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Old 24-04-2017, 05:39 PM
jamespierce (James)
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Location: Australia
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An expected night - 23/4/17 - Victoria

The forecast wasn't great but we headed to the ASV dark site anyway for the weekend. The fact we were the only punters there should be a hint. Saturday night no good. We nearly drove home, but Sunday night we stuck it out against our better judgement... Well we were rewarded.

Some of the best views I've ever had of Jupiter, Red Spot transit ... amazing detail in the equatorial bands and beyond. Just beautiful.

It was a decent deep sky evening too - bit too much dew, and some damp in the atmosphere for sure but still nice. We punched through a bunch of objects but here were a few highlights.

NGC 3521 - Nicely elongated galaxy in Leo
NGC 3576 - Little Tarantula - Little Bright Neb.
NGC 3623 - M65 - Part of the triplet
NGC 3627 - M66 - Part 2 of the triplet
IC 2948 - Running Chicken Bright Nebula - Large, diffuse, beautiful
NGC4038, 4039 - The Antenna ... Not as dramatic visually as photographically but still nice.
NGC 4254 - M99 - Beautiful face on spiral.
NGC 4030 - M61
NGC 4030 - M100
NGC 4372 - Globular Cluster in Musca - Bigger than you expect.
NGC 4594 - M104 - The Sombrero ... always amazing

It's a great time of year to be looking up... Get out there gang.
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Old 25-04-2017, 06:10 PM
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The Mekon (John Briggs)
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James, I also was surprised at the sky quality on Sunday night. Up here in Bowral things did not look good early in the day but by 1900hrs it was a joy to be out under the stars. (dew problems aside)
Had my 106mm refractor out and as you say the views of Jupiter at around 9pm were awesome.
Most of the evening was spent in Hydra and Centaurus, with the deep sky highlight being NGC 3621 - considerable mottling visible on quite an extended object. Have seen this at other times in the 18" but it really showed well in the smaller refractor on Sunday night.
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