Hartley, Neptune, Blue Flash and NGCs.. I

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...

Towards Messier Finishing.. I

....

Mercury - Naked Eye

Venus

Jupiter

Alberio

M57 - ring
Swan
Lagoon
Triffid

Nebulas using filter

M4

M75
M55
M80

Faint Fuzzies with the refractor & moonlight..

Date: Sept 24th 2009, Thursday
Observation Time: 8pm to 9pm (~1 hr)
Location: SD home
Weather: Okay. Moon 45% illuminated.
Instruments: Celestron Nexstar 80GT GOTO Refractor f/5

Moon: 6th day: Observed with TMB eyepieces + barlow. Overall 6mm, 4mm and 3mm ,2mm were still nice views.. extreme zoom with 2mm @ 200x wasn't sharp and too wavy.. but high zoom indeed shows lot of details and gives a feeling of moon walk.
- Crater Posidonius at the edge of mare serenitatis was nice.. you can see tiny crates inside it.
- The white ridge, Dorsa Smirnov, inside mare serenitatis was visible clearly and showed its existence.
- Crater Plinius central mountain visibile.. seemed like 2 peaks.
- Crater Theophilius, Cyrillus, Catharina seemed to be connected with crater edges on East side.

Jupiter: Yday watched jupiter, today just tried TMB EPs with high mags.. 2mm @200x was bad.. probably 3mm @ 133x was max i was able to push. Jupiter bands were visible...sort of.. really hard to focus because of R&P. Tried red filter too.. still not that clear.. non-filter view is much better and clear.

M28 - Yday i missed this one, and today while just browsing for M22, I ended up on this one. In 32mm @ 13x clearly visible. Fuzzy tiny and sort of visible. With barlow @ 26x shows some detail, surely kills some brightness.. wasn't able to resolve any details.. but just glad that you can see this fuzzy so clearly at @13x though heavy moonlight is present. This must be visible from my binocs.

M22: Visible in 32mm, thought can not fit both m22 and m28 in same view. With high mags 6mm @ 66x shows marvellous views of M22. can clearly resolve the stars. Though moonlite is present, I was impressed with the quality of the image and the resolution.

M55: Tried hunting for M55, but moonlite kills everything. hunting thru 32mm.. With barlowed 32mm shows some vignetting while searching the object. Lil hard to use. 25mm Elux is better to use after 32mm, instead of barlowed focal 16mm.

Refractor GOTO ran out of battery. Seems to be a trouble for long term.
Need to hunt some double stars.

Overall I am happy with the tiny refractor what it can do, considering its limitations.

Friday Night with Oreo Cookies - I

Date: Sept 18th 2009, Friday
Observation Time: 8pm to 1:30am (5.5 hrs)
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Chillier !!
Instruments: Jon's 12.5" dob, Jon's Celestron 100mm f/5 achromat. Didn't open my 10" dob.
Buddies: Jon

Jon and I decided to observe on Friday night rather than usual Sat night. Jon had some work to finish at home on sat because of Francis's Bday. Being Friday, leaving from work and reaching to Blvd was lil hectic.. both of us were hungry too. Had some funtime having Oreo Cookies and Milk. I don't even remember when was the last time I had cookies and milk.. probably when i was a kid :) ..and since friday, Jon is pulling my legs for recommending oreo cookies with milk :)..

Decided to operate only one scope 12.5" and work together..

From M8 to M7 South-west browsing for dark lanes and deep sky objects NGC 6544-6553 (New): This was an interesting experiment, browsing thru this region with 12.5" scope and 28mm Williams UWAN (50x). Just wanted to see the milky way details.. Clearly milky way stars were crowded together..lot of dark lanes around.. and lot of tiny clusters.. Out of all these, Two GCs 6544-6553, next to M8, were indeed popping in the eye. They are at the SE corner of the M8. Indeed small, but noticeable.. the whole southern area seems lil crowded and indeed bright.

Baade's window NGC 6522-6528 (New): Recently read abt this in CN Small wonders article. Mentioned to Jon abt two GCs close to galactic center. First globular 6522 is an easy catch, makes an equi triangle with two bright stars Gamma Saggi & W Saggi. The second globular 6528 is at the center of this triangle. 2nd GC 6528 is definitely faint and smaller than first GC 6522. Thru 4" refractor on 35mm Panoptic, 14x, can easily see first GC, but requires lil bit of averted vision for second one..still not that difficult, if you know where to look at.

Mentioned to Jon that i need to try 3 nebulas in Cygnus. N American + Pelican, Crescent planetory and Veil third component called Pickering's Triangle.

North American Nebula and Pelican Nebula (New): Being a huge and faint object, this one always eluded me. With 28mm UWAN, 50x, I can barely see anything fuzzy in the view. The problem is the wide field of 3deg, required by this object. The only thing which i saw is a crowded region and probably some dark lanes. With OIII filter on, probably i can make out the lane connecting the Northern America part to the southern side.. still want able to see much of the northen american shape. some west coast parts may be lil brighter.. Off the east coast, Pelican nebula was definitely visible.. again..no dark lanes or pelical visible.. probably requires lil magnification.. but definitely the fuzzy part off the coast of florida was visible.

Tried both again in the refractor.. but that was without filter.. so nothing much to see in there. Without filter these objects are indeed difficult.

M30: Wanted to just see it again for details with jon's scope. At 87x, with 16T2, GC with curved A is visible..but higher magnification indeed shows it well. 9mm and 4.5mm nagler shows all details. 9mm nagler at 140x resolves the cluster at outskirts.. the alignment with the A shape is indeed looks nice. Are the A shape stars part of this cluster or just in the view? Update: Yes.. these stars are part of the cluster. these are huge red-giants in the cluster on a horizontal branch. With high exposure photograph, you can see all faint stars in M30 which indeed covers the whole A shape.

M72-M73: In order to look for Saturn nebula thru jon's scope, checked both M72 and M73. M72 was definitely resolvable at outskirts with 16T2 (87x). M73 triangular asterism of 4 stars is visible. I wasn't aware there are 4, till i read abt it. One of the vertex is sort of double with a faint star.

Saturn Nebula: Higher aperture and better eyepieces indeed shows these objects better than my scope. Lil small but bright..sort of giving the hint saturn rings around it. defintely supports higher mags, but cant see much details. tried till 7mm Nag (200x).. also tried the OIII filter.. jon mentioned that object already being bright, filter doesn't help much.

Because of Cookies and milk dinner, Jon was feeling sleepy and went to lie down in motor home. He slept for 1.5 hrs.. In the mean time, with jon's scope and all his excellent eyepieces and filters, I enjoyed the night at fullest.

M55 (New): This GC is marvelous and huge as compared to most of messier GCs. Easy binocular object, just always missed it. Easily resolvable at lower magnifications. don't remember any details.

M75 (New): Compared to its neighbors M55, M75 is a hard object. Wasn't visible at all in the binocular.. Spent hell lot of time in locating this object. Barely visible in finder. This one is probably 1/5 in size of his bigger cousin and not that bright either... nothing special abt it.. just yet another M object.

Veil Nebula: Pickering's triangle: Veil was as usual marvelous in Jon's scope. Broom and veil both visible nicely in 28mm uwan with filter on. Next to the broom, there is third part visible. This is indeed faint as compared to first two parts.. but definitely visible. Triangular fuzziness is visible. I wasn't aware abt the 3rd component before reading abt it. so wanted to take a look.

M57 ring: Ring was tiny in 28mm uwan @ 50x. but as you bump up the magnification, M57 indeed shows its true size. with filter on the nebulosity indeed becomes brighter. The donut shape is stronger. With filter on the 2" star vanished..but without filter this one shows up nicely.

Continued..