Summer Kickoff - I

Date: July 4th, 2010 Sunday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1pm (5hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. no clouds.. lil wind in the beginning, but later calm.. so seeing improved..
Instruments: Jon's 16" dob, my 10" dob, NP101 APO.
Buddies: Jon

Venus - Observed thru APO. Image seemed blurrier.. also lot of green/violet color, considering APO :-). Thru 10" dob, good image. looked like a small scale moon. Venus phase of ~60% lit clearly visible. Thru 16" better image of the same. no surface details visible.. its all white..

Saturn: Rings clearly visible thru 16". Thru 10" dob @ 35x (Pan35mm) the rings are visible.. image is too tiny @ 35x, but can distinguish the rings clearly.. when looked thru eyepiece, can see the light distortion i.e. "seagull".. collimation may be lil off. but by changing the viewing angle, the distortion was going away. Two moons on one side. 171x

M57 Ring Nebula: Visited multiple times. In the twilight and APO, seemed really fainter in APO. no star visible at 2". seemed all gray color. Later in the night thru 10" dob nag17 @ 71x image seems sharp and quite bright.. the star at 2" is visible. bluish color visible. Compared with uhc and then oiii filter. image seems definitely brighter thru filters. Need to try high mag filtered image.

Browsed the whole sky naked eye to get a feel of it.

Omega centauri: Lower on horizon, visible. In twilight, not that sharp. Visible thru bino.

M80: In Scorpio. Jon reminded the location. Above the Antares and twice the distance from Antares-lower star. In 10" dob 17nag 71x seems fuzzier, not clear.. ~171x still non-clear watery image. Visited it later at 11pm and the image seemed clear and sharp. In Jon's scope outer stars well resolved.

Ophiuchus PN NGC 6572: Blue Racquetball: Bright, sharp. In 71x Nag17 it seems like brighter blue star. Hard to differentiate it as the PN. Note the triangle pattern of the PN with other two bright stars. Increasing the mags @ 171x makes it brighter.. but still no details visible on the PN. Addition of OIII filter clearly makes it brighter. Visited multiple times.

Oph OC NGC 6633 and IC 4756: Looked at the OC NGC and IC.. NGC seems to be yet another OC, but IC cluster seems to be impressive.. IC bigger than ngc. In 71x it fills up whole eyepiece.. ~30 stars.. all yellow.. evenly distributed.. Switched to lower mag to get the feel of it. In Pan 35, 35x it seems more beautiful.. can clearly see the cluster at the center. seemed like wide salt-pepper cluster.

Blue Flash nebula NGC 6905: In Delphinus. At 71x itself, lil hard to differentiate than background stars. visited it before 1.5 years back, but forgot the location. 85deg (~90) angle on Delph diamond + bright star and this Neb. Note the 3 stars in straight line alignment. also a bright pair nearby. At 71x, seemed faint circular shape.. seems bigger than previous PN, racquetball, but fainter.. no color visible. At 171x, the circular shape clearly visible. Can not see much pattern on the disk. no color visible. OIII filter helps... but i felt that, for searching this neb, UHC filter really helps, as the neb is definitely visible with background stars. More mag helps.

M71 GC: In Sagitta. In Pan 35, 35x looks impressive.. lil bigger than M80, but defintely smaller than M4. clear, sharp.. and outskirt stars lil resolvable. Didn't try high mags.

M27 Dumbbell: Closer to M71. Compared all above tiny PNs, way bigger and so much nebulous. Tried 71x and 171x.. don't see any colors in it. With OIII filter, brighter.. Can see lil dark spot within the nebula.

Veil nebula - 10" @ 35x No filter. Cyg 52 star, West veil part, witch nebula visible. But can't see the visiblity clearly. Tried to look for eastern veil, but didn't find it. Later visited it again. Tried it with UHC filter. Can see all 3 parts of Veil. West+East+Pickering triangle. Nebulosity visible with background stars. with OIII filter, it just looks marvelous. all background stars are gone. And nebulosty pops up in the OIII filter. Tried the same with APO. Compared UHC/OIII/No-filter in APO on Veil.

Browsed thru Sagittarius Nebulae with UHC/OIII/No-Filter in 10" dob with 17T4 Nag @ 71x.

M8 Lagoon: Without filter it shows the lagoon dark arc clearly. With OIII/UHC filters on, it shows lot of nebulosity filess the 25-30% of EP center. shows the bright part at the center of the nebula. this must be the hour-glass nebula.. need to magnify and have to try it from Jon's 16" scope. M21 cluster nearby.

M20 Triffid: Barely shows the upper Y dark lanes without filter.. shows the cluster on the right. With filter on, it shows more nebulosity near the cluster also. The dark lanes seemed darker.

M23 open cluster above lagoon-triffid line: Visible in the 8x20 finder. Seemed to be yet another OC.

Continued..

Quick Browsing..

Date: Oct 29th 2008, Wednesday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 8:00pm (1:00 hrs)
Location: Jon's place, San diego, CA
Weather: Seeing was good.... but city lights.
Instruments: Jon's 10” dob
Buddies: Jon.

Had a quick night sky browsing from Jon's place. I went to his place to return his scope.

Double Double: Excellent sight. and good split...forgot magnification

M57 Ring: Thru Jon's 32mm Televue Panoptic eyepiece, it was marevellous.. Wide file do of view really helps to get the "cosmic" filing. Star at 2pm was clearly visible.

Ophiuchus Double star (New): Don't know which one was this. But one was orange and other was yellowish. Bright contrast colors.

NGC 6633 OC (New): Really widespread .. don't remember much.

IC4756 OC (New): Jon said he likes this one.. but again ..it was really wide spread.. not that impressive.

NGC 6527 Green Nebula: Exceptionally beautiful. The contrast is probably better than ring nebula. I see blue color, but Jon mainly sees green color. Jon located this object this in a minute.. last time i wasn't able to locate it..

M56 GC (New): first time saw it... easy to locate. In 32mm Televue Panoptics, it was faint. With 40mm GSO SuperView, it was really really faint.

M29 OC: Caught it again..and just with experience of one observation last saturday :).. Nice H shape.

NGC 6910 OC (New): Next to Gamma Cyngni. This is an indeed interesting object.. fuzzy V shape..Felt like some dust in it.. some of the stars are close while others are separated.

Blinking PN: Jon tried to find this one, but he needed to refer to the map.. and thru my sat experience, i caught it in a minute... I was impressed that i was able to find it before him :)..In 32mm eyepiece it was hard to see ..but still in the view. Magnification helps... At highest magnification, ring out of focus, but still see some central brightness.. probably thats the star.

Jupiter Satellite transition: Saw Jupiter satellite transition. Becasue of bad seeing, jupiter was going in & out of focus ... while in focus, the black satellite shadow is strikingly dark..more you concentrate, darker it begins.

SDAA BBQ Night - Part I

Date: 29th Sept 08, Saturday.
Observation Time:
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Weather was excellent. Lil bit windy initially. but crisp clear
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Pete.

Total Objects: 17 (Incomplete)
New Objects: 13

Another great session at TDS. It was SDAA's annual BBQ party too. Had a hosting training session for the 22inch telescope.

Caught lot of new objects...

Initially, I wanted to cover all the M's near horizon.

M3 (New): Nicely aligned bten arcturus and canes venatici. Arc of arcturus and star above perfectly points to M3. Visible in binocs and finder 9x50. Really bright and widespread. core is tightly packed, but There seems to be branch of stars coming out if it. all stars resolvable in that branch in 9mm.

M5 (New): located Exactly opposite of M3. Easy to catch with serpens Caput last two stars. Binocular object. Tiny, tightly packed and fainter than M3.

M94 (New): Tiny galaxy in canes venatici. easy to catch. Seems to be tiny fuzzy, elliptical. It’s faint. Wonder how messier find this object.

M63 Sunflower Galaxy (New): Again easy catch. Edge on. lil bit brighter and bigger than M94. can not see any sunflower shape.

M101: really Fainter. Seems face on. still bigger than M63 or M94. On opposite side of M101. there is a galaxy triplet (IC #).

M51 Whirlpool galaxy: both galaxies clearly visible.. broken eight shape. no details visible in 32mm x 2x (16mm). I guess aperture is the key here.

M11 Wild duck cluster: Rich OC with thousands stars. It’s a failed globular cluster probably.One bright star at the center while a pair outside the cluster. Three dark regions making a triangle with each other. Can not see any stars in there. Can resolve almost all stars... cluster doesn't fit in 9mm eyepiece 135x.

Opphiuchus Clusters (New):
Browsed thru Opp. clusters. IC 4665 is indeed bright and beautiful in binocs. At 38x, fills whole eyepiece. 4-5 yellow stars. Not sure what is Cr 350. NGC 6426 was an easy catch. really tiny. Barely able to make it with 38x.

M10 & M12 (New): At the center of constellation. M10, a star, a pair and then M12 forming a line. can not fit in same binocular view. M12 seems bigger than M10. On M10, I can see sort of triangular shape because of few bright stars at the vertices.

Box nebula - NGC 6309: Tried to locate it, but failed. Need to read more.

M14 (New): Yet another globular.

Green Nebula - NGC 6572: wasn't able to locate it.

M30: Impressive. H shape with globular hanging on top right corner. In my 32mm, 32mmx2x, 9mm it didn’t look that clear as compared to Jon's 17mm nagler last time. I guess better eyepiece helps. Saw it on Pete's 16' dob at 280x. Fabulous view. I wonder if those H shaped stars are part of this GC.

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