Well seeing as I'm bored and the weather is being pissheadish (or normal Melbourne style) of late, I thought I just post one of my observations from last month.
Headed out on the morning of Jan 15th for a sweep of the southern milky way. In typical fashion it was cold, about (-)13ºC but nice and dry. Seeing was okay but transparency was nothing to crow home about.
Instrument: 10" GSO dob
Time: 3-4.30am
Seeing: 6/10
Transparency: 3/5
Just did some low power scanning of the area. One of my favourite things to do is drop in the 22mm Vixen, the UHC or OIII and go for a cruise of the whole Carina/Centaurus/Vela/Crux region. Always a SAB pleaser.
Eta Carinae neb
The difference between an unfiltered and the OIII view never fails to amaze me. With the OIII and the 22mm, I have to scan around to take in the whole Nebula. Basically the whole complex takes on a similar extent to that seen in photos. My mum was pretty darn impressed aswell!
Homunculus Nebula
The seeing is very good at killing this one off. Its intense orange colour is clear and at 156x-192x I could easily see its two lobes and structure within.
Pencil Nebula
After seeing this in the 18" Obsession, I figured I'll give it a crack. I remember that the best views of this were atlow power. So I tried with the 17 Vixen at 73x with and without filters. Nothing seen.
NGC 3293
Excellent, rich, tightly packed open cluster with several blue members puntuated by an orange supergiant star near its center. Loved the views at 96x, really gives it a spectacular rich appearance. My mum squealed a 'wow' when she saw it!
NGC 3532
The graddaddy of all open clusters. Huge, huge, spectaculary rich football shaped swarm of blue stars at lower powers. A red star lies near its center.
NGC 3699
Interesting planetary in Centaurus, which is easily found about 40' SW of o1 and o2 Centauri. The 10" at 312x showed an interesting Pac-Man shaped object with the "mouth" converging and extending inward to basically split the figure in half. The OIII filter delivered good contrast gain.
Now if Melbourne's infinitely crap climate would clear........... lol as if!