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Old 20-01-2010, 10:56 AM
CarlJoseph (Carl)
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CarlJoseph is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Dandenong Ranges
Posts: 265
First real night of viewing

My first night out in the backyard a couple of weeks ago was okay although I had no idea what I was looking at.

After a night at MPAS I had a few targets I wanted to find myself in my own scope. Last night, the clouds in Melbourne cleared up and I went for it. Had a great night.

I started with Jupiter just after sunset. I managed to easily find it and could clearly make out three of the moons (two below and one above). There looked to be a fourth further down below-left. The moons had obviously shifted from the previous week at MPAS. It was kinda cool to have seen the difference even a few nights makes. My wife was also impressed once I managed to drag her away from some Top Model show!

Then off to the Orion Nebula. Now that I had seen it through some big scopes I knew exactly what to look for. Managed to just make out the 4 stars of the trapezium which took a bit of patience but was worth it.

At MPAS, one of the great sights I saw was 47 Tuc. It took me forever to find it as I couldn't see it with my naked eye. Spotted a small blurry star just below-right of the small Magellan clouds and then with a little moving about I stumbled on it. It was a bit fuzzy through my scope but I was pretty wrapped I managed to find it.

Then I moved off to Pleiades. Wow, it was crazy bright!

I then took a right to Sirius. My collimation must have been out a bit because it looked like it had a little bulge to the top-right of it. I doubt I managed to see the second star in there (Sirius is a binary yeah?).

Then a bit of a random tour around before going back inside.

Cheers,
Af.
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