Well, it sure has been awhile since I got out the telescope and did some observing. I had to dust cobwebs off Berenice
Made a trip to Lake Maroon which isn't the best observing wise (trees etc) but was keen to get a timelapse set up that I started the last time we were there and wanted to try it again. So, got the camera running and off to observe...
Boy am I rusty!
But I did far better than I thought. I had a feeling I'd be staring up at the sky like
but most of it came back to me with a little refresher
I decided I wanted to find Centaurus A again as the first time I saw it was through my horrid 10mm plossl, so I popped in my beautiful Pentax 10mm and off I went. Well, I remembered that to find Cent A, I first had to find the triangle in Centaurus but I saw a few and got a bit bamboozled
After a couple of tries and back and forth with the binoculars, there it was!
My reaction was something akin to
followed by a ridiculous happy dance
And WOW! The 10mm sure did it justice, even with the less than good seeing that night. It was so big in the eyepiece with a definite dark lane of dust cutting through the galaxy. On one side it appeared to be tendrils of dust but the detail faded in and out. There was also two bright stars I could see, one diagonally above the dark lane and one below. I was so blown away by how incredible it was!
Next I had a look at 47 Tuc but the seeing was so shocking in the direction of the Magellanic Clouds, that it literally looked like an out of focus blob of nothing. I was disappointed I couldn't get to see it through the new eyepiece but decided another galaxy was on the cards.
After fumbling around with StarMapPro and making silly mistakes like mistaking Arcturus for Spica
, I realised Saturn was up and focused my attention on that. Oh my goodness!
The detail was mind boggling! The rings were so detailed and crisp and you could even see a lovely band of colour along the southern hemisphere.
After that, I went back to my original subject that I'd wanted to find and the reason why I was looking for Spica. M104! I have found it before and vaguely remembered the hop and the asterism to find it. I found Algorab and followed it down to a triangle of stars then the two small clusters of stars that had me right on the money! A much better view than I'd had of it previously, with a large bulging centre that was so very bright against the rest of the galaxy. It was wispy elsewhere and slightly defined but not fantastic. One to go back to though for sure!
Seeing as I was on a roll with galaxies, I decided to go for NGC5102. Once I got iota cen lined up in the eyepiece, it wasn't too hard to find
Very faint this one, almost just looks like a star but it's definitely got that fuzzy galaxy thing going on
Woohoo, 3 galaxies in one night! No new objects but it was a chance to put my skills to practise again as I was very, very rusty!
I had a look at Omega Cen as well, old faithful
The seeing was rubbish so it wasn't pin sharp but it filled up the 10mm beautifully, so stunning even in rubbish conditions!
I did try for blue planetary AGAIN but no luck
This object continues to elude me and it's very frustrating! I will try again tonight
I also tried for M87 but the LP was really bad in that direction and I just couldn't get my bearings so instead I took a finally quick peak at Centaurus A again (surely one of my favourite objects now!) and called it a night
Feeling rather sore and sleepy so I think a nap is in order before I head out again tonight!