Date: Oct 9th, 2010 Saturday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. No clouds.. Seeing was okay, not the best. 6/10.
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon
Highlight of the night: Detecting movement of Comet 103P/Hartley2 in Perseus, Locating Neptune, NGCs in southern sky, and locating very tiny Blue Flash Nebula.
Comet 103P/Hartley2 - It was fun observing Hartley2 during 5 hrs period.
~8pm: It was above Eta Persei (Miram).. probably 0.4 deg NW it.
~11pm: It was just SW of Eta. Infact becasue of the star brightness, had hard time locating it in binocs also.. It means it traveled that much within 3 hrs.
~11:30pm: It has moved lil more.
~:1145: you can see the location has changed relative to the start.
Apart from earth bound satellites, I have never seen any object moving that fast during one observation. Its indeed impressive
Overall, it was bright and you can clearly see the fuzziness. Again, its not as bright either. People are saying it will become naked eye object, but currently, its even harder to see it in binocs from San Diego as well. Lets see how it goes.
Helix Nebula: Jon showed the precise location of Helix again. Fomalhaut => North => Aqr C1-89-C2 => North => Delta Aqr pair => Jump West 3:30'clk => g Aqr pair => West => Upsilon Aqr. Near by this star is Helix located. Quick hunting in binocs, compared the brightness with comet and helix seemed similar or lil brighter. In 17T4, big, bright probabaly filled up 25% of the eyepiece at the center. Can see 5 stars within helix. 3 on one side in triangle format, one at the center and one on the opposite end. After looking at hubble picture, this view seemed miserable because you can not really see any details in it.
Jupiter: Visited multiple times during the night. Seeing never improved.
~ 7:30pm: 10" dob shows one of the moons, Calisto, close to NE corner (bottom-left) of the Jupiter disk. Not much details on the disk.
~ 9:30pm: Later Jon's 16" scope showed lot of details on the disk. NEB, NP, SEB, SSTB and SP visible. The Great red spot was visible in SEB on Western side (upper-right corner of the disk). GRS wasn't really poping out, but still visible.
~ 11pm: Jupiter moon Calisto moved towards East and just below the N pole of jupiter disk. Disk and Calisto separated by very slight margin. GRS seemed to be at opposite location i.e. upper-left corner. So is GRS and moon moving in opposite directions ?? Implies that Calisto was in the orbit behind Jupiter ... nice :-)
Uranus: Close to Jupiter, sort of blue-green color visible. Seeing was too bad to see the satellite moon of Uranus.
Neptune: Being in Capricorn, very close to a bright star Mu Capri, very easy to locate. Compared to other stars, you can see the disk (white color). Can see it from binocs as well, but seemed like yet another star in binocs.
Had nice binocs browsing session with Jon. Jon wanted to compare my 10x50 with his 10x50 and 10x42 binocs. My 10x50 binocs definitely has bigger field of view. For brightness, wasn;t able to compare much. Jon didn't say anything either. Somehow i feel this binocs is indeed good to have.. (from olympic NP experience as well, when compared with Shardul's and Adwait's binocs)
M8 and M20: M8 visible in binocs and probably a open cluster around it.. M20 doesnt seem to be a reasonable object in binocs. Jon also wasn't sure..
M24: Star cluster above M8 also visible.
M17 Swan: can see the fuzziness in binocs.
M7-M6: butter fly and Potlemy shows bright views in binocs.
M22-28: Bigger brighter, while M28 is compact, still bright.. both can fit in the same view. Observed M22 in 16" scope and compared it with M55 and M13 GCs as well. Mentioned below.
M25: Open cluster, at the end of inverted comma, above M22, visible nicely in binocs.
M55: Sigma-Tau Saggi, upper two stars of the Tea-Pot handle points to M55. Seemed similar to M22, may be fainter.
M22-M55-M13 Comparison: Observed all three in Jon's 16" scope ~100x and my 10 dob ~71x with 17T4.
In 10" scope, M13 core seem fabulous, the longer you look at it, more stars will be resolved at the core. M55 in my 10" shows the core iwth few stars resolved.. it also shows a bright star just outside the GC, probabaly not even a part of GC.. Interesting thing is, if we focus on the bright star and see the core at an angle of an eye, then M55 core gets resolved with more stars..more stars pop at the core.. impressive.. didnt see M22 from 10"...
Jon's 16" scope @ ~170x/200x shows massive and awesome view of M13.. core is well resolved with yellow bright stars.. M55 seemed lil dull after viewing M13. Can resolve those bright stars at the core and they didnt seem that impressive. M22 was resolved fully and showed more brighter stars than M55, but lesser than M13. It also seemed more brighter than M55.
Deer Lick with 7331: In Jon's 16" scope 7331 ~100x looks bright, edge on, can see angled top surface. 7331 shows three companions on top. All three in right-angle format. I can see two of them clearly. The top one 7340 and base one 7335, just above the center of the big 7331 disk. third one 7337 just above the corner of the 7331 disk, its aligned with three bright stars and in betn bottom stars, but closer to the middle star. third one seems to be way fainter and lil hard to even see it. Probably because of not-so-excellent seeing, we were having hard time.
In my 10" dob, 7331 was again easy to locate. In 17T4 @ 71x, it shows up like tiny bright needle. Didn't even bother for high magnification to catch satellite galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet: Jon pointed to this one as well. It was like you are looking into some dark view with stars. When i get adapted with the view, then i can sort of see two faint fuzzies in the middle. These two fuzzies seemed fainter than deer look satellites. (Mag shows that stephans are brighter) Indeed hard to see them. Never saw others. Quintet was a doublet to me. Observing, infact locating, these in 10" must be super hard.
Continued...
Showing posts with label Her GC M13. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Her GC M13. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Towards Messier Finishing.. II
..
Ophiuchus GCs.. Various NGCs nearby Messiers
M10 - M12
M107
M14
M9-M19-M62
6355-6293
M13-NGC 6207 galaxy
Double cluster
M92
M92-NGC6229
PN nearby 6210
Ophiuchus GCs.. Various NGCs nearby Messiers
M10 - M12
M107
M14
M9-M19-M62
6355-6293
M13-NGC 6207 galaxy
Double cluster
M92
M92-NGC6229
PN nearby 6210
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Fuzzies Everywhere - IV
Continued..
Continuing the galaxy hunt, switched to Coma.
Coma 4565 Triplet: Easy catch. this one is comparable to 2903 in leo.. but 4565 seems bigger than it. The elliptical 4494 and irregular gal 4559 companions are in the vicinity.. saw both. The elliptical is lil difficult to locate.
M53 GC: I wanted to look at M64 Black eye galaxy, so to confirm switched to Alpha Com and saw M53.. bright-bluish very rich GC.
M64 Black Eye Galaxy: (New): Dont even remember when i watched this one last time. with 17T4 @70x looks definitely nice in my scope. the dark pattern just below the bright core is somewhat visible. with Jon's scope, its clearly visible. Need to try higher mags on this one.
M13: Naked eye.. Thru the scope, can resolve lot of stars outside the core. looks nice.
M80 (New) GC: Never looked at it before.. tiny, compact but seems densely packed. Can somewhat make it in the finder. Looks impressive from both 10 and 16" scopes.
M4 : Big brother of M80.. but after watching M80, this one seems little loose in star packing. Not sure if its the distance-magnification or really physical. Need to read more ??
M57 Ring: bluish disk.. very impressive in Jon's scope. 2" star visible.. din't try higher mags.
Saggi browsing thru M7, M6, M8 Lagoon, M20 Triffid. Lagoon dark lane and ngc cluster clearly visible. Triffid way smaller than lagoon, dark lanes sort of visible to make distinct shape. 17T4 @ 70x.
Open cluster M23: In direct line of M8 and M20. Indeed rich.
M16 Eagle nebula and then M17 Swan Nebula. Swan and background stars look beautiful through nagler 17T4. For eagle nebula, still can't see the nebula clearly. Stars are clearly visible. probably can feel it lil bit, but not as expected..
M54 GC: Bluish.. tiny and very compact.. really close to horizon so didn't go into details. Also tried for M70..but way too low..
Alberio: At the end, quick look at Alberio.. again orange-bluish pair looks marvelous with all other stars in 17T4.
Continuing the galaxy hunt, switched to Coma.
Coma 4565 Triplet: Easy catch. this one is comparable to 2903 in leo.. but 4565 seems bigger than it. The elliptical 4494 and irregular gal 4559 companions are in the vicinity.. saw both. The elliptical is lil difficult to locate.
M53 GC: I wanted to look at M64 Black eye galaxy, so to confirm switched to Alpha Com and saw M53.. bright-bluish very rich GC.
M64 Black Eye Galaxy: (New): Dont even remember when i watched this one last time. with 17T4 @70x looks definitely nice in my scope. the dark pattern just below the bright core is somewhat visible. with Jon's scope, its clearly visible. Need to try higher mags on this one.
M13: Naked eye.. Thru the scope, can resolve lot of stars outside the core. looks nice.
M80 (New) GC: Never looked at it before.. tiny, compact but seems densely packed. Can somewhat make it in the finder. Looks impressive from both 10 and 16" scopes.
M4 : Big brother of M80.. but after watching M80, this one seems little loose in star packing. Not sure if its the distance-magnification or really physical. Need to read more ??
M57 Ring: bluish disk.. very impressive in Jon's scope. 2" star visible.. din't try higher mags.
Saggi browsing thru M7, M6, M8 Lagoon, M20 Triffid. Lagoon dark lane and ngc cluster clearly visible. Triffid way smaller than lagoon, dark lanes sort of visible to make distinct shape. 17T4 @ 70x.
Open cluster M23: In direct line of M8 and M20. Indeed rich.
M16 Eagle nebula and then M17 Swan Nebula. Swan and background stars look beautiful through nagler 17T4. For eagle nebula, still can't see the nebula clearly. Stars are clearly visible. probably can feel it lil bit, but not as expected..
M54 GC: Bluish.. tiny and very compact.. really close to horizon so didn't go into details. Also tried for M70..but way too low..
Alberio: At the end, quick look at Alberio.. again orange-bluish pair looks marvelous with all other stars in 17T4.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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
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..
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
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..
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..
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Co-hosting 22" SDAA Observatory. II
Date: April 18th 2009, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 2:00pm (7 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Weather is okay.. Transparency is good, but seeing is not good..
Instruments: SDAA Lipp Observatory 22" RC, f/7 (FL: ~4000mm),
Nagler 31T2 EP, 20T5 EP
31T2 => 129x
20T5 => 200x
Buddies: Jim and public.
Volunteered to co-host SDAA public star party with the observatory scope. First time, handled such a huge scope, on EQ fork mount. In the beginning had hard time due to huge mount, new type of mount, poor alignment and awkward finder. But After few hours got confotable with telerad-31T2 EP and normal star-hopping..
7pm: Some admin stuff to open observatory. Tried to align on Sirius. Didn't collimate (??)
M46 OC: Pretty nice. pinpoint stars. bright.. PN was also bright, blue in color. The middle star is visible and bright. not sure if the star is part of cluster or PN.
Orion 73 cluster (New): OC in orion, with asterism in shape of 73, but each digit inverted L-R.
Saturn: Bright. 4 moons visible. titan + 1 on left and other two on right. Other two were really close. rings and shadow of ring visible. higher mags didn't help. seeing was bad .. visited saturn 3-4 times throughout the night, but seeing never improved.
M97 Owl: Failed. digital setting circles not setup correctly.. too frustrating..
M81-82: Initially Failed. I was replying again on encoders. After few attempts, somebody (Pete) helped to point it. Can not fit both in same view.. was worried to move it because i may loose it again :).. The mottling on M81 clearly visible.. also vertical dark lane was visible. M82 was bright, but no details.
M51 whirlpool: Jim pointed to this one.. Spiral structure clearly visible. Bright spots inside M51 visible clearly. Probably thats what i saw other night with Jon. People were saying with averted vision connection betn both galaxies visible.
4965 Gal in Coma (New): Marvelous. Way better than M104, How the hell Messier missed it.. Huge, filled up complete eyepiece view. bigger than m104, edge-on, dust lane clearly visible and its thick.. core wasn't that bright.. the object was so impressive that i wasn;t sure if its really the object or the scope.. whatever.. unforgettable view.
M84 + Markarains Chain: all galaxies were huge..and chain clearly visible.. again lil skeptical of moving the scope, but shows so many galaxies in the view.. clearly 5 visible in the same view. Tried to realign encoders. Revisited again at the end of the session. See details below..
For re-alignment, moved to Arcturus. just too bright in this scope. Because of the brightness, hard to see where is the center of the view, so not a good star for realignment. Tried M51 again after realignment. DEC encoder is setup correctly, but RA is still off. but with DEC inline still helps to get the object in view, by moving thru RA.
A recticle-crosshair eyepiece is better/perfect way to get object in center. also whats the point in aligning on a DSO, considering its size ??
Eskimo nebula in Gem (New): Jim pointed to this one. Marvelous view. perfect round shape. outer disk is brighter, inner part is darker. no hint of star. probably same size as M57 (??)
After this, the scope was solely operated by me. Decided to just starhop with telerad. Perfect star hopping and very little help from the encoders. Overall reminded me how helpful it is to observe with Jon.
M104 Sombrero: Really nice view. better than Jon's 16.5" scope. magnification also adds up. still smaller than 4965 Coma galaxy.
M13 GC: Wow.. masterpiece.. All outskirt stars resolved. also, few stars at the core resolved. 20T5 EP also helps. Jim tried meade 14mm UWA, but stars weren't pinpoint.. both seeing as well as "meade-vs-nagler" to blame.
M92 GC: sort of naked eye. This one looks like "M13 in my 10" scope" :).. looks amazingly impressive. Almost all stars outskirts resolved and few at the core. This 22" scope makes every object beautiful :)
PN in Hercules: Easy Starhop after yesterday's session with Jon. Bright blue color disk.
Gal next to M13 (New): Yesterday Jon showed me this one, and today while pointing towards M13, I saw this. Tiny little fuzzy.
M65-M66-3628:
Corvus PN: Looks like a galaxy rather than PN. no bluish color, so easy to confuse with galaxy. bright star at the enter.. just too bright, looks like tiny core of the galaxy. Never seen like this before.
Corvus Antenna Galaxies: Awesome view. both galaxies clearly visible, but antennas not visible.. seeing matters. Still "merging" of two galaxies clearly visible.
Ghost of Jupiter: bright bluish disk. both disk and inside ring visible. middle star clearly visible. 20mm same image.. tried 14mm meade UWA EP, but extension tube trouble. wanted to try filter also, but skipped it.
M83 seashell: Easy catch. Huge object.Observed it yesterday for first time and already star-hopped to it today :). Bright core..
Omega Centauri GC: Little low on horizon. Ladder requirement. almost resolves every star. fills up ~40% of 31T2.
Centaurus A Gal (New): Easy catch. Perfect starhop (??). Was lil skeptical to observe something new on this huge scope without finder, but starhop was easy to catch this one. Bright, the middle dark lane is huge.. its like 3 or 4 times the size of 4965 galxy dust lane. Its perfect "hamburger" shape. both sides (buns) are bright. but consdering the size of dust lane, whole galaxy is not that huge. Need to read more abt this one (??)
Leo 2903 Gal: Perfect Edge-on easy catch. Don't remember much.
Leo Gama Gal doublets: Gamma was hard to split in 129x. surprising. bad seeing? Galaxies visible nicely. Again too small as comapred to any other galaxies i saw tonight. also i am impressed that my 10" scope shows this one clearly.
Leo 3521 Gal (New): Lil bit difficult star hop. Info says "spiral galaxy", but hard to see clearly.. surely face on.. probably same size as antenna galaxies.
M57 Ring Nebula: Apperture helps. huge ring. blue color discernible. middle star not visible..surprised..
M53: Failed: Picked up wrong Alpha coma star, also somehow encoders pointed it somewhere else..
Coma/Virgo Galactic cluster: spent more than 30mins in Coma and upper Virgo galactic cluster.
M98-M99
Markarains Chain with M88-M91
4371
M87--4478
M89
Overall, though started lil slow and with nervousness, finished with complete enthusiasm. till 2am I was going on-and-on without any food :)..
Marvelous experience because of:
- Able to handle such a Huge scope first time
- Handling new type EQ fork mount compared to my dob mount.
- Every object looks beautiful in this aperture. Was completely overwhelmed.
- Survived smoothly at the end, though started under huge peer pressure :)
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 2:00pm (7 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Weather is okay.. Transparency is good, but seeing is not good..
Instruments: SDAA Lipp Observatory 22" RC, f/7 (FL: ~4000mm),
Nagler 31T2 EP, 20T5 EP
31T2 => 129x
20T5 => 200x
Buddies: Jim and public.
Volunteered to co-host SDAA public star party with the observatory scope. First time, handled such a huge scope, on EQ fork mount. In the beginning had hard time due to huge mount, new type of mount, poor alignment and awkward finder. But After few hours got confotable with telerad-31T2 EP and normal star-hopping..
7pm: Some admin stuff to open observatory. Tried to align on Sirius. Didn't collimate (??)
M46 OC: Pretty nice. pinpoint stars. bright.. PN was also bright, blue in color. The middle star is visible and bright. not sure if the star is part of cluster or PN.
Orion 73 cluster (New): OC in orion, with asterism in shape of 73, but each digit inverted L-R.
Saturn: Bright. 4 moons visible. titan + 1 on left and other two on right. Other two were really close. rings and shadow of ring visible. higher mags didn't help. seeing was bad .. visited saturn 3-4 times throughout the night, but seeing never improved.
M97 Owl: Failed. digital setting circles not setup correctly.. too frustrating..
M81-82: Initially Failed. I was replying again on encoders. After few attempts, somebody (Pete) helped to point it. Can not fit both in same view.. was worried to move it because i may loose it again :).. The mottling on M81 clearly visible.. also vertical dark lane was visible. M82 was bright, but no details.
M51 whirlpool: Jim pointed to this one.. Spiral structure clearly visible. Bright spots inside M51 visible clearly. Probably thats what i saw other night with Jon. People were saying with averted vision connection betn both galaxies visible.
4965 Gal in Coma (New): Marvelous. Way better than M104, How the hell Messier missed it.. Huge, filled up complete eyepiece view. bigger than m104, edge-on, dust lane clearly visible and its thick.. core wasn't that bright.. the object was so impressive that i wasn;t sure if its really the object or the scope.. whatever.. unforgettable view.
M84 + Markarains Chain: all galaxies were huge..and chain clearly visible.. again lil skeptical of moving the scope, but shows so many galaxies in the view.. clearly 5 visible in the same view. Tried to realign encoders. Revisited again at the end of the session. See details below..
For re-alignment, moved to Arcturus. just too bright in this scope. Because of the brightness, hard to see where is the center of the view, so not a good star for realignment. Tried M51 again after realignment. DEC encoder is setup correctly, but RA is still off. but with DEC inline still helps to get the object in view, by moving thru RA.
A recticle-crosshair eyepiece is better/perfect way to get object in center. also whats the point in aligning on a DSO, considering its size ??
Eskimo nebula in Gem (New): Jim pointed to this one. Marvelous view. perfect round shape. outer disk is brighter, inner part is darker. no hint of star. probably same size as M57 (??)
After this, the scope was solely operated by me. Decided to just starhop with telerad. Perfect star hopping and very little help from the encoders. Overall reminded me how helpful it is to observe with Jon.
M104 Sombrero: Really nice view. better than Jon's 16.5" scope. magnification also adds up. still smaller than 4965 Coma galaxy.
M13 GC: Wow.. masterpiece.. All outskirt stars resolved. also, few stars at the core resolved. 20T5 EP also helps. Jim tried meade 14mm UWA, but stars weren't pinpoint.. both seeing as well as "meade-vs-nagler" to blame.
M92 GC: sort of naked eye. This one looks like "M13 in my 10" scope" :).. looks amazingly impressive. Almost all stars outskirts resolved and few at the core. This 22" scope makes every object beautiful :)
PN in Hercules: Easy Starhop after yesterday's session with Jon. Bright blue color disk.
Gal next to M13 (New): Yesterday Jon showed me this one, and today while pointing towards M13, I saw this. Tiny little fuzzy.
M65-M66-3628:
Corvus PN: Looks like a galaxy rather than PN. no bluish color, so easy to confuse with galaxy. bright star at the enter.. just too bright, looks like tiny core of the galaxy. Never seen like this before.
Corvus Antenna Galaxies: Awesome view. both galaxies clearly visible, but antennas not visible.. seeing matters. Still "merging" of two galaxies clearly visible.
Ghost of Jupiter: bright bluish disk. both disk and inside ring visible. middle star clearly visible. 20mm same image.. tried 14mm meade UWA EP, but extension tube trouble. wanted to try filter also, but skipped it.
M83 seashell: Easy catch. Huge object.Observed it yesterday for first time and already star-hopped to it today :). Bright core..
Omega Centauri GC: Little low on horizon. Ladder requirement. almost resolves every star. fills up ~40% of 31T2.
Centaurus A Gal (New): Easy catch. Perfect starhop (??). Was lil skeptical to observe something new on this huge scope without finder, but starhop was easy to catch this one. Bright, the middle dark lane is huge.. its like 3 or 4 times the size of 4965 galxy dust lane. Its perfect "hamburger" shape. both sides (buns) are bright. but consdering the size of dust lane, whole galaxy is not that huge. Need to read more abt this one (??)
Leo 2903 Gal: Perfect Edge-on easy catch. Don't remember much.
Leo Gama Gal doublets: Gamma was hard to split in 129x. surprising. bad seeing? Galaxies visible nicely. Again too small as comapred to any other galaxies i saw tonight. also i am impressed that my 10" scope shows this one clearly.
Leo 3521 Gal (New): Lil bit difficult star hop. Info says "spiral galaxy", but hard to see clearly.. surely face on.. probably same size as antenna galaxies.
M57 Ring Nebula: Apperture helps. huge ring. blue color discernible. middle star not visible..surprised..
M53: Failed: Picked up wrong Alpha coma star, also somehow encoders pointed it somewhere else..
Coma/Virgo Galactic cluster: spent more than 30mins in Coma and upper Virgo galactic cluster.
M98-M99
Markarains Chain with M88-M91
4371
M87--4478
M89
Overall, though started lil slow and with nervousness, finished with complete enthusiasm. till 2am I was going on-and-on without any food :)..
Marvelous experience because of:
- Able to handle such a Huge scope first time
- Handling new type EQ fork mount compared to my dob mount.
- Every object looks beautiful in this aperture. Was completely overwhelmed.
- Survived smoothly at the end, though started under huge peer pressure :)
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday KC Dark Night - III
Continued..
Coma/Virgo browsing: Wanted to browse galaxies in Virgo and Coma. Started with Denebola and moved 6 Coma. Doing it for first time..
M98-M99-M100 chain (New):
M98: W of the 6coma. bright..
M99: SE of the 6coma. bright..
M100: Move way up..
From M98, Move down to 11 Coma star.
M85 (New): bright with faint NGC companions
Markarian's chain:
M84: Aligned with M99-M98 line.
NGC4388: Sort of edge-on + elliptical.
M86: Bright. Elliptical
The eyes - 4438-4435
NGC 4461-4473-4477:
Continue the chain for M88 and M91
In Jon's 16.5" scope, From Epsilon Virginis to Rho virgo. Either saw M60 or NGC4647 not sure.. Too many of them..Lost it.. wasn't sure if i saw siamise twins or not..
Once we removed UWAN from my scope, I din't want to look at virgo again without it :)
Tired of fuzzies so GC time..
Omega Centauri: perfected my location. light pollution. not great in resolving stars.. not crispy clear view.. Observed thru all 3 scopes including 120mm refractor..
M13 GC in Hercules: Few stars at core Resolvable at 76x.
M92 GC:definitely tiny as compared m13. Don't remember when i saw this one last time. with Jon's helps, perfected star hopping (??)
PN 6210 in Hercules (New): Tiny PN.. small scale ghost of jupiter.. bright blue color.. perfect star hopping (??).. nearby star group visible in finder..
M107 in Ophiuchus (New): Faint. similar to M92. Easy to star hop from the bright star of Oph (??)
M4: too close to horizon to see any details.. M80 near M4, Tried but didn't spend much time..
M53 Coma GC: Aplha star (??) and GC in almost same view. Visible in finder. Fought for nearby 5053 GC.. Hard to see in my scope. In Jon's scope.. its like really really faint.. instead of GC, seemed like an open cluster.. difference in M53-and this NGC is sort of similar to the difference between M46-47 fomr LP sky... bright star cluster vs almost invisible sparse star cluster.. Have to be really careful when we starhop.. there are indeed lot of faint objects from the dark location. Also, before hunting or objects, I should get a judgment on size and magnitude..
M104 Sombrero: Marvellous view.. Dark lane visible clearly.. Finder shows it too. In Jon's 16.5", looks much better.. bright and dark lane clearly visible.. the sombrero head structure with bright sphere is clearly visible..
M68 GC (New): Just next to the corvus star (?). Tried to find it from home, but was too difficult.. From dark place, hard to see in finder.. Both star and the GC are in the same 32mm view (38x).
Ghost of Jupiter: Bright blue disk.. higher mags didn't help on this to see any details.. Jon's 16.5" didn't help either.. I had better view of this from my home. Infact from Jon's home, have seen the middle bright star.. Here, seeing was probably getting worst.
M83 seashell Gal (New): Fun star hopping. showed the star hopping sequence to Jon :). Galaxy is really bright and huge.. clearly visible in refractor also just at 30x..
continued..
Coma/Virgo browsing: Wanted to browse galaxies in Virgo and Coma. Started with Denebola and moved 6 Coma. Doing it for first time..
M98-M99-M100 chain (New):
M98: W of the 6coma. bright..
M99: SE of the 6coma. bright..
M100: Move way up..
From M98, Move down to 11 Coma star.
M85 (New): bright with faint NGC companions
Markarian's chain:
M84: Aligned with M99-M98 line.
NGC4388: Sort of edge-on + elliptical.
M86: Bright. Elliptical
The eyes - 4438-4435
NGC 4461-4473-4477:
Continue the chain for M88 and M91
In Jon's 16.5" scope, From Epsilon Virginis to Rho virgo. Either saw M60 or NGC4647 not sure.. Too many of them..Lost it.. wasn't sure if i saw siamise twins or not..
Once we removed UWAN from my scope, I din't want to look at virgo again without it :)
Tired of fuzzies so GC time..
Omega Centauri: perfected my location. light pollution. not great in resolving stars.. not crispy clear view.. Observed thru all 3 scopes including 120mm refractor..
M13 GC in Hercules: Few stars at core Resolvable at 76x.
M92 GC:definitely tiny as compared m13. Don't remember when i saw this one last time. with Jon's helps, perfected star hopping (??)
PN 6210 in Hercules (New): Tiny PN.. small scale ghost of jupiter.. bright blue color.. perfect star hopping (??).. nearby star group visible in finder..
M107 in Ophiuchus (New): Faint. similar to M92. Easy to star hop from the bright star of Oph (??)
M4: too close to horizon to see any details.. M80 near M4, Tried but didn't spend much time..
M53 Coma GC: Aplha star (??) and GC in almost same view. Visible in finder. Fought for nearby 5053 GC.. Hard to see in my scope. In Jon's scope.. its like really really faint.. instead of GC, seemed like an open cluster.. difference in M53-and this NGC is sort of similar to the difference between M46-47 fomr LP sky... bright star cluster vs almost invisible sparse star cluster.. Have to be really careful when we starhop.. there are indeed lot of faint objects from the dark location. Also, before hunting or objects, I should get a judgment on size and magnitude..
M104 Sombrero: Marvellous view.. Dark lane visible clearly.. Finder shows it too. In Jon's 16.5", looks much better.. bright and dark lane clearly visible.. the sombrero head structure with bright sphere is clearly visible..
M68 GC (New): Just next to the corvus star (?). Tried to find it from home, but was too difficult.. From dark place, hard to see in finder.. Both star and the GC are in the same 32mm view (38x).
Ghost of Jupiter: Bright blue disk.. higher mags didn't help on this to see any details.. Jon's 16.5" didn't help either.. I had better view of this from my home. Infact from Jon's home, have seen the middle bright star.. Here, seeing was probably getting worst.
M83 seashell Gal (New): Fun star hopping. showed the star hopping sequence to Jon :). Galaxy is really bright and huge.. clearly visible in refractor also just at 30x..
continued..
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Messier Marathon - Part III
Continued..
Virgo-Coma Galactic Cluster: Jon showed me in 16.5' with 35mm Panoptic. Marvellous.. 9 galaxies in same view. 5 of them were pretty sharp. This is a galactic heaven. Don't know which objects I saw, but seemed like Markarain's chain. Wasn;t sure abt the location.
As per star atlas, started with epsilon virginis and must have gone towards M60-M59.. not sure.. tried to browse nearby.. but its easy to loose yourself easily in this galactic zoo. Star hopping in this area is real skill. Need to read more on this one. (TBD ??) .. but its unbelievable view. Can spend hours on this one.. and soon I will :)
In my 10', 42mm 30x view, looks good, but Jon let me borrow his 28mm UWAN with parracor. WOW !! no words !! The field of view 82deg rules ..keeps lot of galaxies in same view. with paracor, view was awesome.. but with parracor, every star is tack sharp. Also tried 22m Nagler.. Hssh !!
For rest of the night, i used Jon's 22m Nagler :) (50x) !!
- Ursa Major:
M81-M82 Bode's Nebulae: Easy catch, extending Alpha-Gamma line, towards pole. Bright pair, barely in 22mm. M81 vertical dust lane visible (??). In 16.5 impressive-bright view. Wish jon would have increased the mag.
- CVn:
M63 Sunflower: Bright and big, unexpectedly.
M51 whirlpool: Galaxy pair merge clearly visible. I guess because of nagler, they look so bright. Smaller than M63.
- Bootes:
M3 GC: Jon showed the location. Still tricky to find it. MArevellous globular.. bright-bluish. Probably can resolve some outer skirt stars with 22m.. high mag required.
- Coma:
M53 GC (New): Identifying Coma constellation was headache. but once found alpha, M53 is an easy catch. Beautiful GC. Smaller than M3.
M64 Black Eye (New): Yet another.. but easy to find.
Seems like i was too tired... just too many fuzzies for one night :) !!
- Ursa Major:
M108 - M97: Both M97 Owl nebula and M108 fits in same view. Nebula is brighter than galaxy. galaxy seems elliptical.
M109: Yet another fuzzy, don't remember much.
M40 (New): Its double rather than any fuzzy. Messier mistake.
M101: Lil tricky, may get confused because of NGCs nearby. but big & bright.. feels up whole eyepiece.. this seemed to be of unusual shape.
- CVn:
M94: Easy to catch with star atlas. Yet another galaxy.
M106 (New): Failed.. too tired.. thought that saw it thru binos, but that can not be..its too faint for binos.
- Hercules:
M13 GC: Sort of in clouds. Still got it. Way bigger than M3 also.. too bright..but wasn;t clear..seeing was just too bad..
TBDs:
- Are we/milkyway part of Virgo galactic cluster?
- Field stop of an eyepiece
- Barlowed laser collimator
- T CMa
- Nagler-Panoptic eyepieces on 10"
- Trapezoid E-F stars: Seeing is better in TDS than KC
Lot of fuzzies while browsing thru the sky. Impressive to see how many "things" are there in the sky.
Virgo-Coma Galactic Cluster: Jon showed me in 16.5' with 35mm Panoptic. Marvellous.. 9 galaxies in same view. 5 of them were pretty sharp. This is a galactic heaven. Don't know which objects I saw, but seemed like Markarain's chain. Wasn;t sure abt the location.
As per star atlas, started with epsilon virginis and must have gone towards M60-M59.. not sure.. tried to browse nearby.. but its easy to loose yourself easily in this galactic zoo. Star hopping in this area is real skill. Need to read more on this one. (TBD ??) .. but its unbelievable view. Can spend hours on this one.. and soon I will :)
In my 10', 42mm 30x view, looks good, but Jon let me borrow his 28mm UWAN with parracor. WOW !! no words !! The field of view 82deg rules ..keeps lot of galaxies in same view. with paracor, view was awesome.. but with parracor, every star is tack sharp. Also tried 22m Nagler.. Hssh !!
For rest of the night, i used Jon's 22m Nagler :) (50x) !!
- Ursa Major:
M81-M82 Bode's Nebulae: Easy catch, extending Alpha-Gamma line, towards pole. Bright pair, barely in 22mm. M81 vertical dust lane visible (??). In 16.5 impressive-bright view. Wish jon would have increased the mag.
- CVn:
M63 Sunflower: Bright and big, unexpectedly.
M51 whirlpool: Galaxy pair merge clearly visible. I guess because of nagler, they look so bright. Smaller than M63.
- Bootes:
M3 GC: Jon showed the location. Still tricky to find it. MArevellous globular.. bright-bluish. Probably can resolve some outer skirt stars with 22m.. high mag required.
- Coma:
M53 GC (New): Identifying Coma constellation was headache. but once found alpha, M53 is an easy catch. Beautiful GC. Smaller than M3.
M64 Black Eye (New): Yet another.. but easy to find.
Seems like i was too tired... just too many fuzzies for one night :) !!
- Ursa Major:
M108 - M97: Both M97 Owl nebula and M108 fits in same view. Nebula is brighter than galaxy. galaxy seems elliptical.
M109: Yet another fuzzy, don't remember much.
M40 (New): Its double rather than any fuzzy. Messier mistake.
M101: Lil tricky, may get confused because of NGCs nearby. but big & bright.. feels up whole eyepiece.. this seemed to be of unusual shape.
- CVn:
M94: Easy to catch with star atlas. Yet another galaxy.
M106 (New): Failed.. too tired.. thought that saw it thru binos, but that can not be..its too faint for binos.
- Hercules:
M13 GC: Sort of in clouds. Still got it. Way bigger than M3 also.. too bright..but wasn;t clear..seeing was just too bad..
TBDs:
- Are we/milkyway part of Virgo galactic cluster?
- Field stop of an eyepiece
- Barlowed laser collimator
- T CMa
- Nagler-Panoptic eyepieces on 10"
- Trapezoid E-F stars: Seeing is better in TDS than KC
Lot of fuzzies while browsing thru the sky. Impressive to see how many "things" are there in the sky.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Last light with Jon's 10" dob - Part I
Date: Oct 25th 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 12:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was okay..not great. improved after 11pm, probably because of marine layer on SD. Its getting really cold too..
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Greg (Advanced amateur astronomer)
Total: 26 objects, 1 Asteroid
New Objects: 10
Returning Jon's 10" dob this week, so went for last observing session from this dob. This dob indeed gave me new perspective in handling big aperture telescope and understanding night sky.
Venus: Too low on horizon, so everything was bit wavy...
M8 Lagoon & M17 Swan: Quick glance to these old objects :).. makes you feel good. Night wasn't that dark enough to see the dark rift in lagoon clearly. swan was impressive. Two stars parallel to neck are clearly visible.
M13: Hercules globular was impressive. it always makes me feel if I would have had more aperture. Showed it to the scout group.
M30: I have seen better views of M30.. with 9mm also it still wasn't crispy and clear.
Saturn Nebula NGC7009: Again not the crisp view.. but the bluish disk stands out well. wasn't that much trouble in tracking either.
M72: Tiny globular... can be vividly seen thru binocs. Quick glance thru the dob.
M73: The asterism triangle is beautiful. One of the object that still can't see thru binocs.
Helix Nebula NGC7293: faint big fuzzy... 135x also doesn't show any details inside..
Asteroid Vesta (New): I think I got it.. it seems like one of the Jupiter's moon in high magnification with lil bit out of focus.. brown yellowish in color. Tried on 22" observatory, but nobody helped or enthu there... more aperture helps here too.. I should ask Jon to catch it some time.
NGC 253: edge on spiral Galaxy in sculptor. Greg told me look at it.. and this is precisely the same galaxy which Jon had shown me before. I got it confused with sculptor dwarf.. indeed beautiful. it fills up almost 80% of my 32mm eyepiece (38x). More magnification indeed shows more in the galaxy. i felt there is some dark lane vertical within the galaxy. Galaxy runs in angular fashion to pair of star alignment.
NGC 258 (New): Really faint globular next to 253 and sort of next to south galactic pole.
Sculptor Dwarf: failed.. need to check mags. compare it with ngc253
M57 Ring Nebula: Not the greatest view again... but nice bluish disk and its 2" star in field of view.
Veil nebula: Thru 22" its fabulous, you can see the whole filament near cygni 52 star so well that it indeed shows that the dust is everywhere, but just a star next to it causes it to glow in nice shape.. the crisp clear image also gave me 3d perspective... i think magic of nagler and filters... thru my dob in 32mm without filter, it was like a faint white streak among background stars... still i saw all 3 components of the veil.
North American Nebula NGC7000, Pelican Nebula IC5067: Failed.. read more..
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 12:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was okay..not great. improved after 11pm, probably because of marine layer on SD. Its getting really cold too..
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Greg (Advanced amateur astronomer)
Total: 26 objects, 1 Asteroid
New Objects: 10
Returning Jon's 10" dob this week, so went for last observing session from this dob. This dob indeed gave me new perspective in handling big aperture telescope and understanding night sky.
Venus: Too low on horizon, so everything was bit wavy...
M8 Lagoon & M17 Swan: Quick glance to these old objects :).. makes you feel good. Night wasn't that dark enough to see the dark rift in lagoon clearly. swan was impressive. Two stars parallel to neck are clearly visible.
M13: Hercules globular was impressive. it always makes me feel if I would have had more aperture. Showed it to the scout group.
M30: I have seen better views of M30.. with 9mm also it still wasn't crispy and clear.
Saturn Nebula NGC7009: Again not the crisp view.. but the bluish disk stands out well. wasn't that much trouble in tracking either.
M72: Tiny globular... can be vividly seen thru binocs. Quick glance thru the dob.
M73: The asterism triangle is beautiful. One of the object that still can't see thru binocs.
Helix Nebula NGC7293: faint big fuzzy... 135x also doesn't show any details inside..
Asteroid Vesta (New): I think I got it.. it seems like one of the Jupiter's moon in high magnification with lil bit out of focus.. brown yellowish in color. Tried on 22" observatory, but nobody helped or enthu there... more aperture helps here too.. I should ask Jon to catch it some time.
NGC 253: edge on spiral Galaxy in sculptor. Greg told me look at it.. and this is precisely the same galaxy which Jon had shown me before. I got it confused with sculptor dwarf.. indeed beautiful. it fills up almost 80% of my 32mm eyepiece (38x). More magnification indeed shows more in the galaxy. i felt there is some dark lane vertical within the galaxy. Galaxy runs in angular fashion to pair of star alignment.
NGC 258 (New): Really faint globular next to 253 and sort of next to south galactic pole.
Sculptor Dwarf: failed.. need to check mags. compare it with ngc253
M57 Ring Nebula: Not the greatest view again... but nice bluish disk and its 2" star in field of view.
Veil nebula: Thru 22" its fabulous, you can see the whole filament near cygni 52 star so well that it indeed shows that the dust is everywhere, but just a star next to it causes it to glow in nice shape.. the crisp clear image also gave me 3d perspective... i think magic of nagler and filters... thru my dob in 32mm without filter, it was like a faint white streak among background stars... still i saw all 3 components of the veil.
North American Nebula NGC7000, Pelican Nebula IC5067: Failed.. read more..
Monday, September 1, 2008
DSO Marathon - Part II
M11 Wild duck cluster: visible naked eye. At 135x, bright tiny yellowish stars. High concentrations of stars for being a open cluster (??). Also didn't see any wild duck shape in there.
M26 & NGC 6712: (New): After M11, 6712 is just next to it. At 135x, tiny bluish GC. M26 was visible thru binocs, but hard to capture in telescope. Accidentally, I left 9mm eyepiece in the view and so not able to find anything. Didn't realize it till I moved to next object. Should have tried with lower mags.
NGC 6441: (New): Tiny globular just next to star G scorpi. (Map 58). Bluish & fainter.
M54: (New) Being a messier object, this GC is really tiny, still bigger than other NGC GCs. Notihng much to say. Just to tick-mark another messier object.
M69: (New): Quick glance to M69. Bigger than M54. Still was fainter as M54. Nothing impressive. Also Saggi was way too close to horizon, so probably I dind't find M54, M69 & 6441 that great.
So being tired, started talking with jon and he kindled my interest with tiny nice objects.
Blue Snowball Nebula: (New): Tiny planetary nebula located in Andromeda. Easy to locate as its next to a bright star. Its like mini M57 ring, but much strikingly bright compared to the size with M57 and that too without filter. The size is probably 1/5th of M57. The bluish color was impressive and better than M57. Tried with my 10” dob. So 38x view shows it, but its so tiny that high chances of interpreting it for blue star..
NGC 253 Galaxy: (New): Just know the location visually, wasn't able to confirm anything from the map. (??). binocular view brightness seemed like M33, but smaller in size. My dob, 38x view and then 76x view really shows the edge-on shape. Its not sculptor dwarf galaxy.
Green Nebula NGC 6572: (New): Tiny planetary nebula in ophiuchus (Map 65), Seemed like bluish in color than green in 12.5 dob. Hard to locate. Smaller than blue snowball nebula. Didn't try it in my dob.
Saturn Nebula: (New) Yellowish planetary nebula in capricorn. Easy to catch. Bigger than snowball nebula. Yellowish color is prominent. Ring and middle darkness visible at 76x. High mags killed it.
Ophiuchus OC browsing (New): Quick bino browsing. (Map 65) Star Beta Ophi → Gamma Ophi → 2 o'clk of Beta is IC 4665 OC → 9 o'clk of Gamma is Cr 350 OC → 2 o'clk of Beta around 6 deg are stars 71 & 72. → 10 o'clk of which is Green nebula 6572 → 11 o'clk of star 71 is OC 6673 and IC 4756 OC.
M72 (New): Tiny globular in capricon. Visble thru binoc. Similar to M54.
M73 (New): Messier mistaken object. Tiny tringular star alignment just next to M72.
M30 (New): Impressive GC. The shape is bizzare. Two parallel lines like H shape merging. Right side vertical line upper end has all stars of GC, like a lollypop :). not sure if the stars in H are part of GC (??) Considering star's H alignment, it seems like they are. Need to spend more time on this one next time (???)
M13: Easy catch with both bino and dob At 38x shows the rich filed of stars and outskirts stars resolvable.. Higher mags increases the beauty.
M92 (New): Fellow GC in Hercules. Easy catch with bino. This one is also impressive as M13 but lil bit smaller. M13 probably being closer seems bigger (or it really is). At 38x, hard to resolve any stars. At 76x, outskirt can be resolved easily.
UGC 10822: Tried to find this galaxy next to M92, but failed: Need to read more (??)
M31-M32-M110: At 38x, the dark lane is visible with averted vision. The core is so bright that it becomes hard to see the dark lane. But 38x indeed shows the bigger size of M31. Probably the dark lane width is bigger than M32 size. With averted vision, I imagined the length of dark lane to really long and nice curvature, than probably it is :-). Need to verify (??). M32 is really tiny fuzzy spot and smaller than M110, but still brighter than M110. Thru refractor, lower mags ~30x & wide-angle, shows the grandness of M31. M32 was almost invisible. But M110 was clearly visible. Again, I think I saw the dark lane of M31.
NGC 404 Galaxy next to Mirach (New): The Beta Andromeda, Mirach, has a small companion galaxy NGC 404. Hard to see at 38x, At 76x, really faint. Fuzziness is also not clear. Seemed like lot of bright dots in concentrated area.
M33 Triangulum: Observed M33 in great detail. With high mags (76x, 150x), with averted vision, the upper arm extending to left is visible. Lower arm extending to right was also visible. Both of them really faint. Lower-right arm vanishes in the middle and ends with bright fuzzy region NGC (??) along with a bright star.
Perseus double cluster: Naked eye. At 38x, both OCs fit in the same view. Upper one seems bigger and wider, while lower is comparatively concentrated. Still, lower one seems to have more brighter stars than upper one.
Had some interesting non-duality discussions, flute session and hot tea break from Jon's wife Francis.
TBDs:
- Buy laser collimator asap
- UHC or OIII filter is must. Investigate on various brands
- Best of NGCs object study
M26 & NGC 6712: (New): After M11, 6712 is just next to it. At 135x, tiny bluish GC. M26 was visible thru binocs, but hard to capture in telescope. Accidentally, I left 9mm eyepiece in the view and so not able to find anything. Didn't realize it till I moved to next object. Should have tried with lower mags.
NGC 6441: (New): Tiny globular just next to star G scorpi. (Map 58). Bluish & fainter.
M54: (New) Being a messier object, this GC is really tiny, still bigger than other NGC GCs. Notihng much to say. Just to tick-mark another messier object.
M69: (New): Quick glance to M69. Bigger than M54. Still was fainter as M54. Nothing impressive. Also Saggi was way too close to horizon, so probably I dind't find M54, M69 & 6441 that great.
So being tired, started talking with jon and he kindled my interest with tiny nice objects.
Blue Snowball Nebula: (New): Tiny planetary nebula located in Andromeda. Easy to locate as its next to a bright star. Its like mini M57 ring, but much strikingly bright compared to the size with M57 and that too without filter. The size is probably 1/5th of M57. The bluish color was impressive and better than M57. Tried with my 10” dob. So 38x view shows it, but its so tiny that high chances of interpreting it for blue star..
NGC 253 Galaxy: (New): Just know the location visually, wasn't able to confirm anything from the map. (??). binocular view brightness seemed like M33, but smaller in size. My dob, 38x view and then 76x view really shows the edge-on shape. Its not sculptor dwarf galaxy.
Green Nebula NGC 6572: (New): Tiny planetary nebula in ophiuchus (Map 65), Seemed like bluish in color than green in 12.5 dob. Hard to locate. Smaller than blue snowball nebula. Didn't try it in my dob.
Saturn Nebula: (New) Yellowish planetary nebula in capricorn. Easy to catch. Bigger than snowball nebula. Yellowish color is prominent. Ring and middle darkness visible at 76x. High mags killed it.
Ophiuchus OC browsing (New): Quick bino browsing. (Map 65) Star Beta Ophi → Gamma Ophi → 2 o'clk of Beta is IC 4665 OC → 9 o'clk of Gamma is Cr 350 OC → 2 o'clk of Beta around 6 deg are stars 71 & 72. → 10 o'clk of which is Green nebula 6572 → 11 o'clk of star 71 is OC 6673 and IC 4756 OC.
M72 (New): Tiny globular in capricon. Visble thru binoc. Similar to M54.
M73 (New): Messier mistaken object. Tiny tringular star alignment just next to M72.
M30 (New): Impressive GC. The shape is bizzare. Two parallel lines like H shape merging. Right side vertical line upper end has all stars of GC, like a lollypop :). not sure if the stars in H are part of GC (??) Considering star's H alignment, it seems like they are. Need to spend more time on this one next time (???)
M13: Easy catch with both bino and dob At 38x shows the rich filed of stars and outskirts stars resolvable.. Higher mags increases the beauty.
M92 (New): Fellow GC in Hercules. Easy catch with bino. This one is also impressive as M13 but lil bit smaller. M13 probably being closer seems bigger (or it really is). At 38x, hard to resolve any stars. At 76x, outskirt can be resolved easily.
UGC 10822: Tried to find this galaxy next to M92, but failed: Need to read more (??)
M31-M32-M110: At 38x, the dark lane is visible with averted vision. The core is so bright that it becomes hard to see the dark lane. But 38x indeed shows the bigger size of M31. Probably the dark lane width is bigger than M32 size. With averted vision, I imagined the length of dark lane to really long and nice curvature, than probably it is :-). Need to verify (??). M32 is really tiny fuzzy spot and smaller than M110, but still brighter than M110. Thru refractor, lower mags ~30x & wide-angle, shows the grandness of M31. M32 was almost invisible. But M110 was clearly visible. Again, I think I saw the dark lane of M31.
NGC 404 Galaxy next to Mirach (New): The Beta Andromeda, Mirach, has a small companion galaxy NGC 404. Hard to see at 38x, At 76x, really faint. Fuzziness is also not clear. Seemed like lot of bright dots in concentrated area.
M33 Triangulum: Observed M33 in great detail. With high mags (76x, 150x), with averted vision, the upper arm extending to left is visible. Lower arm extending to right was also visible. Both of them really faint. Lower-right arm vanishes in the middle and ends with bright fuzzy region NGC (??) along with a bright star.
Perseus double cluster: Naked eye. At 38x, both OCs fit in the same view. Upper one seems bigger and wider, while lower is comparatively concentrated. Still, lower one seems to have more brighter stars than upper one.
Had some interesting non-duality discussions, flute session and hot tea break from Jon's wife Francis.
TBDs:
- Buy laser collimator asap
- UHC or OIII filter is must. Investigate on various brands
- Best of NGCs object study
Sunday, April 27, 2008
26th April 08 @ TDS
Date: 26th April 08, Saturday
Observation Time: 8pm to 11:30pm (3:30 hrs)
Location:
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.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
First Light @ TDS - 8th Sept 2007
Date: 8th Sept 2007, Saturday
Observation Time : 8pm to 11:30pm (3:30 hrs)
Location : TDS, CA
Seeing : Good (for me, "excellent")
Transparency : Good (for me, "excellent")
Cloud Cover : None
Instrument : My 6' dobsonian reflector Celestron StarHopper 6, Bob's 17.5' dobsonian reflector, 22' SDAA observatory telescope, My 10x50 Nikkon binocs.
Buddies : Ranga and SDAA president Bob for a while
Highlight of the night : M17 - Swan Nebula
TDS was an awesome experience. This is first time I took my 6' dob there. I have browsed the sky using the dob from home, but dark sky from TDS was a feast. It was the true "First Light" for my telescope.
Some mistakes on my side. Actually, I forgot to take the side fixers of the telescope. Means.. I wasn't able to hold on to a object through telescope for others to see.. It was somewhat a mess... but Ranga and me pulled it together really well.
Milky Way: Never seen before like this. Milky way cloud was amazing, flowing from Sagittarius , Cygnus to Cassiopeia. The milky fuzziness was so bright, that any one can mistake it for a normal cloud, but when scanned through my 10x50 binocs, I can see millions of stars in that milky cloud. I have seen pictures of these on my "binocular astronomy" book, or on APOD, but seeing by yourself is an ultimate satisfaction. Also tried to observe the dust lanes of milky way, but wasn't able to see it clearly. Need to study more on this one.
While explaining Ranga about deep sky objects in Sagittarius, we scanned through them with binoculars as well as my 6' telescope.
M7: The Ptolemey's open cluster M7 was visible with naked eye. Scan through 10x50. revealed hundreds of star distributed over 2 deg field. Lots of stars at the center and more widely distributed at outer fringes.
M6: The butterfly cluster can be barely made through naked eye, if you know where to look at, but caught easily through 10x50. M7 and M6 are around 7 deg apart. Both clusters can not be observed in the same eyepiece view as my binocs. Considering the number of stars and distribution of stars in M7, M6 is not that impressive. Not sure why it is called "butterfly".
M22: The Sagittarius cluster is a globular one. Really good through binoculars. It is around 3 deg apart from Sagi-Lambda. With my 6' dob, 32mm eyepiece and 2x barlow, under 80x magnification, it is an awesome view. I can resolve the outer fringe stars clearly. Tried to observe the colors, but all of them seemed to be almost same.. white mainly.. I thought that cluster is divided in 2 parts, 99% is one side. At 7' clock from the main one, has remaining stars like a small open cluster.
M25-23 open clusters and M24 star cloud: North of M22, around 8 deg, lies M25 open cluster. Its located nicely inside a shape of stars like a shell or a logarithmic curve is formed by these stars and M25 is at the center of it. The cluster is typical open cluster. I felt the stars to be yellowish.
Exact west of M25, around 5 deg apart, the star cloud M24 exists. I really don't understand what specific fuzzy object Messier saw here, but i can see the cloud like all other clouds, which are part of Milky way... the interesting part here is I can see the stars inside M24 arranged in an oval shaped heart.
Exact west, little bit towards north, you can see small open cluster of M23. Because of being small, its not as impressive as M25, but still M25-24-23 alignment is good to watch.
M17-Swan Nebula: when I watched M25-24-23 alignment thought binocs, I accidentally saw two fuzzy objects above M24. First one turned out to be M17 swan nebula, while other one to be M16 Eagle nebula.
M17 is like 2 or 3 degrees apart from M24 oval shape. I didn't really understand what it is from my binocs, but the moment my telescope hit on it, I was spellbound. I saw the "swan". The nebulous gas is indeed in the shape of a swan or looks like number "2" to me. I observed it in 80x, 100x and 200x magnifications. The 200x magnification was good, but lack of light/aperture didn't make it good enough, but 100x magnification made it excellent. I saw one star at the head of the swan and two stars aligned in the neck of the swan.
While talking with SDAA president Bob, he showed me the Swan through his 17.5' dobsonian. He explained me the use of OIII filter for nebulas. He showed me the contrast in Swan nebula through this filter. With the filter, the gaseous part of swan nebula was strikingly bright than any other field stars. I think I need to buy the OIII and UHC filter. Thanks Bob !!
Swan nebula was indeed a "holy" site for me :) and finding it through my 6' dob, was the achievement for the day.. to be literally correct,... the achievement for the "night" :) !!
(photo credit: from net somewhere.. this is how it looked from 6" dob, but in black-white)
M16 Eagle nebula: Being impressed by Swan, I moved the dob to Eagle nebula, but I didn't see any fuzziness in this area. I saw the shape of stars to be in the "wing" shape.. the arrangement was like the "marathi number 4"... or the way kids draw the bird in their picture of "nature"... the stars were indeed closer to each other forming this shape. ..but no fuzziness... need to read more about this object.
M8-Lagoon nebula: I have seen this in MTRP, but wasn't really sure if indeed it was Lagoon. From TDS, lagoon was excellent. It is divided in two parts by the "dark" lane. On the right/east side, I saw the open cluster NGC-6530 inside lagoon. On east side, we have two stars parallel to the cluster. At 10'clock position of these stars, we have second component of lagoon which is strikingly bright than the first part. Infact this second component was visible from MTRP. I should have had the OIII filter here. Lagoon through Bob's 17.5 dob was excellent. the dark lane is indeed really wide and you can see the two parts of lagoon so clearly. Because of OIII, the cluster on the first component wasn't that impressive.
M20-Triffid Nebula: I pointed the dob at the location, where M20 is supposed to be, but I wasn't able to see anything fuzzy. I got surprised and checked my location again. but still nothing impressive in my eyepiece. I compared the magnitudes of M20 with M8 and they are of same mag 5. but still nothing in eyepiece... but then i watched it carefully. and i saw really dim fuzziness around a star.. indeed it was there... Around 4' clock position of the central star, two stars form a line, which is exactly next to one of the dark lanes of Triffid. All other lanes were not that clear enough. I tried it with Bob's 17.5' dob, and triffid dark lanes popped immediately through OIII filter.
Overall, M20 fuzziness is not as bright as M8.. I need to verify the magnitudes of both and other people's observations of M20.
All these objects are part of Sagittarius and ...indeed.. Sagittarius is worth to spend plenty of time.
M31 Andromeda-M32-M110 Galaxy Triplet: I have watched Andromeda Galaxy - M31 from my home, but from TDS it was just beautiful. The core of the Galaxy is like bright cotton and the outside is like dispersed cotton. The outside bright haziness continues everywhere, mainly across the horizontal axis of the galaxy. The whole eyepiece was full of just this haziness. Wasn't able to resolve anything inside Andromeda.
Got a chance to watch Andromeda through Bob's 17.5' dob. Instead of going deep into Andromeda, he pointed me to Andromeda's satellite galaxies.. M32 and M110. M32 was around 1 deg apart due east. It looks like small globular cluster. compared to Andromeda, it is like 1/5th in size, circular in shape. M110 was 1 degree apart form Andromeda due north-west, It is almost parallel to Andromeda but I think it was on the edge view for us and indeed more elongated than Andromeda. Need to verify these things.
I tried the triplet again through my 6' dob, and indeed with lowest magnification of 38x, I was able to put all 3 of them in the same eyepiece view.
M33- Triangulum Galaxy: In my first attempt i wasn't able to locate Triangulum. Scanning through binocs also was a failure. But Ranga found it for us and kind of mentioned the location and i was able to see some fuzziness through my binocs. I pointed the dob towards it and i indeed saw the fuzziness, but i really didn't pay careful attention to this object. Later i spotted Pegasus constellation and confirmed the location of M33, and indeed the fuzziness which we saw before was Triangulum. This galaxy is the most distant naked eye object that can be seen from the earth. Need to watch it more carefully next time.
Perseus Double Cluster:
Visible Naked eye object. I think magnitude is same as M7 cluster. Individual cluster as such is really small, but both being together makes it naked eye object.
M57-Ring Nebula:
With OIII filter on Bob's 17.5' dob, it was a good sight. All other field stars were dim. but still the rng was somewhat fuzzy. Infact i felt it like a hazy blue-white color disk rather than a ring. Bob/Rick blamed the "seeing" conditions.
with my 6' dob, I caught M57 in first shot. Indeed it was awesome. I was barely able to make out the color, but ring was surely visible. but considering "seeing" conditionals, i think I had a better view on this one from MTRP than TDS.
M27-Dumbbell Nebula:
with my 6' dob, dumbbell was an easy catch, but it was just some haziness to me. Didn't see any dumbbell shape. Better luck next time.
M2 - Globular:
M2 was the only object I watched through 22' SDAA scope. It was beautiful. The core of M2 was strikingly bright. Was able to resolve most of the stars on the fringes of the cluster. All stars seem to be yellowish.. hmmm.. not sure why..
M13 - Hercules globular cluster:
It to a while to locate M13 through 6' dob. I think I attempted it at wrong time. It was located way high in the sky. Ranga also tried it, but didn't work. After my 3 attempts, I found it, but somehow it wasn't that impressive as compared to M22. I had really high hopes from M13 being it better than M22. I am not sure why it happened.
Infact overall I think whatever objects I saw in the the later half of the night, weren't much clearer. Probably "seeing" to blame to, but milky way cloud was still strikingly bright. so i really can not say that "seeing" was bad... hmmmm i think more experience and more observation times will answer it by itself !!
On the planets side,
Jupiter: It was the first one of the night to look at. 3 satellites, two being on the extreme end, while one being closer to it, was a nice view. Really clear sky conditions, pointed out the bands on the Jupiter clearly. I have seen them before, but not as bright as this one. They were brown and in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter, just above the equator.
Uranus: First time of my life, I watched Uranus through Bob's 17.5' dob. It was indeed a bluish disk. but somehow the image wasn't as clear. I tried to focus, but it didn't work. (Bad seeing??) Bob mentioned that he watched Uranus's moon the previous day, but we weren't able to see anything. He blamed for bad "seeing". I didn't know the precise location of Uranus, so haven't attempted it through my 6' dob.
TBD:
- Read more and observe Milky way dust lane
- Star colors in M7 through telescope.
- M6 called "butterfly" .. why ?
- M28 next to Saggi-Lambda.
- Read more about OIII and UHC filters and lists of objects to be viewed through the filter.
- M24 star cloud.. what is it ?
- M19 Eagle nebula... is it supposed to be fuzzy ?
- M8-M20 magnitudes and other people's observations.
- M33 careful observation for next time
- Uranus
- Wild duck cluster. Somebody was talking abt it really loud, during the star party. What/where it is ?
- M2 through my 6' dob.
Observation Time : 8pm to 11:30pm (3:30 hrs)
Location : TDS, CA
Seeing : Good (for me, "excellent")
Transparency : Good (for me, "excellent")
Cloud Cover : None
Instrument : My 6' dobsonian reflector Celestron StarHopper 6, Bob's 17.5' dobsonian reflector, 22' SDAA observatory telescope, My 10x50 Nikkon binocs.
Buddies : Ranga and SDAA president Bob for a while
Highlight of the night : M17 - Swan Nebula
TDS was an awesome experience. This is first time I took my 6' dob there. I have browsed the sky using the dob from home, but dark sky from TDS was a feast. It was the true "First Light" for my telescope.
Some mistakes on my side. Actually, I forgot to take the side fixers of the telescope. Means.. I wasn't able to hold on to a object through telescope for others to see.. It was somewhat a mess... but Ranga and me pulled it together really well.
Milky Way: Never seen before like this. Milky way cloud was amazing, flowing from Sagittarius , Cygnus to Cassiopeia. The milky fuzziness was so bright, that any one can mistake it for a normal cloud, but when scanned through my 10x50 binocs, I can see millions of stars in that milky cloud. I have seen pictures of these on my "binocular astronomy" book, or on APOD, but seeing by yourself is an ultimate satisfaction. Also tried to observe the dust lanes of milky way, but wasn't able to see it clearly. Need to study more on this one.
While explaining Ranga about deep sky objects in Sagittarius, we scanned through them with binoculars as well as my 6' telescope.
M7: The Ptolemey's open cluster M7 was visible with naked eye. Scan through 10x50. revealed hundreds of star distributed over 2 deg field. Lots of stars at the center and more widely distributed at outer fringes.
M6: The butterfly cluster can be barely made through naked eye, if you know where to look at, but caught easily through 10x50. M7 and M6 are around 7 deg apart. Both clusters can not be observed in the same eyepiece view as my binocs. Considering the number of stars and distribution of stars in M7, M6 is not that impressive. Not sure why it is called "butterfly".
M22: The Sagittarius cluster is a globular one. Really good through binoculars. It is around 3 deg apart from Sagi-Lambda. With my 6' dob, 32mm eyepiece and 2x barlow, under 80x magnification, it is an awesome view. I can resolve the outer fringe stars clearly. Tried to observe the colors, but all of them seemed to be almost same.. white mainly.. I thought that cluster is divided in 2 parts, 99% is one side. At 7' clock from the main one, has remaining stars like a small open cluster.
M25-23 open clusters and M24 star cloud: North of M22, around 8 deg, lies M25 open cluster. Its located nicely inside a shape of stars like a shell or a logarithmic curve is formed by these stars and M25 is at the center of it. The cluster is typical open cluster. I felt the stars to be yellowish.
Exact west of M25, around 5 deg apart, the star cloud M24 exists. I really don't understand what specific fuzzy object Messier saw here, but i can see the cloud like all other clouds, which are part of Milky way... the interesting part here is I can see the stars inside M24 arranged in an oval shaped heart.
Exact west, little bit towards north, you can see small open cluster of M23. Because of being small, its not as impressive as M25, but still M25-24-23 alignment is good to watch.
M17-Swan Nebula: when I watched M25-24-23 alignment thought binocs, I accidentally saw two fuzzy objects above M24. First one turned out to be M17 swan nebula, while other one to be M16 Eagle nebula.
M17 is like 2 or 3 degrees apart from M24 oval shape. I didn't really understand what it is from my binocs, but the moment my telescope hit on it, I was spellbound. I saw the "swan". The nebulous gas is indeed in the shape of a swan or looks like number "2" to me. I observed it in 80x, 100x and 200x magnifications. The 200x magnification was good, but lack of light/aperture didn't make it good enough, but 100x magnification made it excellent. I saw one star at the head of the swan and two stars aligned in the neck of the swan.
While talking with SDAA president Bob, he showed me the Swan through his 17.5' dobsonian. He explained me the use of OIII filter for nebulas. He showed me the contrast in Swan nebula through this filter. With the filter, the gaseous part of swan nebula was strikingly bright than any other field stars. I think I need to buy the OIII and UHC filter. Thanks Bob !!
Swan nebula was indeed a "holy" site for me :) and finding it through my 6' dob, was the achievement for the day.. to be literally correct,... the achievement for the "night" :) !!
(photo credit: from net somewhere.. this is how it looked from 6" dob, but in black-white)
M16 Eagle nebula: Being impressed by Swan, I moved the dob to Eagle nebula, but I didn't see any fuzziness in this area. I saw the shape of stars to be in the "wing" shape.. the arrangement was like the "marathi number 4"... or the way kids draw the bird in their picture of "nature"... the stars were indeed closer to each other forming this shape. ..but no fuzziness... need to read more about this object.
M8-Lagoon nebula: I have seen this in MTRP, but wasn't really sure if indeed it was Lagoon. From TDS, lagoon was excellent. It is divided in two parts by the "dark" lane. On the right/east side, I saw the open cluster NGC-6530 inside lagoon. On east side, we have two stars parallel to the cluster. At 10'clock position of these stars, we have second component of lagoon which is strikingly bright than the first part. Infact this second component was visible from MTRP. I should have had the OIII filter here. Lagoon through Bob's 17.5 dob was excellent. the dark lane is indeed really wide and you can see the two parts of lagoon so clearly. Because of OIII, the cluster on the first component wasn't that impressive.
M20-Triffid Nebula: I pointed the dob at the location, where M20 is supposed to be, but I wasn't able to see anything fuzzy. I got surprised and checked my location again. but still nothing impressive in my eyepiece. I compared the magnitudes of M20 with M8 and they are of same mag 5. but still nothing in eyepiece... but then i watched it carefully. and i saw really dim fuzziness around a star.. indeed it was there... Around 4' clock position of the central star, two stars form a line, which is exactly next to one of the dark lanes of Triffid. All other lanes were not that clear enough. I tried it with Bob's 17.5' dob, and triffid dark lanes popped immediately through OIII filter.
Overall, M20 fuzziness is not as bright as M8.. I need to verify the magnitudes of both and other people's observations of M20.
All these objects are part of Sagittarius and ...indeed.. Sagittarius is worth to spend plenty of time.
M31 Andromeda-M32-M110 Galaxy Triplet: I have watched Andromeda Galaxy - M31 from my home, but from TDS it was just beautiful. The core of the Galaxy is like bright cotton and the outside is like dispersed cotton. The outside bright haziness continues everywhere, mainly across the horizontal axis of the galaxy. The whole eyepiece was full of just this haziness. Wasn't able to resolve anything inside Andromeda.
Got a chance to watch Andromeda through Bob's 17.5' dob. Instead of going deep into Andromeda, he pointed me to Andromeda's satellite galaxies.. M32 and M110. M32 was around 1 deg apart due east. It looks like small globular cluster. compared to Andromeda, it is like 1/5th in size, circular in shape. M110 was 1 degree apart form Andromeda due north-west, It is almost parallel to Andromeda but I think it was on the edge view for us and indeed more elongated than Andromeda. Need to verify these things.
I tried the triplet again through my 6' dob, and indeed with lowest magnification of 38x, I was able to put all 3 of them in the same eyepiece view.
M33- Triangulum Galaxy: In my first attempt i wasn't able to locate Triangulum. Scanning through binocs also was a failure. But Ranga found it for us and kind of mentioned the location and i was able to see some fuzziness through my binocs. I pointed the dob towards it and i indeed saw the fuzziness, but i really didn't pay careful attention to this object. Later i spotted Pegasus constellation and confirmed the location of M33, and indeed the fuzziness which we saw before was Triangulum. This galaxy is the most distant naked eye object that can be seen from the earth. Need to watch it more carefully next time.
Perseus Double Cluster:
Visible Naked eye object. I think magnitude is same as M7 cluster. Individual cluster as such is really small, but both being together makes it naked eye object.
M57-Ring Nebula:
With OIII filter on Bob's 17.5' dob, it was a good sight. All other field stars were dim. but still the rng was somewhat fuzzy. Infact i felt it like a hazy blue-white color disk rather than a ring. Bob/Rick blamed the "seeing" conditions.
with my 6' dob, I caught M57 in first shot. Indeed it was awesome. I was barely able to make out the color, but ring was surely visible. but considering "seeing" conditionals, i think I had a better view on this one from MTRP than TDS.
M27-Dumbbell Nebula:
with my 6' dob, dumbbell was an easy catch, but it was just some haziness to me. Didn't see any dumbbell shape. Better luck next time.
M2 - Globular:
M2 was the only object I watched through 22' SDAA scope. It was beautiful. The core of M2 was strikingly bright. Was able to resolve most of the stars on the fringes of the cluster. All stars seem to be yellowish.. hmmm.. not sure why..
M13 - Hercules globular cluster:
It to a while to locate M13 through 6' dob. I think I attempted it at wrong time. It was located way high in the sky. Ranga also tried it, but didn't work. After my 3 attempts, I found it, but somehow it wasn't that impressive as compared to M22. I had really high hopes from M13 being it better than M22. I am not sure why it happened.
Infact overall I think whatever objects I saw in the the later half of the night, weren't much clearer. Probably "seeing" to blame to, but milky way cloud was still strikingly bright. so i really can not say that "seeing" was bad... hmmmm i think more experience and more observation times will answer it by itself !!
On the planets side,
Jupiter: It was the first one of the night to look at. 3 satellites, two being on the extreme end, while one being closer to it, was a nice view. Really clear sky conditions, pointed out the bands on the Jupiter clearly. I have seen them before, but not as bright as this one. They were brown and in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter, just above the equator.
Uranus: First time of my life, I watched Uranus through Bob's 17.5' dob. It was indeed a bluish disk. but somehow the image wasn't as clear. I tried to focus, but it didn't work. (Bad seeing??) Bob mentioned that he watched Uranus's moon the previous day, but we weren't able to see anything. He blamed for bad "seeing". I didn't know the precise location of Uranus, so haven't attempted it through my 6' dob.
TBD:
- Read more and observe Milky way dust lane
- Star colors in M7 through telescope.
- M6 called "butterfly" .. why ?
- M28 next to Saggi-Lambda.
- Read more about OIII and UHC filters and lists of objects to be viewed through the filter.
- M24 star cloud.. what is it ?
- M19 Eagle nebula... is it supposed to be fuzzy ?
- M8-M20 magnitudes and other people's observations.
- M33 careful observation for next time
- Uranus
- Wild duck cluster. Somebody was talking abt it really loud, during the star party. What/where it is ?
- M2 through my 6' dob.
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