Little one @ Blvd

Date: August 18th 2012, Saturday
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 11pm (observing time ~3.5hrs), 
Location: Jon's @ Blvd
Weather: fine.. 4/5 seeing.. before sunset it was cloudy, but later clouds just disappeared. Moon - 1st day 
Instruments: Jon's 16" scope and his Williams 80mm scope  


Our little one visited Jon's place in mountains for first time. Slept all the way during the drive. But played for a while at their place. Later got into daycare anxiety mode and just made everybody go nuts..later got back to normal.

Moon: FAILED. Started observation with locating first day phase moon. But it was way too hard. Never found it. It was Ramadan Ed 1st day moon.

Saturn: Saturn-Mars-Spica triplet as visible in evening dusk. Saturn visible nicely. Tried thru Williams 80mm with 9mm, 4mm TMB eyepieces. Saturn rings clearly visible, front rings are on bottom, while the back side f the ring moves upwards. As night moved on, can clearly see the dark gas lanes on the saturn disk. No details / gaps on rings. Still it was impressive what 80mm scope showed from the dark place.

Mars: 80mm is not enough for mars details. Seemed like big orange bright spot in the scope. Going closer to horizon, so dint get a chance to see thru 16" scope.

M6-M7: naked eye visibility. Fits in same view in the binocs ~6deg FoV. Jons 16" scope lot of details on both. Butterfly shape. apparently i got this pair confused with m46-m47 and ended up looking for the planetary nebula in it. Jon reminded me of absence of last year. Hsshh..

Antares GC M4: Visible thru bincs. 800mm with 24mm EP, shows the GC nicely. Very tiny though. With 9mm, i think can resolve some outskirt stars. 

Northern Jewel Box: Looks nice from all three instruments. Binocs show 5-7 stars low on horizon. 80mm has the best view. Cluster fills up 50% of the view. bright stars with some E + 4 + curved shape visible. In Jons 16", view was fully filled with eyepiece. Can see very faint stars. 

M8 - M20: Quick browse thru. Lagoon without filter still shows lot of nebulosity and C shaped dark lane separation clealt from 16" scope. Triffid looks smaller as compared to Lagoon, but whole nebulosity is nice. More I spent time in EP for Triffid, the dark lanes started popping up.

Swan M17: Quick browse again.. but impressive.. distinctive shape and bright stars at the bottom and another one at the center  in the curvature shape. 

Eagle M16: no nebulosity... typical star formation like a symbol of an angle.

M22 GC above star: quick browse thru binocs and 80mm.. is it bigger than Antares GC 

M25 OC Flipped comma: Binocs show the 3 deg view of this object with inverted comma shape. OC at the center of the comma is smaller, but the whole spae makes it beautiful. 

M23: While looking for Crescent nebula ended up on this one. very bright and impressive object. 16" scope view is just lightend bright with this object. lot of yellow white stars. 

Crescent Nebula: Very tiny fuzzy object from the 16" scope.. but its definitely bigger than other planetary nebula objects like saturn nebula or ghost of jupiter. Can not miss the object frm 16" scope.. next to a star. Infact i found this one first rather than way bigger M23 :). Increasing the mags didn't make much difference though in the visibility... There is a GC nearby it.. i think you can definitely distinguish betn the type of these objects i.e. GC vs nebula.

M10-M12: Browsed the Ophiuchus GCs. Very impressive. looks similar in size as well brightness..somehow binocs gave impression that m12 is bigger, but scope shows m10 t be bigger. Hshh.. must be feeling sleepy. Very easy to locate. Probably saw these after a long time. no discernible shape.. but these are definitively bigger than m92 in Hercules (later).

Planetary ngc 6445 Box Nebula (New): Jon showed this planetary. seemed like bright blue circle...very very tiny.. dont remember anything else. Later i was able to locate it smoothly. There is another GC next to it ngc 6440. In moderate view the pair looks nice.. very tiny and faint..probably only possible in high apperture 16" scope

Ngc oc - Ic oc - Ic oc: NGC is definitively looks nice from the16" scope.. but IC objects are better in binocs. ngc-ic and the planetory fits in same view. 

Gc near spica: Jon showed this one. wasnt able to locate it by myself. its seemed like OC, but its loosely connected GC.

M13: Took a long time just to locate HER constellation. I sort of lost the scale of quadrilateral size. It is smaller than what I was thinking. One year gap in observation made me forget lot of things. M13 is fabulous.. supports magnification really well. yellow white stars.. very bright.. 

Gal: Gal near M13.. very faint and tiny as compared the M13. Wasnt able t fit both in the same view of 16" scope.

Planetary: Again.. yet another planetary..

M92: Tiny as compared to M13.. but i compared it immediately with m10-12 pair.. and m92 seems smaller and fainter than those.. Its sort of lost beauty in front of other fabulous GCs in the sky.

Saturn Neb: Easy to locate. White bluish object.. tiny.. 

M Gc.. M oc: browsing all three objects including saturn neb, is an interesting experience. It shows the differences in the object size. The triagnle is so tiny.. OC is very tiny as well.

M30: Viewed thru binocs.. very tiny.. the typical shape sort of shows up but not discernible well from binocs.

Milkyway: the orion and Perseus arms were marvelous.. its like very bright white cloud belt in the sky.. Dark skies rules... simply breathtaking.

Hello Scooter..

Date: March 8th 2012, Thrusday
Observation Time: 7:30pm to 9pm (observing time ~1.5 hrs),
Location: Hyatt Hotel, La Jolla.
Weather: okay.. in light polluted area.. Full moon after 8:30pm
Instruments: Jon's 12.5" scope and np-101 f/7 scope


Highlight of the night was meeting Astronaut Scott Altman aka Scooter.

Attended a private fundraising event by Astronomy Society of Pacifics. They were honoring the Astronaut Scott Altman (Scooter). The organizer and the board member of the ASP, Russ Carroll, invited my friend Jon to setup his telescope for the guests outreach. Jon asked me to help him.. I was more than happy to be there.. got a chance to meet Scooter, had a lil chit chat with him.. got a chance to listen to his funny experiences of piloting the space shuttle and fixing the Hubble space telescope.

After the event Jon and I entertained the guest with the viewing of Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Pleiades, M37, M38, Sigma Orionis DS, Orion nebula.

Probably 50% of the guests have never even seen thru a telescope, so they were amazed to see the planets thru the scope. It was fun for me in answering some "fundamental" questions like:
- How do you know that bright star is indeed Jupiter?
- Why does Jupiter has so many moons while we have only one?
- Why are the moons in same vertical line?
- How big are the moons compared to Earth's moon ?
- What is a difference betn a galaxy, nebula, star cluster and a star?

Jon and I spent about 2 hrs talking with guests.. I have done the public outreach after a long time..

Thanks to Jon for asking me to help you.. Thanks Russ for inviting us.. Thanks Scott for sharing your wonderful experiences..

Some photos from Jon and Russ.

Jon and me with Scott Altman

Me in action.. setting the fan for the mirror at the base of the scope..

With Russ.. at the end of the night..

Back to stargazing... Part 1 / 4

Date: Feb 25th 2012 Saturday
Observation Time: 6pm to 12pm (observing time ~5 hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: good.. few lower clouds on west in the eve..but alter cleared up.. moon 5th day/~30% phase causing light pollution till 8:30pm.. lil windy at sunset and ~11pm. Seeing wasn't that great 5/10.
Instruments: Jon's 16" f/4 scope and np-101 f/7 scope

interesting things of the night were:
- first real dark session after one year gap..
- first observation of Medusa nebula, Rosette nebula, California nebula, Whale Galaxy, Needle Galaxy, plus some more new galaxy fuzzies.
- Comet Garrad C2009/P1 in Draco
- Browsing galaxies from 5" np-101 scope. When sky is clear and its dark, the small scope of np-101 can indeed show so many faint fuzzies. its very impressive. TBD: Should browse Virgo Markarain's chain through this scope next time.

16" scope with parracor: ~2070mm focal length
31mm: 67x
20mm: 103x
16mm: 130x
9mm: 230x
7mm: 295x

np-101 focal length: 540mm
35mm: 15x
31mm: 17x
24mm: 22x
16mm: 34x
7mm:: 77x

Mercury - Just after sunset, mercury visible through binoculars. while locating it, Jon cheated through his digital dumpy level for altitude and I cheated by following jon's scope location thru my binocs. Tried 31mm, 16mm, 7mm nagler on apo... With 7mm @77x, best view. Looked like a solid disk. Environment refraction showing up in apo, with blue/green color on east and orange/red color on west side of mercury disk.

Venus - Next to moon. 7mm @ 77x best view in apo. the phase of Venus is 60% from west. Lil bigger disk than mercury.

Jupiter - good view, but not the brightest view. 16" scope with 20mm Nag2 @ 103x. Big jupter disk with 4 bands visible. sothern side being the thicker band. On second band from south has a lil storm pattern, just next to the center of the band. (TBD: Need to confirm this: ~6pm). 4 moons lurking around, 2 on each side. with binocs, with hand-shaking trouble, western side 2 moons can be easily seen.

Rigel - 16inch scope, With 9mm @ 230x, fabulous view. Rigel looks like white-blue diamond with 4 streaks in each direction, like a sketch. Companion star is visible clearly with very good separation. located on North 89deg from rigel. Very faint as compared to Rigel. Lowed the magnification with 20mm @ 103x. The split is visible, but lil difficult. rigel is way too bright in the view than its companion. Jon mentioned one imp thing.. Lesser the magnification, brighter the star looks in the view. Hence Rigel dominated the view @103x as compared to 230x. this should be an easy split from home as well (TBD)

Orion M42-M43: 16" scope with 20mm @ 103x: Very beautiful view.. 3D perception with dark pillars ad the wings. Can not feet the whole nebula in one view. trapezoid visible, but only 5 stars, bad seeing. Jon mentioned that he can see/feel the red color in the saucer/wing part on upper side. I can't. M43 shows up as mediocre view as compared to M42.

Orion Running Man Neb ngc1973: Made a mistake with location. We pointed from-Inside the wing-to bigger dark pillar-to trapezoid-to dark splitting lane-just above it... its totally wrong.. Infact its outside wing-other side of the wing than m43, and few degrees away from the disk, you can spot the nebulosity. the dark region nearby sort of shows up as running man. Tried with np101, since its easier to get the judgment on location.. overall not very impressive and not very discernible view.

CMa Thor's Helmet - Impressive views with 31mm and 20mm in 16" scope. 20mm @ 103x with O-III filter is the best view. Object shows up as nice big comma shape with think disk at the top. More you focus on the view, more details you get.

CMa Tau - 103x shows up the view.. its a tiny open cluster in the view at this magnification. Central star is brighter than the rest of stars in the cluster. ~25 stars around. All stars are in outward triangular curvature from the central star, as if the ripples flowing outsides.

M93: 10x50 binocs view. Very small and tiny OC, as compared to nearby cousins M46-M47. Nothing impressive. no particular shape either.

Reflection nebula 2467 below m93: very good view in 16" sscope @ 103x with O-III filter. Easier to locate. Fainter and smaller than Thor's helmet. faint C shaped filled disk visible. in np-101, with some efforts, can see something very tiny..

M46-M47 : In np101 with 16mm @32x shows both clusters in same view. Having both of them in same view shows the beauty in both clusters. planetary nebula in m46 not visible. with 7mm@77x, PN shows up nicely with the cluster in the apo. In 16" with 20mm @103x with O-III filter, m46 is marvelous. sprinked stars now seem brighter with bigger apperture. M47 seems very marginal.. Planetory shows up as bright object in intself. neb looks good...

Jon got 10x50 Japanese Celestron regal binoculars. roof prism. but field of view is narrower than my nikkon 10x50. Tried another 7x42 binos. FoV is wider than Regal binocs, but still lower then mine. Still, 7x binocs was nice. Compared m46-m47 and nearby views in the binocs.

Continued..

Back to stargazing... Part 2 / 4

Continued..

California Neb in Perseus ngc1499: (New) Tried it multiple times during the night with np-101 apo. the best view was with 31mm nagler @ 17x with H-beta filter on. very-very faint.. infact i had hard time seeing it, though it was in the view. with filter on can see something, but really not sure abt the shpae or borders. Not very impresive object. (btw, the description says that this neb is in perseus, but still in orion arm of the galaxy.. interesting). this is first time i observed it.. I think i had tried it in past, but failed.

Medusa Nebula (Abell 21)- (New) In Gemini. yet another very-very faint fuzzy.. Tried it 4-5 times during the night. Very hard to see.. in 20mm @103x can see some fuzziness with averted vision. Later after moonset, with O-III filter on, fuzziness shows up lil better. bigger object like thor's helmet, but definitely way too fainter. First observation.

Ghost of Jupiter in Hydra- Very bright object..O-III Filter helps.. in APO with 24mm@ 22x, it shows up as blue star. but there are no other blue stars in the view and hence you know this is the ghost. with jon's 16" scope, with 20mm @ 103x with O-III give fabulous view.. very bright disk of the ghost. can see some patterns in the disk, but cant grasp it. Just for fun, want to check the first observation from oak springs camground..I still remember it, when Jon showed it to me for first time.

Eskimo nebula in Gemini: Very bright object.. more the magnification, you can clearly see the detailes inside.. white disk.. Bright star in the center visible. Its a disk, made with lot of patterns circling around the central star.. wasn't able to locate it in np-101 quickly..

Rosette nebula in Monoceros (New): Very big object.. relatively fainter object.. but with UHC filter on 20mm in np101 (~25x) fills the whole field of view... the star cluster ngc2244 with 6 bright stars is at the center. these are like three pairs. The whole nebulosity surrounds this star cluster in C shape. The C shape itself is very dense. Tried it with 16" scope with 31mm @ 66x. Very bright nebulosity. O-III filter kills the star cluster, but UHC filter works well on this object. First observation.

Hubble variable nebula in Monoceros (New): in 31mm @ 66x, looked like a very tiny, comet spaed object.. it lokks like ideal sketch of comet, or a street llight with light shapde. As we zoom in, there is a nice bright star at the tip. So it must be reflection nebula, with star light reflecting.. as we zoomed in, you can indeed see the curvature at the end of the fuzzy object indicating the light just shows up at that point and doesnt pass thru.. Very interesting object.. saw it first time, need to see it again..

Orion inverted 37 star cluster ngc2169: directly at high magnification, i think. Seemed very dim, though no filter.. perfect interveted 37 shape. 7 shpae has ~3 bright stars, while shpae 3 had 4 or 3 bright stars.. and all other stars are very dim. total ~15 stars.

Continued..

Back to stargazing... Part 3 / 4

Continued...


Perseus double cluster: with apo 24mm @ 24x, both in the view.. these dont seem as impressive as m46-47 pairs.. both of them almost look same.

M36,M37,M38 in Auriga: Apo with 24mm @24x.. single OC seemed bigger than the double cluster itself.. Outside one, i.e. m37, seemed much more beautiful with compressed salt-paper style.

NGC1893 OC, IC-410 object just below m38, next to vertical star alignment: 16" with 20mm @ 103x, simple open star cluster with lil nebulosity lurking around.. but nebulosity is not that prominent.. probably need to see it thru filter.. Jon have shown me this object before, but looks like i never documented it. interestingly, the description of this objects points to another IC object 405 i.e. Flaming Star Nebula, which is just on the opposite side of the vertical star alignment.. it is more prominent and famous.. need to watch it next time..

M1 Crab nebula: Apo @ 24mm @ 22x. I have seen crab so many times and i know its locatino precisly, but just want able to see it at 22x. I was expecting lil fuzzy ball.. but turned out that at 22x this one is very difficult object to observe. Jon was also lil surprised. it was very tiny and very faint fuzzy at this view.. this sort of gives perspective on how fiant and lil these objects are.. we are just exposed to bigger scopes showing these objects much bigger and brighter..

M81-M82: From apo @ 22x can see the bright fuzzy and bright streak objects in the same view.. can not miss it, while browsing.. alsmot as bright as background stars. m81 the elongated one seems brighter.. Later observed with 16" @ 20mm @ 103x.. it looks much better..

Two other ngcs 3077-2976 in the same vicinity.. they definitely seemed smaller and fainter.. but surprisingly, one looks like m82 i.e. elongated shape one, while another one seems elliptical, like m81.. though they are not..

Jon showed yet another ngc 2787 in the vicinity: (New) yet another fuzzy, but much smaller than above ngcs.

Mizar: The triplet system visible from apo @ 22x. Alcor lil far away than Mizar A-B. All white blue..

Leo M65-M66-3628 galaxies: From the 16", seeing wasnt that great so not very clear.. Same one from apo-24mm@22x looks good as well.. ngc not visible in that view.. but cant miss 65-66 pair.. also, from apo this pair seemed fainter than m81-82 pair.

Tried m95-96 triplet from apo, but seemed very hard.. wasn't able to get clear view in apo.. its surprising..

Jon showed yet another triplet in similar area as m65-66.. betn theta and delta leonis. NGC 3607-3608 tiny fuzzies..

Mars - observed multiple times... best view was thru 16" @ 20mm @ 103x at late night, when mars was 45deg west. The dark areas visible clearly.. mainly two dark areas.. one on northen side.. other one on south.. view improved over the period..

Continued..

Back to stargazing... Part 4 / 4

Continued..

Needle Galaxy 4565: tiny spiky needle.. looks big from the 16" scope.. middle buldge is clear.. its like tiny sombrero galaxy. Another fuzzy 4559 next to it..

Whale galaxy 4631 is along the same lines. in npo, you can easily see all these three galaxies needle-4559-whale.. not in the same view 24mm @ 22x. Whale seemed much bigger object than others.. Whale in 16" @103x seemed impressive object. irregular elongated paintbrush stroke shape.. the middle part has lot of stars just on the galaxy surface. interestingly there is a bright star just above the disk at center. and there is yet another tiny fuzzy next to it. 4627.. its like slash dot |-

Yet another galaxy 4656 closer to whale, easily observed in the 16" scope.. but not visible in np101. this one also has some stars on the surface of the galaxy on bottom side, just like whale..

spindle galaxy 3115 in hydra.. closer to ghost of jupiter. these two objects should be seen together. Smaller than any of the other galaxies like needle-whale or Coma fuzzies. Remembering the location is hard.. but was able to see thru the apo @ 22x as well.. very very tiny streak..

M3 from apo..is very very tiny.. but from 16" had fabulous view.. can resolve almost all stars from outer and central core..

Hickson 68 and 5371 - Jon showed yet another fuzzy structure in Uma tail.. I think i have seen this one before.. We located in apo @ 22x.. Two of them very close to the star..elliptical fuzzies.. these two are part of hickson 68 group.. while another one 5371, way below in the view next to another bright star.. this one semeed lil bigger

Comet Garradd C/2009 P1 in draco - in apo 31mm.. very bright..cicular bright in center and fuzzier-fainter from outside.. no tail as such poking out.. perfect circular object.. near Eta Draco star.. +30 deg above horizon... it was last object of the night..

Overall, we saw so many tiny little fuzzies NGC objects from the apo, during this observation. When its dark and clear, indeed this tiny aperture can still show you these fuzzy objects.. Its not like they are impressive at this aperture level, but the fact that we can even see them with this tiny scope impresses me a lot.

Missed Dhruv..for these 8-10 hrs..

Recap 2011

As far as real astronomy concerned, probably nothing was done this year.

Number of observations were: 4
Dark night outside city observations : 1

Couple of them were with my parents here. They indeed enjoyed Jon's 25" telescope

Overall, I spent 365 days observing our little Pole star: Dhruv..

Aparna's @ School and that means... :-)

Date: 10th March 2011, Thu
Observation Time: 7pm - 8pm (1hr)
Location: Archstone Apts, Mission Valley, SD CA
Weather: No clouds, lil windy. Moon 6th day.
Instruments: AT102ED f/7, 7x20 Finder.

Pan 35 - 20x
Nagler 17 - 42x
Xcel 10 - 71x
Nagler 7 - 102x
Nag 7 x2 - 204x

Rigel -
35mm Pan : Can not split it.
17mm Nagler : when switched from 35 to 17mm, can not see the split, but when switched from 10mm to 17mm, then can sort of see the companion star, but its lil hard.
10mm Xcel : Not very clean split, but can see the companion star just below rigel.
7mm Nagler : Clear split. The magnitude difference is clearly visible. Rigel is not that bright and doesn't emit rays like Sirius, hence can observe the brightness of the companion. After previous dark night observation from Jon's place, can get the feeling of 10" seconds separation. Its very close at this magnification as well.
7mm x2 : Not a sharp image. 7mm was the best image.

M41 - Can locate it from the finder. Pan 35 and Nag 17 shows the best view. C shape and 2 V shapes of bright stars should be the distinctive mark for this one. (TBD: older observations)

Tau CMa -
Can not see the cluster in the finder. Hence Possible to get confused with the wrong star.
Pan 35 : barely shows the cluster, you can see very faint stars around the brighter Tau CMa, but nothing distinctive.
Nag 17 : Shows better view of the cluster. Can see around 10-12 faints stars in the vicinity. no distinctive shape. but all stars are well surrounding the brighter Tau.
Xcel 10 : More fainter stars visible. Total star count is 20-25.
Nag 7 : More fainter stars. ~35. Probably this is the best view.

M93 :
Don't remember much about this one. (Write the observation immediately. I am writing this one 4 days later.)

M46-M47 : From dark sight like Jon's place, M46 is very impressive and better than M47. But from polluted place like our mission valley home, M46 is totally washed out. M47 shows more brightness.

In M47, k shape visible, with arcs instead of straight lines. As magnification is increased, more fainter stars are visible. M47 clearly visible in finder as well.

M46 is totally washed out. Finder doesn't show it at all. Very hard to see in Pan 35 as well. It needs to be located based on M47 and nearby two brighter stars, as mentioned in the star map. Nag 17 shows some fainter stars.

NGC 2423 Near M47 : Quickly tried NGC above M47.. but nothing impressive at all. In Nag 17 barely 5 stars visible. Proabaly better from darker sight.

M48 : is out of reach. APO is almost going vertical form the patio.

M42 - M43 with UHC : M42 visible from finder.
Pan 35 shows M42, lil bit of saucer and then dark pillar is visible. two stars in trapezoid are resolvable. M43 not visible. Pan 35 fits in other two stars of the orion belt as well. Apparently each star is a small open cluster in itself.

Nag 17 magnifies the image well. Trapezoid 4 stars visible. Saucer and dark pillar visible nciely, 3 stars in parallel to the pillar are visible nicely. When added UHC filter, stars turned blue. Can only resolve 3 stars in the trapezoid. but the nebulosity increased noticeably. Saucer shows more nebulosity than Pan 35 view itself. M43 is now visible as well. The dark piller and surrounding area stars showing more depth. the nebulosity around the trapezoid seems more brighter. Second pillar shows up from the saucer, pointing towards trapezoid, but at right-angled position from the main pillar. I have see nthis pillar before, but i had totally forgoten it. but tonights view brought it back. Surprisingly, I missed this second pillar shape in Jon's 25".. I wonder how..

Nag 7 wasn't able to resolve the trapezoid. Also image wasn't stable. Nag 17 + UHC view was the best for the night.

Sigma Orionis - Read my past observations about this one in the morning. So visited it. Easy catch.
Pan 35 : shows 2-2-1 star alignment. (i.e. pair-pair-single stars). First pair is STF 761, second pair, in the middle, Sigma Orionis. Can resolve only two stars (A & E). 'A' is definitely brighter than 'E'.

Nag 17 : shows one more star in A-E.. D shows up. Fainter than E. Very close to A.

Nag 7 : C pops up in this one. Lil Further from A than D.

Overall A-B was never split. I dont know how much mags it requires (??). I should tried the barlow. (Description below says that i can not")

From internet: "Sigma Orionis consists of 5 components, the main components A and B at present only 0.3 "apart, and thus for amateur telescopes hardly separable. The components C, D and E each have a distance of 11.5", 12.7 " and 41.4 "of AB"

Mintaka : Nice binary. Easily split in Pan 35. Primary is brighter my huge margin than secondary.

Moon : Observed moon for ~10 mins In Pan 35, Nag 17 and Nag 7. Details TBD.

Recap 2010

Total Observations : 17
Mountain/Dark night observations : 9

Seems like number of observations are same as previous year of 2009.. no improvement.. Wonder why :)?

2010 Events:

- In Jan, Observed Mars for first time. Northern Polar ice cap was fabulous.
- In March, first observation with Aparna in mountains..it was damn cold.
- In April, Jon gifted his APO 102ED as a wedding present. That was mind blowing. He gave me a sweet surprise, by announcing it on Cloudy Nights.
- In April, observation from Grand Canyon. Marvelous.
- In May, Systematic observation of Virgo fuzzies. It was rewarding.
- In Aug, Moved to house in mission valley.. From orange zone to red zone... Damn.
- In Oct, Comet Hartley observations. the impressive part is in one night, over 3-4 hrs, comet movement in the sky can be noticed very easily.
- In Oct, Observed Uranus again. Not that difficult, once you know where to look at i.e. which pin-point star is indeed Uranus.
- In Oct, almost finished all messier objects except M102. M102 is almost set in western skies, so need to wait for 2011. Damn.
- In Dec, Gogol/Ulka :) surprised us, still made our life heavenly.

2011 Events:

- Jon got a new scope.. Obsession 25" F/5. Its massive.
- In Mar, Observed through the big canon. Marvelous views.
- In Mar, Finished all Messier objects. Took almost three years to bag all of them.
- From July onwards, going to miss astronomy for a while :). So I better collect some photons in next three months.

Mar 2011 : Messier status

M1 Crab (6)
M10 (2)
M101 Pinwheel (5)
M102 Spindle (2)
M103 (3)
M104 Sombrero (6)
M106 (2)
M106-4217 (1)
M107 (2)
M108 (3)
M109 (4)

M11 WildDucks (6)
M12 (2)
M13 (11)
M13 GC-6207 Gal (1)
M14 (2)
M15 (1)
M16 Eagle (4)
M17 Swan (9)
M18 (1)
M19 (1)

M2 (2)
M20 Triffid (10)
M21 (2)
M22 (6)
M22-M28 (5)
M23 (1)
M23- M24- M25 (5)
M26-NGC6712 (1)
M27 Dumbbell (8)
M28 (3)
M29 (4)

M3 GC (7)
M30 (8)
M31 Andromeda- M32- M110 (11)
M33 Triangulum (8)
M34 (3)
M35 (7)
M37-M36-M38 OC Triplet (6)
M39 (1)

M4 (6)
M4-GC6144 (4)
M40 (1)
M41 (8)
M42 Orion-M43 (11)
M44 Beehive (4)
M45 Pleiades (6)
M46-M47 OC Pair (8)
M48 (2)
M49 (2)

M5 (1)
M50 (3)
M51 Whirlpool (11)
M52 (4)
M53 GC (4)
M54 (3)
M55 (4)
M56 (2)
M57 Ring (15)
M58 (2)
M58-M59-M60 (1)
M59 (1)

M60 (1)
M61 (1)
M62 (2)
M63 (5)
M64 Black Eye (2)
M65-M66-3628 Gal (10)
M67 (3)
M68 GC (2)
M69 (2)

M7-M6 (9)
M70 (1)
M71 (2)
M72-M73 (7)
M74 (2)
M75 (2)
M76 Little Dumbbell (4)
M77 (1)
M77-1055-1087 (1)
M78 (5)
M79 (2)

M8 Lagoon (12)
M8 Lagoon - 6530 OC (1)
M80 (4)
M81-M82 Gal Bodes Neb (10)
M81-M82-3077-2976 (1)
M83 Seashell (3)
M84-M86 (3)
M85 (1)
M87 (1)
M87-M89-M90 (1)
M88-M91 (3)
M89 (1)

M9 (1)
M90 (1)
M92 (4)
M93 (7)
M94 (4)
M95-M96-M105 (6)
M97 Owl (3)
M97 Owl - M108 (1)
M98-M99-M100 (3)

Being Obsessive.. Part I

Date: Mar 5th 2011 Saturday
Observation Time: 7pm to 11:30pm (observing time ~3:30 hrs),
Location: Jon's Home, Boulevard, CA
Weather: not great.. partly cloudy so looking thru patches. No wind. Seeing wasn't great 5/10.
Instruments: Jon's new 25" f/5 Obsession telescope
Buddies: Jon & Ashwin

Lot of new things to begin with for this observing session.
- Jon's new 25" obsession scope. Its massive. Need to climb 8 foot ladder to observe at zenith.
- First session of 2011
- Welcome Gogol session.
- Finished all 110 messier objects.. not in one night, but in 3 years period :). All messier objects are observed atleast once now. It was sort of 3-year messier marathon.

Ashwin joined for this session, first time at Jon's place.

Recently Jon purchased 25" obsession telescope. It is a used telescope and has a chip on the back side of the mirror. Jon got an excellent deal for the scope without much compromise. Its obsession scope #511.

Irrespective of the massive size, the scope movement is very smooth from the top of the ladder. It shows really nice views.
Mirror: 25"
Focal Length : f/5 3110mm. With parracor : ~3658mm
So now a 31mm Nagler low mag eyepiece from 16" scope, suddenly gives 100x view in 25" scope. Its not low mag eyepiece anymore.

Can clearly show 500x zooming with sharp images. Can easily go to 800x with decent views.

The Collimation took longer than expected. Jon is still getting familiar with the movement of secondary mirror screws. Primary alignment was quick. Also, the collimation stayed fine whole observing session. Considering the amount of scope movement, its indeed stable.

For such a big scope, generally it makses sense to observe all the objects in the vicinity and then to move on to the next location in the sky. But becasue of clouds, we ended up jumping from one location to opposite one and moved the scope and ladder a lot. We ended up doing ~10-15 circles/360deg rotations with the scope, during the night. Still, I am listing the objects per constellation and with the flow of the observing sessions.

Perseus
========
M76 - little dumbbell nebula: Started the night with M76. not a object that will impress immediately, but details on M76 was nice. Can clearly see two lobes, sort of in hourglass shape. The brightness was enough. Considering mirror cool-down time and cloudy weather, it indeed showed more than enough details on the object.

Orion
=======
M42 - M43 orion nebula : Switched to Orion M42 masterpiece. In 31 Nagler @ 118x, the eyepiece was fully covered under the nebula. the saucer, the pillar and the trapezoid was fabulous. Very bright. More you look at it, can feel the depth.. Had3D effect. Trapezoid clearly shows 6 stars. Double speed focuser indeed gives pinpoint stars of #5 and #6 in trapezoid. With 20mm Nagler @ 182x, magnifies it to the dark pillar. In contrast, the trapezoid and the illumination of the gas around it was very bright. Because of bright nebulousity all around and the central pillar being so dark, sort of looses the typical shape. M43 itself shows lot of bright nebulosity. Talked about running man nebula nearby, but wasn't sure about the location. Next time TBD.

M78 - The nebulosity pops up because of bigger aperture. A Bright star in the view. Hard to remember, because of lack of discernible shape, but definitely filled ~10% of the eyepiece.

Rigel - Visited Rigel multiple times in the night. At 118x can clearly see the companion. Rigel was sharp, but the companion wasn't.. tried to focus, but it still seemed like blurry disk. companion ~9.8" separation. Very close to Rigel. Later visted it again with ~400x. This is to compare with Sirius. Just wanted to get a judgment on how 10" separation looks like at ~400x.

Canis Major
============
M46-47 : with 20 Nagler, at 182x, the hwole view was filled with bright stars of M46. In reality, M46 has fainter stars than M47, but with large aperture of 25" makes M46 such a bright object. the planetory nebula is in the view on the right-bottom side. A faint star at the center of it is visible. not sure if its part of the cluster or the planetory star itself. At 182x, M47 is infact dull object, though it has bright stars its really sparse object. Hence nothing impressive in their. With 31 Nagler, 118x, both objects never fit in the same view and hence the beauty of observing both in wide-view is sort of lost. but 31 nagler still shows M46 as an impressive object.

M93 - This was yet another OC.

NGC 2467 - object opposite to M93. - The nebulosity in the object is very distinct in the big aperture. Sort of big C shaped nebulosity. Next to it is the Open cluster in V shape, similar to Taurus.

Sirius - Tried splitting Sirius. Difficult part here is Sirius is too bright compared to the companion and hence very difficult to observe the companion. Also its only 10" seconds apart. Only thing I knew tabout it is that its following sirius. Hence i kept Sirius barely out of the view and tried to look for the companion, but it was hard. Sirius light rays were causing trouble. Secondly wasn't sure how much 10" distance seems at 400x. So thought that another faint star is its companion. To get the judgment on 10" separation in 400x, tried Rigel. that proved that the faint star i was looking at was wrong. 10" is still too close in 400x. FAILED to observe the companion. Need better seeing/stability for this one.

Beta Monoceros - Observed the triplet, during the last session of observing. Triplet system with a tight bright pair. No colors, all three were yellow.

Ursa Major
===========
M81-M82 : M81 seemed like a big elliptical fuzzy object. Very bright. But M82 was more impressive, with distinct edge-on and some motteling on it at the center in Y axis.

M51 : Visited M51 probably 3 times during the night. The object moved from horizon - 5deg to -30-45 deg in 3 hrs. In the last session, the details on the object were clear, Can easily trace the spiral structure fomr the center to the connecting NGC galaxy. Actual Connector betn both of them was not visible. Some Nebulas or brighter regions in the spiral of M51 were visible. Don't remember the exact location of these regions. More eyepiece time + dark adaptation, gives more details on this object. Definitely saw more details on M51 visually for first time.

M101 : The brighter part at the core is visible. Jon mentioned that this is a big object and can not fit in the view itself.. I didn't see much in this one except the fuzziness at the core.

Canes Venatici
===============
Galaxy Quintet near M51 - Hickson 68 - NGC 5354 + 4 more : This is actualy in CVn and not in UMa. Jon pointed to this one.. Seemed like typical Jon object :). Very faint galaxy group, made up of 5 galaxies. Two of them were (relatively) bright, while remaining were barely visible. Very faint. The brighter NGC 5354 is of mag +11.38, while the lowest one on the left NGC-5358 is of 14.57. this is just to know that Jon's scope goes till +15 mag, without much trouble. Have I seen this one before? (YES, I have. check older observations)

Continued..