[goober (Doug)]

Location: Dandenongs
Temperature: 17
Seeing: 4/10
Transparency: 5/10
Time: 10:40pm - 11:50pm

After seeing my neighbour's floodlight on again tonight, the third night in a row, I decided to pack up and go dark sky.

I was debating whether to go to The Briars, or somewhere north. There seemed to be quite a bit of cloud to the south, so I ruled out The Briars.

An IceInSpacer kindly sent me a list of sites they use, so I tried the one closest to home, up in the hills. It took precisely an hour to pack up, drive and set up at the other end. After the baking 40 degrees we had during the day, it was a positively cold 17 degrees, bit breezy, with some high cloud to the west and south.

The site is quite good, quiet, open, and felt a lot safer than other sites I'd tried in the Dandenongs. Dark views to the north, east, and south. Quite bright to the west, with Melbourne over there.

I had a long list of targets, mainly neglected Messier open clusters and interesting sounding doubles.

Rigel - my seeing check. Only tried 108x but split it. Seeing doesn't look great tonight.

M41 - an open cluster in Canis Major. Quite easy to pick out with binoculars, a few degrees south of Sirius. A misty patch at 23x, with a few stars resolved. Interesting triangle of relatively bright stars 2 degrees away. Nice view at 49x, dominated by 2 orange stars that seem considerably brighter than their companions. Nicely situated cluster, against a sparkling backdrop of stars - you sure don't see that effect from the suburban backyard!

M35 - an open cluster in Gemini. Very easy to locate as the Eta Geminorum was naked eye from this site, so I could place it and the cluster in the field with my 24mm Panoptic. A bright cluster, around 20-30' wide. Lots of stars resolved in here. The patterns seemed to trace out loops and streams of stars.

M37 - an open cluster in Auriga. Never bothered looking at these before, low down in the north. However, I could see Capella bubbling away near the horizon, and could trace out the shape of Auriga up to Elnath. That meant the three Auriga Messier clusters should be in grasp. I tried to spot them naked eye, but couldn't see them - I found my eyes kept being drawn to a chain of three magnitude 5 stars in a close line, fooling me into thinking I was seeing a cluster. I did a quite sweep with binoculars and yep, there they were. Three misty patches of light, in a line, about 8 degrees wide. M37 seemed to be quite faint, but I could resolve lots of stars in it. The best views were at 49x and 77x. I like looking for patterns and impressions in clusters - this one seemed to have two dark perpendicular lines through it, like someone had slashed a couple of gaps in the cluster.

M36 - open cluster in Auriga. Next cluster in line. Nothing really spectacular about this cluster - too long gaping at the Jewel Box, I guess, and I am packing only 4" of aperture. Quite dim, with stars resolved. I could see two triangles, one superimposed on the other in this cluster.

M38 - open cluster in Auriga. Last one in the chain. Again quite dim, compared to M37. This cluster seemed to trace out a chain of stars in the form of the letter "Z", or "N", depending on your orientation. Nice to cross some missing Messiers off my list.

M1 - Crab Nebula in Taurus. Speaking of missing Messiers, this one has been a white whale to my Ahab for 15 years. I have often looked for this from my putrid, light polluted back yard, egged on by books that tell me how easy it is. 8" dob, 12" dob, 90mm ETX, LP filters, etc - nothing. So, while I was in the area I decided to be disappointed again, and swung the refractor up a few degrees to Zeta Tauri and had a peek at 23x. Merd! Mon Dieu! Excuse my French, but there it was - easy as easy. Bright, obvious and totally unmistakable. An oval, misty patch of smudge that just jumped down the eyepiece. I was slamming in Naglers as fast as I could, before this miraculous apparition disappeared. 49x, 77x, 108x - all showed it up quite well. 77x seemed to give the best view. I spent a good 10 minutes just soaking up the view. I couldn't spot detail beyond the oval/rectangular glow, around 3x5'. Just seeing it was enough.

14 Aurigae - a double star in Aurigae. While in the area, I had a few doubles to chase down. I put 14 Aurigae in the field of view, a 14" wide double, and popped in the 5mm Nagler. Something didn't look right - the view was all hazy. I flicked my red headlamp onto ultra-bright and had a look - dew. The eyepieces had all fogged over. I checked out the dew-shield on the scope - it's black aluminum - wet. The objective was still clear, but the eyepieces were toast.

I didn't have any dew prevention with me - never needed it before. I'm not sure what to do about it.

It was only the eyepieces that were the problem - perhaps keep them in the case, and not on the eyepiece rack on the scope mount? Dew heater strips (starts heading away from my K.I.S.S. principle!)? A visit to a travel store for a portable hair dryer/heat gun?

It was nearly midnight, so rather than try and dry things out in the dark, I packed up. Bugger, I was enjoying myself. I'll be back to this site.