Happy New Year everyone!!
We have had a long time friend staying with us for a few days who has never looked through a telecope, so last night Margaret and I introduced Lyn to some of the old faithfuls and got a wonderful reaction, some oohs and aahs in all the appropriate places. LOL.
Unfortunatly we had to contend with the normal blusterly east wind so typical for this time of year, but some good chatter and wine took care of that.
I recon that anyone who still got a buz out of views shaking like a leaf will definately be hooked!
Anyhow, our list consited of the following:
M31 Andromeda Galaxy, only 6 degrees alt but Lyn wanted to see a galaxy other than our own. Still a reasonable view and M110 was also just visable.
Jupiter & Uranus, also very blured but wonderful non the less. Both visable in the FOV of the 21mm Denkmier eyepiece (47X). Uranus resolved to a small but blury disk. Nice.
Betelguese, nice and very red
M45 Pleiades open cluster.
M42 Orion Nebula, big aah from Lyn at this point. Good an crisp then zoomed in on the Trapezium at 119X. Too windy to go closer.
Sirius, another big ooh.
NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula and surounds, wonderful as usual
NGC 104 47 Tucanae Globular cluster, insert very big oooh and aaah. Resolved nicely at 76X with the 13mm Nagler.
NGC 3372 Carina Nebula, a liitle fuzzy but still good.
NGC 3532 Open cluster, very nice with a red star in the corner the add attraction.
All of this viewing was interspaced with approximatly 7 meteors over two hours. They all came from the same radiant near the LMC & SMC but I am unaware of any showers in this region at this time, any help? There seemed to be to many from the same spot to be sporadics.
This was the end of a wonderful evening with wonderful people, good chatter and wine and I think that this may lead to more viewing for Lyn.
