#1  
Old 18-07-2010, 10:37 AM
Liz's Avatar
Liz
Registered User

Liz is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Beautiful SE Tassie
Posts: 4,734
Townsville viewing 17th July

A great night was held at Donnington airstrip last night, with a multitude of objects found.
The skies stayed pretty clear, with only occasional cloud coming through, but a stiff wind blew it all away, nearly taking The howards tarp with it, and my flimsy dewshield went aflying too. Quite a few short fast meteors were seen, but not many by me.
We checked out a few objects, but mainly socialised until 1030pm when the Moon finally sunk behind the trees, and it got DARK!!
4 planets were aligned in the west, which made for a very interesting and pretty sight. I did snaggle a few pics, but was hard to fit them all in the image.
While the Moon was up, we had checked a few sights in Saggitarius - lots of globs, and a few nebula. All got very confused with M20 and M8, and I'm still confused. One looked great, and the other a small blob. Much discussion was held, and Dave skewed his big Celestron to the right targets, and looks like we had it back to front.
Checked a few of the usual suspects while waiting for the slow moving Moon to disappear.
Once it was dark, we settled down for some serious observing. Checked out a few doubles, clusters, and various nebula. The Dumbbell was astonishing as usual, always a wow, the Helix was better than last week with the help of a nebula filter, and the beautiful Ring Nebula of course.
The target for me for the night was the Veil Nebula in Cygnus. Settled scope on the area of 52 Cygni, and scanning general area... changed EPs ...nothing. Couple of other members found it, so had a look through theirs, and back to mine and there it was!! Had been waiting for it to JUMP out at me, but was delicately there in the background. Popped in a UHC with some improvemnet, then a 0-111 which was better again. Took my time looking around, and more and more of the Veil came into view!! Beautiful, large wisps of twirling nebula, over a large area. Very nice indeed. Also checked out the North American Nebula which was also large, but seemed a lot fainter.
Rex found Uranus and Neptune for us, and all had a look at a very shimmery Jupiter. 7 planets for the night!!!
Other targets were conquered while waiting for Sculptor to rise, and then we were in there in the blink of an eye. What a treasure trove of galaxies!!!! We found about 6 in a matter of 30 minutes, which also included NGC 247 in nearby Cetus, which was discovered accidently. NGC 253, and NGC 55 were stunning as usual!!! We hadnt seen them for a long time, so were much appreciated!!
It was 2am by this stage, and a few of us were getting weary, so a quick pack up (for me anyway as I just chuck everything in the car), and down the runway, swerving to avoid the wallabies .....then back to Townsville.
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (TAG.jpg)
62.1 KB24 views

Last edited by Liz; 18-07-2010 at 12:29 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 18-07-2010, 12:22 PM
astroron's Avatar
astroron (Ron)
Supernova Searcher

astroron is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Cambroon Queensland Australia
Posts: 9,313
Great Report Liz I am glad you have at last bagged the Veil Nebula Now you know what it looks like.
Every time you look at it you will observe more of it

Last edited by astroron; 18-07-2010 at 04:49 PM. Reason: clarety
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 18-07-2010, 04:39 PM
Liz's Avatar
Liz
Registered User

Liz is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Beautiful SE Tassie
Posts: 4,734
Quote:
Originally Posted by astroron View Post
Great Report Liz I am glad you have at last bagged the Veil Nebula Now you know what it looks like every time you look at it you will observe more of it
Absolutely!! Thanks Ron.

PS ... you're a bit clever Ron, changing your avatar like that!!
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 18-07-2010, 04:47 PM
astroron's Avatar
astroron (Ron)
Supernova Searcher

astroron is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Cambroon Queensland Australia
Posts: 9,313
Thanks Liz, but I can't claim credit for the computer work Paul (1 ponders ) is the wizard
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 18-07-2010, 04:52 PM
Liz's Avatar
Liz
Registered User

Liz is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Beautiful SE Tassie
Posts: 4,734
Quote:
Originally Posted by astroron View Post
Thanks Liz, but I can't claim credit for the computer work Paul (1 ponders ) is the wizard
Ah, Ok , I did try to do the animation thing at one stage, but no go.
Will have to get The Wizard up to my place.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 22-07-2010, 03:33 PM
orestis's Avatar
orestis
Registered User

orestis is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: southern highlands, Australia
Posts: 679
Thanks liz for a great report sounds like you had a great time, glad you got to observe the veil, i will love to observe it one day.

Regards Orestis
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 25-07-2010, 11:55 AM
Rob_K
Registered User

Rob_K is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Bright, Vic, Australia
Posts: 2,158
Just caught up on this one Liz - nice report!

Cheers -
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +10. The time is now 06:41 PM.

Powered by vBulletin Version 3.8.7 | Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement
Testar
Advertisement
Bintel
Advertisement