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Old 09-03-2009, 12:16 PM
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Observation report March 8-9

After thousands of years of constant Melbourne cloud, finally by chance it happened to be clear. Although a waxing gibbous moon was there, you can't be fussy here. Take what you can get.

I was going to get the 12" dob out but decided against it and went for the 10" instead. 10" is still easier to wrangle and wouldn't be worth the hassle with the 12" when you have moon and the strong likelyhood of melbourne style poor seeing. So let the scope cool while I watched family guy.

Time: 11pm-2am
scope: 10" GSO dob
seeing: 3/10
Transparency: 1/5


It was a very cold night, which reminded me of some happy times galaxy hunting under clear moonless conditions. How I long for those

I figured, if the moon is going to be there, might aswell take the opportunity and enjoy some lunar observation. I haven't used my GSO dob much since my 12" custom built beast came into my possession over a year ago, but I was reminded of how good the optics are in my example. Seeing was shoddy, I'd even go as far as horrible, but I still managed to see all 4 craterlets in Plato at 156x, appearing as pits rather than tiny white specks. The double craterlet was resolved in moments of steadier seeing. I found the contrast between the shadows and brightly lit portions of the lunar features very good, basically I got jet black shadows. Using a mag of 73x, I had the whole moon in the fov, and was interesting to note the number of craters which had very bright white rims.

Saturn
Didn't see much, seeing was too poor. Saw wide brownish cloud bands in both hemispheres and spotted Rhea just off the planet's eastern limb about to begin a transit. Also spotted Tethys and Mimas very close to the eastern ringtip, almost touching it. I thought I spotted the Cassini Division, but not sure. By now it was about 1am and seeing had degenerated into something that would make anyone cry.

NGC 5102
Might seem odd hunting galaxies during a nearly full moon, but I just had to take a trip down memory lane. At 156x, it appeared only as a small fuzzy orb with a stellar nucleaus. I hinted at some slight NE/SW elongation but will no doubt be a much better sight without the moonlight.

NGC 5286
This globular cluster sits just to the NNW of M Centauri, and both objects are easily framed in a medium power eyepeice. Some slight resolution was visible at the outer edges at 183x, with the inner 2/3rds being granular. Fairly condensed core. A brighter star marks the cluster's NE edge. Was hesitant to use higher powers as seeing was terrible.

Proxima Centauri
I thought I'd observe our closest stellar neighbour. Finding it was nearly impossible, being lost in the rich starfield and a feeble 11th mag. I started at Alpha Centauri and came across an interesting arrangement of stars forming the shape of a perfect letter L. After much searching I finally found it, just to the southeast of a pair of 10th mag stars. Didnt see any colour, probably too faint for that.

"The L"
Located about 20' SW of Alpha Cen and has 8 stars of around 10th mag, with 3 of these forming the foot of the L and the other 5 the stem. A nice little asterism - has anyone noticed it before?

X Tra
Word on the street has it that this red carbon star is completely awesome. Finally had the chance to see it myself. I found it to be more orange than the "blood red" normally associated with carbon stars, infact it reminded me of the colour of the Homunculus nebula. A bit dissapointing as I was expecting to be met with a mag 6 drop of blood. DY Crucis is actually much "redder".

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Old 09-03-2009, 01:05 PM
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astroron (Ron)
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Thanks for the report, I enjoyed reading it.
Observing reports are few and far between these days
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