 it its specific shape visible. Not really a crispy clear image. Moonlite washed out the view.. Just no point watching any objects on S or W side.

M13: With dob, clearly resolved and shows how huge it is. Not the usual crispy image. shows clearly in refractor finder. Refractor low mag shows as nice GC similar to M22.

M27 Dumbbell: Jon pointed to this guy.. indeed crispy clear in 28mm UWAN @ 65x. shows the typical shape.

M52: To avoid moon, decided to stay on NE side, exactly opposite of moon. Jon pointed to this one, but "discovered" it. He wasn't sure what this faint lil OC is. cosndering the lcoation and the bright star next to cluster, it was indeed M52. With thig mag 120x on dob, it kills the cluster beauty. Better in low mags.

Mu Cephi (New): Wanted to browse all Cephus objects on this night, so started with Mu Cephi. Jon has never seen this before. Perfect Garnet-Red star. More the mags, more red color i can see. Means in refractor with 40x shows it as red-orangish star, while dob @ 120x shows it as big dark-red orangish star. Indeed an impressive object considering its history.

Iota Cassiopeia (New): don't remember too many details. Jon pointed to it. I remember watching two bright white stars very close to each other. I even tried the refractor, just don't remember what i saw.

At 9:30pm, Jon decided to take a nap for a while till moon sets. I continued..

NGC6939 OC - NGC 6946 Galaxy (New): OC in Cephus, while galaxy in Cygnus at the border. Indeed seemed like salt paper cluster. Individual stars are not that bright. but cluster seems to be rich, like small scale M46. CN small wonders also mentioned abt the galaxy 6946 near cephus-cygnus boundary but din't see it... again must have washed by moonlite.

Revisited this object again late night ~2am. Excellent cluster. In 28mm UWAN ~65x, can fit both cluser and galaxy in same view.. Galxy is indeed faint.. but definitely bigger in size.

M31-32-110: To test the moon effect on galaxies, pointed the refractor to M31. Not a great image.. Infact M32 and M110 wasn't that obvious either. So decided to give up on all fuzzies as well as tiny little objects till moon sets.

Alberio: Color of the pair seemed okay.. orange and bluish-white.

Double Double: Wasn't able to split individual pairs that clearly with 65x.

M103: Don't remember the shape. Clearly visible in the finder itself.

Continued..

Friday Night with Oreo Cookies - II

Continued..

Blinking PN 6826: There is huge difference betn this one and M57. Compared to their sizes, this one is really really tiny. probably its 1/5th the size of ring. Easy to locate. I think i saw it @ 50x. As I bumped up the mag to 87x with 16T2, the blinking star inside the PN was sort of visible.. More the mags, the blinking effect just went away and bright white star in the bluish disk stays nicely. Unlike M57, this disk is not donut shaped.. the disk is complete, no hole, and the star is perfect white. The blue color depth keeps on reducing from edge to center, probably because of the existence of the star. the more you look at the star more brighter it seems. Blinking PN was masterpiece of the night.

M39 (New): Naked eye object. Thru binocs or lowest mag shows the stars in pyramid/triangle shape. Whole triangle is filled up with stars. Its indeed beautiful.

M29: While hunting for Crescent Nebula, browsed thru this one. Its a small open cluster. Not that impressive for an open cluster..around 15 stars. It shows sort of butterfly shape or outwards curved H. Because of the shape definitely stands out in the view.

Crescent Nebula (New): This is indeed a hard object. In 28mm @ 50x or at higher magnification also, nothing is visible in direct sight. If looked carefully at correct location, then with 50x, i can see the typical curved fuzziness, but still really really faint. After adding the filter, nebula shows up.. With 16T2 @ 87x, it indeed shows the typical Epsilon E-C shape. It fills up around 25% of the eyepiece in center. It is indeed fainter than veil pickering part. Jon wasn't even able to find it. But i got it luckily and then figured out the exact location from M29 and deneb. Should be able to find it next time.

Helix Nebula: Just wanted to take a look thru bigger aperture. Din't make much difference. Filter helps to brighten it up, but then it still din't show any details in the helix. Interesting thing to note is, I can see 4 bright stars inside/on the helix. Some of them seem to be behind the helix too. Being closet PN, probably should highly magnify it to see the details.

Scl GC 288 + Sculptor Gal 253: Both of them are easy catch. Can't fit them in same view @50x with UWAN 82deg, but they are close.. probably in the same view in Ethos 100deg may be possible. The GC is resolvable @ 87x in 16T2, seemed like yellow stars sprinkled on bluish cluster disk. the galaxy is also huge.. it feels up 80% of the 16T2 eyepiece. being sort of edge on, seemed pretty thick too. I felt like i saw some mottling or vertical line/gap on the left side of the galaxy, lil bit like M82 ?? TBD.

Sculptor Dwarf Gal: Failed. The skymap shows it pretty huge object... and so i tried to look for it..Fought for it but didn't find it. Jon also tried it but failed.. when we checked the details of the object, the description indeed shows huge size, but surface brightness is +17.0 magnitude. Completely useless. Need bigger aperture or is it just a photographic object?

MCG -06-03-015 Sculptor Dwarf, Constellation: Sculptor, Dimension: 40.0'x 31.0', Magnitude: 10.50, Surface Brightness: 17.10, Description: vvL,eeF,lE ESO 351-G030,Member of Local Group,large and dim


M34: Tired..so revisiting something. Messed up the location. Picked up wrong stars in perseus and andromeda to look for it. It indeed seems like bouquet or probably diwali cracker - zaad.

M52: Hunt for bubble in Cassiopeia starts with M52 cluster.. because of the filter, cluster is dim, but still the bright star, at the edge of the cluster, seems prominent. With 87x, this one seems interesting. dint try high mags without filter.

Bubble nebula: failed. After the inspiration from Crescent nebula, tried for bubble nebula. Jon mentioned to use H-beta filter on this. He also said that he has tried for it a lot but failed. Indeed hard object. Wasn't even sure how its supposed to look like or how faint it is..

M31-M32-M110: Quick browse thru refractor.. M32 and M110 are indeed tiny with 14x 35mm panoptic.

Pleiades M45: All bluish stars..no fuzziness. Didn't fit in the same view of Pan 14x.

Cygnus PN 7048 (Failed) 7026 (New): Initially we started looking for 7048. It was indeed hard to locate. Later I realized that in cloudy nights article i read abt 7026 and not 7048.. So we switched to 7026. Jon found 7026 quickly. Next to Cyg 63. This one exactly looks that 6441 GC next to G scorpi star. Really close to the bright star. Indeed big, all white in color. Considering the location of 7026, I should be able to locate it next time. 7048 seems to be lil bit tough object and indeed lil bit difficult to locate. Not sure if its worth observing.

Planetary Nebula NGC 7026, Constellation: Cygnus, Dimension: 0.4'x 0.2', Magnitude: 12.00, Surface Brightness: 8.50, Description: pB,biN
Planetary Nebula NGC 7048, Constellation: Cygnus, Dimension: 1.0'x 0.8', Magnitude: 11.00, Surface Brightness: 12.20, Description: pF,pL,dif,iR,vlbM

The whole confusion betn 7048 and 7026 happened because my pocket sky atlas maps 7048 but doesn't even show 7026, though 7026 seems brighter than 7048. I think surface brightness makes a huge difference and pocket atlas should have considered it in the mapping. Same thing also applies for Scultor dwarf. The skymap shows it to be a huge object, but otherwise it was really hard to see visually because of lower surface brightness.

Milkyway Alignment: Over the last 3 months i have seen how milky way moves around the northen celestial pole..e.g. how the milky way in saggitarus rotates much faster than the one in cygnus or much less rotation in cassiopeia, but again much wider angled rotation in Orion. Obviously southern parts are gonna move-rotate much faster and wider as compared to northern objects, but the interesting part here is that..because milkyway is a single line or disk, it moves around and shows the real alignment. All the arms and dust lanes shows the disk rotating precisely.. So is it actually rotating around galactic north star? Where is the galactic north pole ?? Probably 23N of north pole..not sure TBD. Milkyway must be rotating around it. Need to see the relationship betn celestial pole (earth), Ecliptic pole (solar system alignment), galactic pole (milkyway alignment)

Getting Into The Rhythm - II

Continued..

Andromeda/Pegasus browsing:
M31 Andromeda: M31-M32-M110 fits in edge-to-edge in GSO 30mm superview eyepiece in my dob (40x). The EP itself gives the feeling of dust lane in Andromeda. In Jon's 16.5" with 22T4 54x, Andromeda seems brighter. M110 is definitely bigger and elongated than M32..probably lil fainter though.

M33 Triangulum: Always forget the location. My 9x15 finder shows this one. In 17T4 70x, its fainter. Seemed circular.. Can't see any spiral structure. In Jon's 16.5", 22T4 54x, seems brighter and shape is visible..but missed lot of details.. need to watch carefully next time. TBD

Blue snowball 7662: Easy catch, if you know where to look at. really tiny, but bright. Bluish. which one is bigger Saturn PN in Capri or snowball in Andromeda. I think Saturn PN. TBD.

7331 Edge-on Gal: Was Lil tricky to find it.. I know where to look at, but in 30mm, 40x, its hard to find. The edge on shape shows clearly in 17T4, 70x. Definitely bright, but tiny edge on. If 7331 is so hard to locate and see.. then forget abt Stephan's quintet.. read more on magnitude and size differences. TBD

Little Dumbbell M76: Visited after an year.. little dumbbell is really little. Hard to see any dumbbell shape.. but increasing the magnification indeed helps.. brightness is not deemed.

After this had lil bit of bino and naked eye browsing.. trying to get a perspective on milky way.. how things are aligned wr.t perseus, cassiopea, cygnus, saggi etc. Are Cassi-Perseus in different arm than Cyg+ -Saggi. Lot of Nebs are aligned here.

Double cluster: Nice view in 30mm 40x.

M34 OC: Easy to catch. but just don't remember the shape. very less number of bright stars..

M52 OC: May be lil difficult to catch, because it doesn't have anything prominent..but the lil concentrated stars make it probably easier to find it. Definitely small. apart from faint star concentration, ony one bright star at the edge.. not sure if is the field star or actual cluster star.

M103 OC: Does it have the shape of flower bouquet.. dont remember much. probably around 10-15 bright stars to make that shape.

Hercules Browsing:
M13 GC: simply wow..and really huge in 17T4 nagler 70x. It probably fills up the 60-70% of eyepiece.

Gal next to M13: Indeed faint, but visible in my scope in 17T4 70x. Seemed elongated.. In Jon's scope it was definitely brighter and you can miss it. while observing this galaxy, i realized that to take the full advantage of the Nagler view, i need to take out my glasses. I was voiding it tok eep the visin at 20-20, so Jon and I can watch everything at same time..but becasue of that i was loosing lot of details on the object also. Infact initially i missed this galaxy also, but once i took out the glasses I realized how bright it was as comared to my scope.. surprisingly, removing glasses made a huge difference.

Hercules PN 6210: Remembered this one from 6 moths back and asked Jon to point to it..Its interesting to see how Jon remembers the location so smoothly. Again really really tiny little but bright PN.. Can confuse it with a blue star at lower mags. dont remeber any other details.

Continued..

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..