Oops, forgot, I tried the 40mm on the Great Nebula in Orion too, but in my opinion it didn't do much for that either. It was very bright, but the brightness & smallness seemed to wash out any detail. Nearby stars were blinding. It seems to be an eyepiece for rich starfields - can't wait to get it on to Sagittarius on a dark night!
Thanks for posting your sketches fellas, love seeing how others see DSOs.
Paddy, have you tried scanning your pencil sketches and inverting it in an image processing program? That way you still get the advantages of a pencil with the realistic white on black effect.
Here's my sketch of NGC 253 from last weekend with the 12". I can only imagine the view from a dark sky...
Lovely report, Rob. And as always, impressive observing. I would be amazed to see mottling in NGC253 with a 4.5" scope. But I'm not amazed that you can.
Lovely report, Rob. And as always, impressive observing. I would be amazed to see mottling in NGC253 with a 4.5" scope. But I'm not amazed that you can.
I don't think it's me or the scope Patrick, the skies are everything. In a light polluted sky I'd be lucky to see 47 Tuc in this scope.
Does make you think though, what are the limits? In my life, two nights have been stand-outs - one many years ago from the beach of a sparsely-settled Pacific island where the sky appeared to be chock-a-block full of stars and before I did any visual observing, and the second a couple of years ago while working in remote mountain bushland in eastern Victoria (without my scope at hand of course).
The latter still sends shivers down my spine, so far out of any other experience I've ever had was it. Skies were amazingly dark every night as you'd expect but this was in an entirely different league. Naked-eye was humbling, but through binoculars the Milky Way was coloured greeny-brown and every tiny tendril of dark lane was visible, a vast awe-inspiring network against the rich background of stars.
Now what would NGC 253 have looked like through my scope on that night? Forget the mottling, you would have seen that in a 50mm plakky frakky!
sounds great Rob, there are few sights that compare to a pitch dark sky.
I had a similar experience on a Houseboat near Renmark. We drove about 50km upstream, so well away from the town. It is pitch black out there, and I do mean pitch black. The ground is a jet black silhouette against the airglow of the night sky, and stars glisten right down to the horizon.
The Magellanic clouds take on a multi-layered, 3D appearance, and it was awe inspiring watching them glow through the trees. They are very bright, and we had visitors from Europe with us, they were stunned. They have no interest nor experience in astronomy, and even they commented how much better the sky is in the southern hemisphere.
I had my 4.5" newt with me, the scope showed me nebulosities I have no hope of seeing from home with a 12". Views of the LMC and SMC were awesome, just nebulosity everywhre. Sweeping the milky way, wow just a carpet of stars, and vivid stars at that, not that washed out deal you get from the suburbs.
NGC292. Looking back on the charts I don't know that I was lined up too well. So its a drawing of something. Anyway, what I saw was 3 GC in an arc with some nearby bright stars and the glow of the SMC off to the side. There were lots more fainter stars than I couldn't accurately place.
NGC7293. I couldn't see any real structure in this but it was big and easy to find.
Last edited by michaellxv; 22-10-2010 at 11:56 PM.
Reason: Forgot the attachments. Doh!
Michael, really nice drawings, mate. Three GC's in the one FOV, plus some "glow of the SMC"- staggering, really. I, for one, didn't expect such a piece of work.
The one on the Helix looks like some structure was showing with the variations in glow density. Did you use any filters? Scope?
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Anyway, what I saw was 3 GC in an arc with some nearby bright stars and the glow of the SMC off to the side. There were lots more fainter stars than I couldn't accurately place.
