Well, we had quite a fantastic night at Paul's place in Coolabine and some beautiful dark skies and it stayed clear for most of the evening which was wonderful!
Firstly, after Terry helped me lift the dob out of the car (Thanks Terry!
), I aligned the scope on Jupiter, appearing stunning as usual with a lot of detail from both bands and surrounded by its moons with Callisto on one side and Europa and Ganymede on the other.
Once I had aligned my scope I spent a bit of time familiarising myself with the night sky and identifying some of the constellations using my Astronomy 2010 book's star maps (I'm still learning where they all are, it can be very daunting and confusing sometimes!). I located Sagittarius first, having a quick look at M6 (Butterfly Cluster) first and then referred to my little book of "Stars" to decide what else I wanted to find.
I decided to look for M70 and was surprised at how quickly I spotted it, although the dark skies probably helped a bit! M70 was beautiful at a mere 29, 300 light years away and so close to the galactic centre! It shimmered so clearly and brightly I couldn't hold back a smile at seeing it in such amazing detail. The nucleus appeared very bright and dense and the surrounding stars were pin sharp.
Jeanette got out the green laser pointer at this stage and pointed out the Lagoon Nebula as clear as day in Sagittarius and once finding it in the telescope I was blown away by how much more detail a dark sky unveiled than a street light ridden suburban street! Dark patches of nebulosity surrounding bright pin points of light sprung out from the eyepiece, it was definitely a beautiful sight! I also saw the Trifid Nebula not far away, it was amazing!
I then turned my gaze to the Small Magellanic cloud and easily found 47 Tuc, so noticeable even in the finderscope. It appeared crisp with a tight nucleus of extremely bright stars, wow! It was still stunning the first time I saw it in suburbia but this was just mind blowing!
Terry then took hold of the scope and turned it toward NGC253, the Sculptor Galaxy in the constellation of Sculptor. A long, reasonably bright smudge and a beauty to see in such dark skies so thank you Terry!
It was then we decided to give Ron a "surprise" visit in which there were many hugs and laughs and some extremely impressive views through Ron's 16". The Andromeda Galaxy, well, WOW. It filled the eyepiece to the brim with a bright halo of fuzzy goodness! And my first time viewing Andromeda, it was unbelievable!
47 Tuc was incredible in the 16", the stars appearing as tiny, extremely sharp pin pricks of light, glimmering and dense in its nucleus and still so crisp in the not as tightly packed regions.
We also had another look at NGC253, appearing so very large through the eyepiece and moderately bright with some discernable detail.
By this time Orion was high enough in the sky to have my first peak at the Orion Nebula which I had been looking forward to for months and months! It was impressive to say the least, with dazzlingly bright stars and the trapezium clearly visible amidst blue grey hues of gas and dust. The clouds decided to wreck my moment though and so the seeing wasn't as optimal as I would have hoped but still amazing nonetheless!
I have to say the highlight of the evening was staring with my jaw dropping towards the floor at the Tarantula Nebula. I could not believe how much it seemed to pop out of the eyepiece, its features seemingly 3D and filled with blue grey nebulosity, dark lanes of dust and gas and many bright stars surrounding that. I was in absolute awe!
After this we proceeded in much chit chat and all had a laugh about how amidst all the new arrivals and astronomy talk, no one had asked to see Jupiter through the 16" scope. Figures with beauties such as Andromeda and the Orion Nebula sweeping overhead that we could disregard Jupiter!
After a fantastic couple of hours we said our farewells amid a few more hugs and went on our way back to Paul's, who was kind enough to stay behind to guard the equipment.
After all the excitement over the Orion Nebula I couldn't help but point my scope towards it just to see it one more time before the night was over and I went back to terribly bright, crude suburban skies. Wow, again. The conditions had improved since my viewing at Ron's and I was blown away again by it's beauty. Such detail and even definite amounts of colour! The bright stars of Orion's Belt seemed to explode with white light amidst the glowing lanes of dust and gas weaving its way around them. The trapezium seemed even clearer this time round and when I showed Jeanette she commented that the trapezium and HIP 26258 appeared like two eyes in a lion's face. It took a few moments but I did see the lion's face, it was awesome!
Well, I had M17 as the last observation on my list but that's impossible as it wasn't even above the horizon at the time! Guess lack of sleep got the better of me when I was randomly typing my observations into my phone at 2am
Anyway, Jeanette piggy backed my camera on her telescope and we did some exposures of Orion and Eta Carina though she did all the focusing and manoeuvring so it really wasn't my doing at all except for the first few with round smudgy stars. We got a picture of Eta Carina with an ominous looking cloud hovering beneath it about to eat it up which I fondly named "The Dark Doodad". The clouds continued to follow us after that, all the way to the Magellanic clouds so after that we gave up and called it a night!
Had an amazing time with some wonderful memories of the beauties of the night sky I saw and the new friends I shared it with.
Thanks for looking and clear skies!
Shell
