Because it was the only night since Sept 3 that promised to be clear, I just had to make use of it. Living here in the crappiest climate in the world, who knows when the next clear night will occur. Probably 1000 years after I'm dead for all we know. And with the moon fast approaching, chances are slim to non-existant.
I got wasted earlier in the day, but all the "best" seeing conditions occur when I'm drunk.
Took the 12" dob out, did the usual pre observing fun of collimating and yeah.
Scope: 12" F/4.6 truss dob
Time: 9pm - midnight
Seeing: 2-5/10
Transparency: 2/5 >> grading to 4/5
At the begging of the session, my lousy neighbour had his freaking floodlight on, which spills onto my back fence and is quite annoying.
Maybe he had to make sure his 2 little p!§5head Malteser Terriers don't get eaten by a fly while out crapping........for a whole freaking hour
I'm going to have to add "anti-aircraft gun" to my list of observing equipment.
47 Tuc
Basically fully resolved at 64x. Tried a variety of mags and decided that 283x provided the best view, the whole FOV swamped with tiny pricks of light (not to be confused with the prick next door); although at one point, a mag of 353x provided a magic view. The core was seemingly a haze among a mass of glittering sparkles. Seeing seemed to be all over the place, with moments when 353x looked great, but at other times, I felt seasick from the shimmering effect visible on the cluster. At 353x I could see a tiny, oval-shaped star-free void just off-centre from the cluster's core toward the west. I threw in the 17mm LVW for 83x and even at this low mag the cluster covered at least 2/3rds of the field with full blown resolution.
NGC 362
Even at 64x, this cluster showed resolution.
353x - Outer 2/3rds nicely resolved with a distincly granular disk grading to a tight, bright core. I got the impression that there was a tiny semi-circle of stars around the core. I got the impression that there is a definate increase in resolution here than with my 10".
M15
Observing a couple of bright stars near M15, I could see that seeing was pretty trashy, even at 176x stars were being smeared all over the joint. At 217x, M15 appeared quite washed out, but showed decent resolution and a tight core. The core regions were granular but the outer 3/4ths of the cluster were resolved.
After M15 I swung back to NGC 362 and I was shocked at
how much BETTER NGC 362 is than M15 at the same magnification. Visually, the two clusters appeared similar in both size and resolution, but NGC 362 was a hell of a lot brighter!
I then swung over to 47 Tuc again and instantly realised how privelidged us southerners are!
NGC 246 - the Cetus Bubble
Virtually invisible without a filter at 128x, but with the OIII it stood out, quite faintly, as a not quite complete circular orb, with the eastern edge "missing". Its shape did remind me of a bubble. The interior of this object appeared to have uneven brightness, with atleast 2 spots of complete darkness. Atleast 4 stars were involved.
Small Magellanic Cloud
Something I always wanted to do, but unachievable due to my geographic location, is sweep the SMC. I used a whole manner of mags from 64x to 176x, with and without OIII. The western end of the cloud is very rich in all manner of nebulous clumps, I'd say I had about 10 in one FOV at 83x, and all of these are bright under the OIII filter. The eastern end of the cloud contains soem big bright cool stuff.
NGC 346 impressed me, a large and bright nebula without filter, but was blazing with the OIII. At around 176x, It looked somewhat like a barred spiral galaxy!
NGC 371 appeared as a large, moderately faint cluster at low powers, but the OIII revealed a totally badass circular cloud of nebulosity which completely impressed me. The thing is as round as a coin! The nearby cluster
NGC 330 showed resolution at 176x, appearing as a very tight clump. Also came across
NGC 460, which has two nebulous knots adjacent the cluster NGC 465.
Unfortunately, at midnight, that usual bloody Melbourne Cloud invaded so had to pack it up. Well I guess that's October's, November's and Cecember's quota fullfilled.....