Testing Orion 10" intelliscope setup..

Date: 1st Nov 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 6:00pm to 7:30pm (1:00 hrs)
Location: MTRP, CA
Weather: 80% cloudy, Sky was in & out
Instruments: New 10” dob & bunch of new eyepieces.
Buddies: Philip and Jack (MTRP Ranger)

Bought a 10" dob last sunday. Orion XT10 intelliscope. I observed jupiter from home, but this was sort of real first session with the dob to test the whole setup and new eyepieces. GSO40mm supeview, Celestron Xcel 10mm and Celestron E-lux 2" 25mm.

Scope wasn't fully collimated. Still not fully comfortable with optics.. Really need laser collimator.

Weather wasn;t friendly either today. Too much cloudy. I think because of clouds, though transparency was bad, the seeing was excellent. So planetary observation was excellent.

Venus phase (New): Venus was best view ever for me.. This is first time I ever saw phase of Venus. I guess the phase was around 70% waxing. Confirm it. (?? Confirmed from heavens-above). With 10mm xcel eyepiece, 120x showed me the phase clearly and luckily, 2x barlow on it, 240x magnification was still in focus. It was fabulous. Orangish-Red color on top-left (NW) edge of venus, while the bottom-right (SE) edge was lil bit greenish. I remember Jon told me abt colors last time.. but I forgot.. Need to read more (??)

Moon: Moon was fine.. the clarity and shaprness of craters was clearly visible. Didn't spend much time in detailed observation.

Tried Jon's GSO 40mm Superview eyepiece. Though i have cleaned the eyepiece, its inner surface is still really dirty. (??)..

Jupiter: With 25mm eyepiece, 48x, Jupiter bands were visible. With 10mm xcel, 120x, it was pretty sharp image. didn't see any other details.

Compared the eyepiece field of view with the Jon's 9mm expanse eyepiece. With Jupiter's moons I was able to get judgment. Indeed expanse had more field of view..probably 7-10 deg more. but i felt that image contrast in xcel was better than expanse.. Need to confirm (??)

Tested the R&P focuser on Jupiter sharpness. focuser is ill bit tight. After using Crayford, use of R&P is indeed undesirable.. the view shakes lil bit while focusing. Need to loose the focuser lil bit. Still.. focuser did excellent job to get the sharp view. Didn't feel like I am compromising on the view...

Alignment and Object locator testing : Spent some time with the "intelliscope".. Two star alignment.. Pointed to Vega. Wasn't able to get a star 60deg away from Vega.. so pointed to Altair.. warp factor was +1.1.. for first shot not bad.. but still should have done better.. but didn't spend much itme becasue of cloud cover rolling in.

Used the intelliscope, to confirm location of Deneb. It was within +/- 1-2deg error margin.
To locate all other objects, used intelliscope.

Alberio: In 25mm view, though not in center. Image was not that great.. yellow-orangish and white-bluish star pair visible. wasn;t the greatest view.

Double Double: Its a good test for eyes, collimation and eyepiece. Again wasn't the greatest view. I think scope wasn;t fully collimated, so was lil bit hard to see the resolving at 10mm eyepiece, 120x.. It should have been perfect at this magnification. but i got the perfect view, at one particular focus.

Again, R&P focus is lil bit tight to handle.

M57 Ring: Pointed to M57 and then checked intelliscope co-ords. In 9mm eyepiece, 135x not the greatest view. Star at2pm missing.. fuzzy ring was visible, but image wasn't sharp. but in 10mm image was great. Star at 2pm visible. I am not sure if transperency got improved within 2mins or not... but image was bright and ring was indeed better than 9mm. Still need to confirm this contrasting aspect in eyepiece comparison.

M31 Andromeda: found out that intelliscope really helps.. It was hard for me to see any reference stars in the clouds... but intelliscope helped...I am too glad that I have it.. worth the money... M31 not the greatest view... clouds to blame. With GSO 40mm widefield.. M32 was lil bit hard, but somehow M110 was visible. Isn't that lil bit contradicting.. any way becasue clouds, didn't think much.

M11 wild duck cluster: Intelliscope for rescue.. but not right on target.. Really hard to see in the finder. I got it once.. bad view..

In 40mm, tried to focus, but felt than focuser tube length is not enough for such a low magnification (30x)... Need to verify the relationship between maximum focuser length and min magnification supported (??)... again i might be wrong.. Need to go to dark sight for perfect focus.

Overall, to summarize..

Intelliscope is indeed a great addition for me.. surely help me in verifying locations and in bad weather. Need to learn better tactics to get warp factor below 0.5

Xcel 10mm eyepiece is probably great addition, if my perception abt image contrast is correct.. though field of view is smaller than 9mm, still image details matter

Not much happy with GSO 40mm superview...again.. weather might be the factor here.. Need to check Orion nebula or Lagoon-Triffid combo in this.

The 2" type of 25mm eyepiece...not sure if it is great or not.. lil bit of pain while swapping eyepieces, because of 2"-.1.25" adapter. Still will check in next few observations..

Indeed glad with the whole scope.. images were good as expected.. during collimation, realized there are coule of spots/scratches at the center of primary mirror. Need to confirm from Jon, if any drawbacks.. Precise collimation is necessary (double-double is the proof)..

Telerad is must... Finding Vega was difficult as hell :) .. It wasn't clouds..it wasn't location either.. but it was me.. and i call myself starhopper ;-D

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.

Last light with Jon's 10" dob - Part I

Date: Oct 25th 2008, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:00pm to 12:30pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: TDS, CA
Weather: Seeing was okay..not great. improved after 11pm, probably because of marine layer on SD. Its getting really cold too..
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs.
Buddies: Greg (Advanced amateur astronomer)

Total: 26 objects, 1 Asteroid
New Objects: 10

Returning Jon's 10" dob this week, so went for last observing session from this dob. This dob indeed gave me new perspective in handling big aperture telescope and understanding night sky.

Venus: Too low on horizon, so everything was bit wavy...

M8 Lagoon & M17 Swan: Quick glance to these old objects :).. makes you feel good. Night wasn't that dark enough to see the dark rift in lagoon clearly. swan was impressive. Two stars parallel to neck are clearly visible.

M13: Hercules globular was impressive. it always makes me feel if I would have had more aperture. Showed it to the scout group.

M30: I have seen better views of M30.. with 9mm also it still wasn't crispy and clear.

Saturn Nebula NGC7009: Again not the crisp view.. but the bluish disk stands out well. wasn't that much trouble in tracking either.

M72: Tiny globular... can be vividly seen thru binocs. Quick glance thru the dob.

M73: The asterism triangle is beautiful. One of the object that still can't see thru binocs.

Helix Nebula NGC7293: faint big fuzzy... 135x also doesn't show any details inside..

Asteroid Vesta (New): I think I got it.. it seems like one of the Jupiter's moon in high magnification with lil bit out of focus.. brown yellowish in color. Tried on 22" observatory, but nobody helped or enthu there... more aperture helps here too.. I should ask Jon to catch it some time.

NGC 253: edge on spiral Galaxy in sculptor. Greg told me look at it.. and this is precisely the same galaxy which Jon had shown me before. I got it confused with sculptor dwarf.. indeed beautiful. it fills up almost 80% of my 32mm eyepiece (38x). More magnification indeed shows more in the galaxy. i felt there is some dark lane vertical within the galaxy. Galaxy runs in angular fashion to pair of star alignment.

NGC 258 (New): Really faint globular next to 253 and sort of next to south galactic pole.

Sculptor Dwarf: failed.. need to check mags. compare it with ngc253

M57 Ring Nebula: Not the greatest view again... but nice bluish disk and its 2" star in field of view.

Veil nebula: Thru 22" its fabulous, you can see the whole filament near cygni 52 star so well that it indeed shows that the dust is everywhere, but just a star next to it causes it to glow in nice shape.. the crisp clear image also gave me 3d perspective... i think magic of nagler and filters... thru my dob in 32mm without filter, it was like a faint white streak among background stars... still i saw all 3 components of the veil.

North American Nebula NGC7000, Pelican Nebula IC5067: Failed.. read more..

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.

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.

SDAA BBQ Night - Part II

Saturn Nebula - NGC 7009: Easy catch. Detailed star map would have helped. tiny, bright fuzzy object.. At 38x or 135x, can not see anzees. Pete's 16' dob showed complete details. anzee was visible with connecting lines. with OII filter nebulous ring was bright, but lost the anzee.

Failed to locate both M72 and M73. It was easy catch last time :).

Helix Nebula - NGC 7293 (New): Easy catch thru binoculars. Really big, fuzzy and faint. At 38x. Disk clearly visible, but lil bit dark in the center. Rings fills up whole eyepiece at 135x. Nothing visible at center. With Pete's 16" dob, nebulous part stands out cleanly. With OII background stars are killed and gives image of a donut. With UHC, nice bright image with background stars.

M15 (New): Yet another GC. Bright. Have a dark region on the upper right corner.

Deer Lick Group - NGC 7331 (New): In Pete's 16' dob, Nice view of bright sharp 7331. Edge on. Dark lane sort of visible. 3 tiny galaxies on top of it in right angled triangle. the one at the right angle seems brighter than other two. Seemed to be oval shaped.

Forgot all other observations. :-(

Jupiter Sketch

Date : 4th Sept 08, Thursday
Time : 8:15pm to 9:30pm (1:15 hrs)
Location : SD Home
Weather : Seeing was okay (4/10). Moon with 5th phase on west.
Instruments : My 10” dob.

Observed Jupiter tonight for an hour. "starrynights" email threads were indeed helpful in detailed observation.

Seeing was okay around 4. 9mm eyepiece (135x) was crisp image, but 270x was really blurry and no sharp focus. 6.25mm (12.5mm x 2x) (i.e 194x) was still better than 4.5mm, but going in & out focus. so I guess seeing was 194x/10 - 20x magnificaiton per apperutre..so around of 4/10.

Four moons. Two on each side. All of them at different distances.

With 9mm (135x) indeed sharp image. NEB and SEB were bright and brown in color. NEB is darker than SEB. NEB is closer to equator than SEB. The SEB is almost 1.5 times in size than NEB, still smaller than EZ.

At 194x, NEB on right side (East) is darker than NEB on left side (West). NTB and NNTB were initially hard to see, but once eyes were set, they indeed showed up nicely. Both fainter than SEB. The south polar region or prrbably STB were visible, but both merged together, wasn't able to differentiate. Still clearly saw STZ, the zone between SEB and STB.

In NEB, there was a small white fissure across the center of the belt making 45 deg angle. Moderately visible. Saw the Great Red Spot couple of times, when image was crispy and really in perfect focus. It was on SEB on the upper right corner (South East). It was protruding from the SEB on south side. White in color. In a side view. Almost 40% visible.

It was indeed hard to see GRS. From my last TDS & BO session, it was amazingly clear, but this one wasn't really great. Realized the importance of crayford focuser. Also, would have been great to have double focuser or high speed focuser.

I also made a small sketch of Jupiter texture. Considering my first attempt, its not bad. Observing and Drawing the sketch indeed helped me to improve my visibility in the eyepiece w.r.t distances, size and attention to details. Should do it more often. Drawing complete eyepiece view than just the Jupiter disk is much harder. The tracking on Jupiter would have helped while drawing the sketch.

TBD:
Tracking GRS visibility. (Sky & Telescope - GRS Transit times)

DSO Marathon - Part I

Date: 31st August 08, Sunday. Labor Day Long Weekend
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 1:00pm (5:30 hrs)
Location: Boulevard Oaks campground, CA
Weather: Seeing was Good.. not excellent. Heavy Dew. Lil bit cold because of humidity. All things got wet, but still survived for long time :)
Instruments: My 10” dob & 10x50 binocs. Jon's 12.5” dob, and Astrotech 120ED refractor.
Buddies: Jon and his wife Francis.

Total Objects: 49. The max I have ever seen in one shot :)
New Objects: 16 + Ophiuchus OCs (4)

Had a great session with Jon Isaacs. Jon knows so many “different” objects and their precise locations that otherwise it would have taken me a while to just know them. Had a great DSO marathon.

Venus: Venus was popping on western sky 15 deg above horizon. Because of high clouds on west, the view was bit “shaky” and wasn't able to get sharp image (150x, 96x). As Jon pointed out correctly, because of color aberrations in refractor, upper part of Venus has purple shade, while lower part seems orange in color. While in out of focus, it gets green shade. Jon mentioned that phase was almost full, but because of blurry image didn't see much.

Mercury: It was around 4deg SE of Venus in same binocular view. Was really bright than I hoped. Surely smaller in size and fainter than venus. Thru refractor just seemed to be a “dot” and nothing more. (150x)

Mars (New): 7 deg NE of Venus. Nice and bright. Jon moved his refractor to Jupiter, saying clouds on west are killing everything. so din;t observe it from telescope. Completely missed it.

Jupiter: Fabulous view thru refractor at 150x. I cannot believe that 120mm refractor apperture gives so sharp and crispy views as 250mm (10”) reflector. NEB, SEB, NTZ, STZ were clearly visible. The great red spot was popping into the eye, Shape was prefectly visible, but thecolor seemed to be white. The STZ (upper part) also had some sawtooth structure. All 4 moons were widely spaced. Precisely same view thru my 10” dob at 135x. Cranking up the mags at 270x, killed the view.

Also, because of lil bit “wavy” “shaky” views, Jon suggested not to crank up mags.

M4 & NGC 6144: Antares, M4 and NGC 6144 were not impressive. Because of twilight, 6144 was almost invisible. M4 was just another globular, nothing specacular.

M7-M6: Both of them at 38x were impressive. Red tail star of M6 butterfly, seemed more orangish. Stars in M7 most of them seem yellowish with few seemed to be white.

M28-M22: Quick browsing thru lambda saggi, Kau Borealis, M22 was impressive. Able to resolve outskirts with 38x. M28 was really tiny, but bluish color wasn't as impressive as seen before.

Veil Nebula: I told Jon abt my last observation to see the nebulousity of veil, without filter. On 12.5” dob, Cyg52 veil neb was barely visible to me. I can feel the neb, but not the shape of it. Second part was also disappointing. With filter, some of the shape was perceptible, but again not impressively. Later at night, we saw Veil again and it was fabulous with filter. Veil was overhead and we captured 3 parts of veil. Cyg52 veil was great with its unique broomstick shape. The other end was also impressive from end to end. And in middle of these two, exists another one.. its bit fainter, but visible..also its more close to cyg52 veil component. Veil is Jon's favorite object, he watched it probably 4 times during the whole session.

Sagittarius browsing: Thru refractor, with wide-angle view (~30x), browsed saggitarius. It was marvelous and heavenly sight. It really gives a perspective on all objects at the same time. M8 Lagoon & its cluster, M20 Triffid, M21 OC in same view. M20 is really smaller than M8. M24 star cloud, M25 OC on moving left and M23 OC (New) on moving right looked great. M17 swan and M16 eagle were again in same view at two ends. Swan shape was clearly visible.

M8 Lagoon: Thru 10” dob, with the OIII filter on 24mm eyepiece (~50x), M8 was marvelous. The nebulousity was prominent. Semi circular dark lane seemed to be really wide. The left side neb seemed smaller than right+lower side neb. Hour glass also seemed to be brighter and lil bit bigger than non-filter views. Because of filter, only bright stars were visible and all stars indeed lost their charm. OC Cluster wasn't impressive either. High mags with filter (100x) surely killed all stars. Neb also seemed to be fainter than 50x view.

M20 Triffid: At 50x with filter, the nebula was indeed impressive. Dark lane Y shape was making sense as compared to non-filter views. The middle 3 stars were not that bright and hard to resolve the central star into double. Cranking up the mag to 100x helped lil bit with dark lanes and central double star resolving.

M17 Swan: this is one of the best objects in sky and with filter it became impressive. Along with 2 shape, the right and lower side nebulosity was clearly visible, more-ever like a peacock :). these two parts are extended almost as the same size as 2 shape. The central two bright stars in 2 shape seemed really dim.

M16 Eagle: With non-filter 38x view, the nebulousity was fainter. The characteristic, V hsape and the arc in the middle was impressive. With filter, the nebulousity brightness increased. Not as great as other nebulas, but still decently visible. Neb is just on the upper side of V.

M57 Ring: To have more fun with Filter, I pointed it to M57 and this is first time, I felt the blusish color. Ring was strikingly bright and with high mags it made it more impressive. Jon also mentioned that high mags + filter + planetary nebula combination works great as compared to other nebulas. With 150x, still the central star not visible. Also because of filter lost 2 o'clk star.

M27 Dumbbell: Brighter views with filter. Characteristic dumbbell shape with upper and lower wings. Left and right wings also mix well with dumbbell and are pretty bright..

The use of OIII filter on all 7 nebulas, really enhanced the view and had more fun in observing.

Saggi OC browsing: Thru binocs, captured M24 star cloud, M25 OC on left and M23 OC on right. Also captured fainter M18 OC (New). M18 wasn't much impressive thru 38x either. It was yet another OC.

Continued...

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

Online References..

Keep on Updating..

** Stars **
> Double Double
- Sketch

** Planetary Nebula **
> M57 Ring
- Sketch

** Galaxies **
> M31 Andromeda - M32 - M110
- Sketch
> M33 Triangulum
- Sketch