[jamespierce (James)]

Pomonal Night 4 - 1/1/2011 - Seeing 3/5 - Transparency 4/5 - Windy

skyoyster and I did a bit of a double act again swapping back and forth between the SDM and Tak all night. The seeing was quite good, very good at times but so was the wind, both scopes were buffeted around sufficiently that moderate and high magnifications were very hit and miss. My plan for the night was simply to take a tour through Lepus and see some new objects there, I also wanted to take a look at another fav NGC253 before it disappears until the later half of the year, that turned into a little deep sky tour of Sculptor.

Lepus:

IC418 - PN - Very small, bright core with some faint edge detail visible at high powers. Best view @ 450x.
NGC1964 - Gal - Small elongated galaxy, brighter core and some hint of the spiral structure, hard to tell with the stars involved as well.
M79 - GC - Almost resolved to the core @ 345x. Nice smattering of stars around the tighter central region.
NGC -1744 - not found.

NGC1832, NGC1888/1889 and NGC2196 are on my list for tonight - not sure how I missed them !

Sculptor:

NGC253 - Gal - It's just so big, extending half way across a 1 degree FOV - the dark lane and core were clearly visible.
NGC288 - GC - Resolved to the core, loose and irregular outer stars.
Sculptor Dwarf - Gal - Large and very faint.
NGC300 - Gal - A large face on spiral, very subtle core region. The local stars make it hard to discern more detail.
NGC7793 - Gal - Visible bright core, hard to see more.
NGC55 - Gal - Very distinctive long and narrow strip of light, noticeable brighter section to one end, slight mottled appearance.

I finished up the night enjoying some wide field views under these dark skies - LMC, Eta Carina and Orion in a many degree FOV is quite something. We packed it in about midnight, the wind killed the vibe abit blowing scopes, notebooks, books and everything else around.