..
M33
M31
Blue snowball - lil hard to find again
Showed some objects to Aparna before leaving: M31, M57, Jupiter, M13
So only 3 messier are missing now.. Here M40 and M102 are indeed misleading numbers in the list. People observe nearby NGC objects to complete the list.
Const M# Type R.A. Dec Mag Size Notes
h m deg m min
Peg 15 Gb 21 30 12 10 7 12 rich, compact
UMa 40 DS 12 22.4 58 5 9 1 DS Winnecke 4, sep 50"
Dra 102 Gb 15 6.5 55 46 12 2x 1 M102=M101, NGC 5866 used
Showing posts with label Tri Gal M33 Triangulum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tri Gal M33 Triangulum. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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..
Sunday, January 18, 2009
First Dark Night with Orion XTi 10 - I
Date: 17th Jan 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 6:00pm to 11:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing and Transparency 8/10.. winds picked up around 11pm.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10, Rick's 12.5" dob, Tony's 8" dob and Bret's 24" dob. Bunch of new eyepieces.
Buddies: Rick, Tony and Bret
Total objects: 40 DSOs + 2 planets
New : 11
Best of the Night: M46 Planetary Nebula and All tiny galaxies in Leo.
First night of the new year.. looks like astronomy for this year started way too early :).. hopefully continues like this..
Objective of the night is to:
- test the new scope
- compare all eyepieces
- check intelliscope performance and functions
- some sky browsing.
Vertical Alignment. Hard.. TDS public pad is indeed slanted a lot.. this is gonna be tricky.. Is vertical stop connection to the scope really required for intelliscope ??
Connected Telerad. Placement is not ideal, but not bad either.. didn't have much choice because of finder location.
Rick from next pad helped to do the collimation with laser collimator.. secondary was lil bit hard to align.. somehow its really tight.. don't know why.. do i need to loose the central screw lil bit ?? ..any way will buy Howe gladder laser collimator this week.. Rick showed me a way to collimate without barlow.. sort of.. he mentioned that barlow is really not required.. only trouble is moving up-down to see and move screws.. that should be okay..
Worst mistake of the night.. Intelliscope battery down.. when i checked the status form home.. it was up.. but i didn't realize that its not good enough to see at night.. i have used this thing in Nov, and it was good.. i must have left it on since then :(..needs new battery now.. the problem was i wasn't able to use it for whole night.. that was one of my objectives at TDS today..zero outcome.. next time !!
Venus: Impressive. 45% phase. Too much waving. Probably scope also wasn't cooled down. MAx magnification with 9mm expanse.. 4.5mm failed.. higher mags didn't help much to see any details.. in the view.. i noticed that when Venus at the edge of eyepiece, it had violet tint on west i.e. bright side. but as the Venus moved to center of the field of view, the violet tinge reduced. Again increased as the movement towards the edge of the eyepiece.. is it indeed eyepiece ?
M42 Orion Nebula: Spent really long time tasting eyepieces.
Tony's celestron axiom 25mm on 8' dob: 82deg field of view.. impressive view.. star crowded sky.. Orion in the middle.. dark tower visible.. trapezoid visible.. second dark tower perpendicular to main one clearly visible..
40mm GSO: View wasn't bad.. 60 deg FOV. but stars at the edge were stretched and looked like streaks.. bad eyepiece at the edges.. Again barrel length was trouble so have to take out the glasses.. second tower wasn't visible..still good view.
32mm E-Lux: Impressive view.. stars were fine. trapezoid barely visible.. i think 3 stars of it visible. second tower was visible, but not yet clear..
25mm 1.25' and 25mm 2': Second tower visible, but not as clearly as tony's. ..hmm eyepiece quality :) .. $150 ?? trapezoid visible.. compared both my 25mm eyepieces. FOV is larger in 2' vs 1.25'.. definitely.. but i felt that 1.25' is lil bit better in contrast as compared to 2'. i was able to focus better on stars with 1.25'.. also m43 nebulous area was better in 1.25'
10mm X-cel: marvelous view.. all nebulous details in second tower visible. Trapezoid 5th star was in. wasn't aware that there is 6th one two..
9mm expanse: surely better field of view.. no other difference than 10mm x-cel.
35mm Teleview Panoptic on ricks 12.5' dob: 07deg FOV. MArvellous view.. second tower was there..lil bit in-out of focus. still picture was marvelous. 3 out of 4 trapezoid visible. Still with high mags didn't see 6th star. rick tried to explain me the location, but didn't find it.
M43: In 25mm dark region within M43 visible.. western part (left) definitely larger than eastern (right)
Perseus double cluster: Rick TV 35mm view impressive.. pinpoint stars.. mine 32mm was fine too.. stars were perfect pint point.. that shows precise collimation..
M31 Andromeda: Rick TV 35mm: Clear view of whole M31..Dust lane was good.. indeed was getting a feeling of it.. M110 and M32 visible.. but too tiny. My 40mm: M32 & M110 wre but too tiny.. but this eyepiece indeed shows the length/glow of m31.. just too large.. dust lane wasn't much impressive. My 32mm showed the dust lane.. but it wasn't as good as rick 35m.. again eyepiece quality..
M33 Triangulum: Forgot the location. Rick got it.. fuzzy object.. no details visible ..m33 thru bret's 24inch and bino-view marvelous.. hydrogen region was visible at right corner.. also watched so many dark lanes in m33.. the whole view was full of it.. also sort of got a 3d perception.. must be because of bino-view. In bino-view mag calculation is different..view was around 150x. thru my 32mm or higher mags, just a fuzzy object, no details visible... aperture helps.
Blue snowball NGC7662: okay.. not that great.. really tiny.. i was expecting more.. compare with Jon's 10' dob.
M81-M82: impressive. M81, on left, seems as big fuzzy.. M82 on right seems edge on.. One tiny galaxy NGC3077 (new) right angled above M81. Used 40mm for finding.. 32mm view good.. 25mm was better and showed the dark edge on M82.. 10 mm possible.. but no other details..impressive view thru Rick's 35mm panoptic 70deg FOV.. Tony's 25mm wasn't that impressive considering 80deg FOV.. too much magnification..
M41 OC in CMa: Visible naked eye - don't remember much.. Thru 40mm: Curved lines
M46-M47 OC pair in Pup: Thru 40mm.. M46-M47 barely fits in same view.. M46 stars are pinpoint and concentrated like double cluster.. while M47 is normal dispersed bright stars. 25inch SDAA scope thru 31mm (2500mm focal) shows a nebula.. impressive view. In the nebula itself there was a concentric circle (i think).. indeed impressive.. Thru my 32mm. barely visible for me.. 25mm impressive.. bluish visible.. cluster and PN in it indeed impressive.. 6mm was still good - 10mm lost it.. M46 farther than M47.. PN is actually not in M46 but much closer to us than OC.
M50 in Mon (new): Yet another OC. Don't remember much.
M93 in Pup (new): Really tiny OC.. salt-paper.. too low on horizon
M36-M38-M37 in Auriga: Quick browse. Was overhead. lil bit hard to catch it.. Visible naked eye m36-m38.. bino view was great for all three.
M44 Beehive OC in Cancer: Thru 40mm eyepiece..impressive.. beehive visible.. but 25mm view better to see beehive triangles.
M67 OC in Cancer: Yet another.. nothing impressive..
M35 OC in Gem (New): SDAA scope impressive.. bright yellowish stars. and tiny OC NGC1258 (new) next to it.. this ngc looked like M93.. fine view in my 32mm also.. seen it before thru binocular
Observation Time: 6:00pm to 11:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Excellent.. Seeing and Transparency 8/10.. winds picked up around 11pm.
Instruments: New Orion XTi 10, Rick's 12.5" dob, Tony's 8" dob and Bret's 24" dob. Bunch of new eyepieces.
Buddies: Rick, Tony and Bret
Total objects: 40 DSOs + 2 planets
New : 11
Best of the Night: M46 Planetary Nebula and All tiny galaxies in Leo.
First night of the new year.. looks like astronomy for this year started way too early :).. hopefully continues like this..
Objective of the night is to:
- test the new scope
- compare all eyepieces
- check intelliscope performance and functions
- some sky browsing.
Vertical Alignment. Hard.. TDS public pad is indeed slanted a lot.. this is gonna be tricky.. Is vertical stop connection to the scope really required for intelliscope ??
Connected Telerad. Placement is not ideal, but not bad either.. didn't have much choice because of finder location.
Rick from next pad helped to do the collimation with laser collimator.. secondary was lil bit hard to align.. somehow its really tight.. don't know why.. do i need to loose the central screw lil bit ?? ..any way will buy Howe gladder laser collimator this week.. Rick showed me a way to collimate without barlow.. sort of.. he mentioned that barlow is really not required.. only trouble is moving up-down to see and move screws.. that should be okay..
Worst mistake of the night.. Intelliscope battery down.. when i checked the status form home.. it was up.. but i didn't realize that its not good enough to see at night.. i have used this thing in Nov, and it was good.. i must have left it on since then :(..needs new battery now.. the problem was i wasn't able to use it for whole night.. that was one of my objectives at TDS today..zero outcome.. next time !!
Venus: Impressive. 45% phase. Too much waving. Probably scope also wasn't cooled down. MAx magnification with 9mm expanse.. 4.5mm failed.. higher mags didn't help much to see any details.. in the view.. i noticed that when Venus at the edge of eyepiece, it had violet tint on west i.e. bright side. but as the Venus moved to center of the field of view, the violet tinge reduced. Again increased as the movement towards the edge of the eyepiece.. is it indeed eyepiece ?
M42 Orion Nebula: Spent really long time tasting eyepieces.
Tony's celestron axiom 25mm on 8' dob: 82deg field of view.. impressive view.. star crowded sky.. Orion in the middle.. dark tower visible.. trapezoid visible.. second dark tower perpendicular to main one clearly visible..
40mm GSO: View wasn't bad.. 60 deg FOV. but stars at the edge were stretched and looked like streaks.. bad eyepiece at the edges.. Again barrel length was trouble so have to take out the glasses.. second tower wasn't visible..still good view.
32mm E-Lux: Impressive view.. stars were fine. trapezoid barely visible.. i think 3 stars of it visible. second tower was visible, but not yet clear..
25mm 1.25' and 25mm 2': Second tower visible, but not as clearly as tony's. ..hmm eyepiece quality :) .. $150 ?? trapezoid visible.. compared both my 25mm eyepieces. FOV is larger in 2' vs 1.25'.. definitely.. but i felt that 1.25' is lil bit better in contrast as compared to 2'. i was able to focus better on stars with 1.25'.. also m43 nebulous area was better in 1.25'
10mm X-cel: marvelous view.. all nebulous details in second tower visible. Trapezoid 5th star was in. wasn't aware that there is 6th one two..
9mm expanse: surely better field of view.. no other difference than 10mm x-cel.
35mm Teleview Panoptic on ricks 12.5' dob: 07deg FOV. MArvellous view.. second tower was there..lil bit in-out of focus. still picture was marvelous. 3 out of 4 trapezoid visible. Still with high mags didn't see 6th star. rick tried to explain me the location, but didn't find it.
M43: In 25mm dark region within M43 visible.. western part (left) definitely larger than eastern (right)
Perseus double cluster: Rick TV 35mm view impressive.. pinpoint stars.. mine 32mm was fine too.. stars were perfect pint point.. that shows precise collimation..
M31 Andromeda: Rick TV 35mm: Clear view of whole M31..Dust lane was good.. indeed was getting a feeling of it.. M110 and M32 visible.. but too tiny. My 40mm: M32 & M110 wre but too tiny.. but this eyepiece indeed shows the length/glow of m31.. just too large.. dust lane wasn't much impressive. My 32mm showed the dust lane.. but it wasn't as good as rick 35m.. again eyepiece quality..
M33 Triangulum: Forgot the location. Rick got it.. fuzzy object.. no details visible ..m33 thru bret's 24inch and bino-view marvelous.. hydrogen region was visible at right corner.. also watched so many dark lanes in m33.. the whole view was full of it.. also sort of got a 3d perception.. must be because of bino-view. In bino-view mag calculation is different..view was around 150x. thru my 32mm or higher mags, just a fuzzy object, no details visible... aperture helps.
Blue snowball NGC7662: okay.. not that great.. really tiny.. i was expecting more.. compare with Jon's 10' dob.
M81-M82: impressive. M81, on left, seems as big fuzzy.. M82 on right seems edge on.. One tiny galaxy NGC3077 (new) right angled above M81. Used 40mm for finding.. 32mm view good.. 25mm was better and showed the dark edge on M82.. 10 mm possible.. but no other details..impressive view thru Rick's 35mm panoptic 70deg FOV.. Tony's 25mm wasn't that impressive considering 80deg FOV.. too much magnification..
M41 OC in CMa: Visible naked eye - don't remember much.. Thru 40mm: Curved lines
M46-M47 OC pair in Pup: Thru 40mm.. M46-M47 barely fits in same view.. M46 stars are pinpoint and concentrated like double cluster.. while M47 is normal dispersed bright stars. 25inch SDAA scope thru 31mm (2500mm focal) shows a nebula.. impressive view. In the nebula itself there was a concentric circle (i think).. indeed impressive.. Thru my 32mm. barely visible for me.. 25mm impressive.. bluish visible.. cluster and PN in it indeed impressive.. 6mm was still good - 10mm lost it.. M46 farther than M47.. PN is actually not in M46 but much closer to us than OC.
M50 in Mon (new): Yet another OC. Don't remember much.
M93 in Pup (new): Really tiny OC.. salt-paper.. too low on horizon
M36-M38-M37 in Auriga: Quick browse. Was overhead. lil bit hard to catch it.. Visible naked eye m36-m38.. bino view was great for all three.
M44 Beehive OC in Cancer: Thru 40mm eyepiece..impressive.. beehive visible.. but 25mm view better to see beehive triangles.
M67 OC in Cancer: Yet another.. nothing impressive..
M35 OC in Gem (New): SDAA scope impressive.. bright yellowish stars. and tiny OC NGC1258 (new) next to it.. this ngc looked like M93.. fine view in my 32mm also.. seen it before thru binocular
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Last light with Jon's 10" dob - Part II
Crescent Nebula NGC6888: Failed... indeed frustrating... this one is listed as top 10 deep sky object for October sky and it was unbelievably hard to find.. just spent too much time, but still no success.. Greg mentioned to me that without filter its hard...
M29 (New): Curved H - nice tiny open cluster.. in H shape.. but vertical lines curved outside.
Berk86 (New): open cluster in V shape, next to M29
Blinking Planetary NGC6828 (New): This was perfect catch. Star, in one field of view a pair and half field of view, the blue lil tiny disk in 32mm eyepiece. its hard to se it in 32mm.. but lil bit more magnification shows it well.. no blinking effect in 10" aperture.. but looks good... probably less brighter than blue snowball. Need to revisit for details.
IC 1396 cluster and nebulosity: In Cephus, listed as best object for telescopes and binocs... but failed..
M33 Triangulum: From Greg's 10". sort of able to see the spiral structure.. in two arms.
M74 (New): In Pisces, Nominal fuzzy object visible thru binocs also.
M77 galaxy (New): In Cetus. Bizzar shape sort of like m30, but only with a star.. high magnification didn't help to resolve much either. but this is indeed an interesting object. need to revisit. its tiny fuzzy.. I wonder how messier saw this.. wasn't able to see much thru binocs. Tiny galaxies 1055 and 1087 are on opposite sides of M77. Its hard to distinguish if they are galaxies or tiny globulars...probably for tiny globulars they seem bluish..but these tiny fuzzies didn't.
Mira: Didn't know what to look for in the star. Read more.
Caroline cluster in Cassiopeia (New): Don't know the NGC number. open cluster like wild duck, but really spread over large area.. like sprinkled salt.. but really faint. all the stars seem like field stars, but no other stars in vicinity near the cluster, hence all the stars in the view can be treated as part of open cluster
Uranus: Quick glance at bluish disk.. nothing interesting.
Spectrographs of Antares and Vega (New): graph, Vega graph was on left side, showing blue wavelengths. It Greg showed me his spectrograph which he has collected form SBIG instrument. Antares graph was sort of in red wavelength (right), Showed multiple heavy dips representing element titanium. and one h-alpha dip. compared to Antaresdidn't have any titanium dip, but it had all h-alpha, h-beta lines. mainly showing hydrogen and helium. On right side, there was one big dip showing water vapor, because of earth's atmosphere. All the dips indicate absorption lines, while all peaks indicated sort of reflection lines.
M1 Crab Nebula: Easy catch.. Still not able to see any details in crab. elongated fuzzy disk..
M42 Orion Nebula + M43: The best view I have ever seen. Marvellous. First time from TDS. At 38x, viewing thru 32mm eyepiece gave me a feeling that the whole cosmos is indeed full of dust, but we can not see it, until there is a star nearby. The reflection of nearby stars indeed gives the shape to the nebula. I really experienced this textbook definition with orion nebula. At 38x, almost 80% eyepiece filled up. M42 with deep dish shape with two dark columns perpendicular to each other visible. Deep dish dust is so much that on one side nebula is bright, while on opposite side non of the light passes thru. On opposite side, M43 visible as white fuzzy ball. The trapezium in M42 dark column is visible with only 4 stars. 5th star barely visible. More magnification on this gives more. In the dark columns, got the 3D feeling.
M78 (New): Easy catch. Bright star with dark nebula column. 3D feeling. The dust is indeed so much you will see reflected light on one side. This makes the nebula shape.
Horsehead Nebula: Failed. Difficult to catch.
M29 (New): Curved H - nice tiny open cluster.. in H shape.. but vertical lines curved outside.
Berk86 (New): open cluster in V shape, next to M29
Blinking Planetary NGC6828 (New): This was perfect catch. Star, in one field of view a pair and half field of view, the blue lil tiny disk in 32mm eyepiece. its hard to se it in 32mm.. but lil bit more magnification shows it well.. no blinking effect in 10" aperture.. but looks good... probably less brighter than blue snowball. Need to revisit for details.
IC 1396 cluster and nebulosity: In Cephus, listed as best object for telescopes and binocs... but failed..
M33 Triangulum: From Greg's 10". sort of able to see the spiral structure.. in two arms.
M74 (New): In Pisces, Nominal fuzzy object visible thru binocs also.
M77 galaxy (New): In Cetus. Bizzar shape sort of like m30, but only with a star.. high magnification didn't help to resolve much either. but this is indeed an interesting object. need to revisit. its tiny fuzzy.. I wonder how messier saw this.. wasn't able to see much thru binocs. Tiny galaxies 1055 and 1087 are on opposite sides of M77. Its hard to distinguish if they are galaxies or tiny globulars...probably for tiny globulars they seem bluish..but these tiny fuzzies didn't.
Mira: Didn't know what to look for in the star. Read more.
Caroline cluster in Cassiopeia (New): Don't know the NGC number. open cluster like wild duck, but really spread over large area.. like sprinkled salt.. but really faint. all the stars seem like field stars, but no other stars in vicinity near the cluster, hence all the stars in the view can be treated as part of open cluster
Uranus: Quick glance at bluish disk.. nothing interesting.
Spectrographs of Antares and Vega (New): graph, Vega graph was on left side, showing blue wavelengths. It Greg showed me his spectrograph which he has collected form SBIG instrument. Antares graph was sort of in red wavelength (right), Showed multiple heavy dips representing element titanium. and one h-alpha dip. compared to Antaresdidn't have any titanium dip, but it had all h-alpha, h-beta lines. mainly showing hydrogen and helium. On right side, there was one big dip showing water vapor, because of earth's atmosphere. All the dips indicate absorption lines, while all peaks indicated sort of reflection lines.
M1 Crab Nebula: Easy catch.. Still not able to see any details in crab. elongated fuzzy disk..
M42 Orion Nebula + M43: The best view I have ever seen. Marvellous. First time from TDS. At 38x, viewing thru 32mm eyepiece gave me a feeling that the whole cosmos is indeed full of dust, but we can not see it, until there is a star nearby. The reflection of nearby stars indeed gives the shape to the nebula. I really experienced this textbook definition with orion nebula. At 38x, almost 80% eyepiece filled up. M42 with deep dish shape with two dark columns perpendicular to each other visible. Deep dish dust is so much that on one side nebula is bright, while on opposite side non of the light passes thru. On opposite side, M43 visible as white fuzzy ball. The trapezium in M42 dark column is visible with only 4 stars. 5th star barely visible. More magnification on this gives more. In the dark columns, got the 3D feeling.
M78 (New): Easy catch. Bright star with dark nebula column. 3D feeling. The dust is indeed so much you will see reflected light on one side. This makes the nebula shape.
Horsehead Nebula: Failed. Difficult to catch.
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
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
10" dob @ TDS - Part II
...continued.
Globular Hunting:
My own discovery of NGC 6638, sparked some enthu in me and i started browsing all tiny globulars within Sagittarius :). I spotted NGC 6624 GC, next to Kaus Media star (delta). Again, next to Alnasl (Gamma) were NGC 6528 GC, NGC 6522 GC, NGC 6558, NGC 6569. All of them were bluish and fuzzy in color probably 3-5 arc minutes in size. 6569 was lil bit brighter and bigger in size than 6558. (Right)
Neptune : When I was moving to Kaus Australis, I heard people talking abt "Neptune" from next pad. Fellow "Gilbert" showed me Neptune in his 10 inch Meade Cassegrain. Neptune was white in color.. "a dot" in the view.. having on board computer indeed helps... According to gilbert, if you make it lil bit out of focus, you can see a out-of-focus disk for that "dot", but other stars still remain as pointed dots and thats the key to identify. hmmm.. After some discussions and with few more objects, i realized that his telescope his not properly aligned. When i asked him to point to Uranus, which i have seen before, it didn't show anything. Also pointing to Mizar in UMa implied its completely out of alignment..so i am really not sure what i saw was really Neptune :)..
Because of Neptune, I got distracted from my GC starhopping and inturn afterwards I realized that I missed some nice globs M69, M70 and M54... any way.. next time !!
Veil nebula : missed - need to read more... nebulousity wasn't visible at all...means i felt something smoky around star 52, but the shape wasn't discernible. Filter would have really helped.
M31 Andromeda - M32 - M110: Because of Veil nebula frustration, i picked best object for nice view. M31-M32-M110.. was awesome.. M31 just doesn't fit into any eyepiece. binocular shows its real size. M31 and M32 fir in same view (36x). M32 is tiny, but still really bright and its ecliptic shape is clearly visible. M110 is indeed faint. Probably fainter than M33-Triangulum galaxy (Wrong) and all high mags just killed it. I tried to put some high mags on M32 to catch any glimpses inside. but i can see only the bright core. I wonder what kind of aperture or magnification you need to see all Andromeda globular clusters. (???)
M33 Triangulum: I misinterpreted the map and it took hell lot of time to get M33 in the view. Binocular really helped here. Probably I spent more than 10-15 mins just to find M33 in binocs and in turn in the dob. It was disappointing.. Again, i didn't see much in the view.. it seemed to be brighter than M110.. but it was hard to see any shape or arms. (??)
M27 Dumbbell: After frustrating M33, I moved to familiar one. Altair + coat hanger and M27 dumbbell the starhopping session i learnt from Jon is so precise and imprinted in my brain, that it didn't take much time to locate M27. Infact coat-hanger was visible with just naked eyes. M27 view was fabulous. I caught it dob, within a minute.
Jupiter: At the end of session pointed to Jupiter. 36x or 76x wasn't impressive. but 135x was THE best. Higher magnification of 270x didn't help. Wasn't able to focus clearly. NEB, NTB, Equatorial zone & SEB were clearly visible. STB was lil bit hard. Sawtooth in SEB was nice. I saw great red spot also. Again.. only the shape was perfectly visible. Need to read more (??)
Moon: Moon rise just washed out whole deep sky... Browsing to moon thru dob was nice. It was too low..
Problem Faced:
- Dob movement not smooth. spring system
- Observations at zenith. Lost direction sense in the view. Chair height.
- Judgment of distances within a field of view.
TBDs:
- Laser Collimator
- Chair with proper height.
- Deep Sky Filter
Globular Hunting:
My own discovery of NGC 6638, sparked some enthu in me and i started browsing all tiny globulars within Sagittarius :). I spotted NGC 6624 GC, next to Kaus Media star (delta). Again, next to Alnasl (Gamma) were NGC 6528 GC, NGC 6522 GC, NGC 6558, NGC 6569. All of them were bluish and fuzzy in color probably 3-5 arc minutes in size. 6569 was lil bit brighter and bigger in size than 6558. (Right)
Neptune : When I was moving to Kaus Australis, I heard people talking abt "Neptune" from next pad. Fellow "Gilbert" showed me Neptune in his 10 inch Meade Cassegrain. Neptune was white in color.. "a dot" in the view.. having on board computer indeed helps... According to gilbert, if you make it lil bit out of focus, you can see a out-of-focus disk for that "dot", but other stars still remain as pointed dots and thats the key to identify. hmmm.. After some discussions and with few more objects, i realized that his telescope his not properly aligned. When i asked him to point to Uranus, which i have seen before, it didn't show anything. Also pointing to Mizar in UMa implied its completely out of alignment..so i am really not sure what i saw was really Neptune :)..
Because of Neptune, I got distracted from my GC starhopping and inturn afterwards I realized that I missed some nice globs M69, M70 and M54... any way.. next time !!
Veil nebula : missed - need to read more... nebulousity wasn't visible at all...means i felt something smoky around star 52, but the shape wasn't discernible. Filter would have really helped.
M31 Andromeda - M32 - M110: Because of Veil nebula frustration, i picked best object for nice view. M31-M32-M110.. was awesome.. M31 just doesn't fit into any eyepiece. binocular shows its real size. M31 and M32 fir in same view (36x). M32 is tiny, but still really bright and its ecliptic shape is clearly visible. M110 is indeed faint. Probably fainter than M33-Triangulum galaxy (Wrong) and all high mags just killed it. I tried to put some high mags on M32 to catch any glimpses inside. but i can see only the bright core. I wonder what kind of aperture or magnification you need to see all Andromeda globular clusters. (???)
M33 Triangulum: I misinterpreted the map and it took hell lot of time to get M33 in the view. Binocular really helped here. Probably I spent more than 10-15 mins just to find M33 in binocs and in turn in the dob. It was disappointing.. Again, i didn't see much in the view.. it seemed to be brighter than M110.. but it was hard to see any shape or arms. (??)
M27 Dumbbell: After frustrating M33, I moved to familiar one. Altair + coat hanger and M27 dumbbell the starhopping session i learnt from Jon is so precise and imprinted in my brain, that it didn't take much time to locate M27. Infact coat-hanger was visible with just naked eyes. M27 view was fabulous. I caught it dob, within a minute.
Jupiter: At the end of session pointed to Jupiter. 36x or 76x wasn't impressive. but 135x was THE best. Higher magnification of 270x didn't help. Wasn't able to focus clearly. NEB, NTB, Equatorial zone & SEB were clearly visible. STB was lil bit hard. Sawtooth in SEB was nice. I saw great red spot also. Again.. only the shape was perfectly visible. Need to read more (??)
Moon: Moon rise just washed out whole deep sky... Browsing to moon thru dob was nice. It was too low..
Problem Faced:
- Dob movement not smooth. spring system
- Observations at zenith. Lost direction sense in the view. Chair height.
- Judgment of distances within a field of view.
TBDs:
- Laser Collimator
- Chair with proper height.
- Deep Sky Filter
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)