Well for the first time in way too long a time, Melbourne's antarctic roaring-40's climate let up. Well, I cautiously took the 10" out, because I was well aware of the fact it could cloud over any second. But luckily it didn't. Even so, I just *knew* that it
will cloud over sooner rather than later.
Didi the usual, tweak collimation and plug in the fan. Left the scope for about 45 minutes. Unplugged the fan, was distracted by a good show on TV so left it another 30mins.
Telescope: 10" Newt
Seeing: 3/10 (Jupiter), 5/10 (during DSO observation).
Transparency: varied between 1/5 and 3/5.
Decided to start with Jupiter. By now, I was observing it through my TV antenna! The seeing was terrible, maybe 3/10. At 138x it looked surprisingly good considering. Encouraged, I upped the mag to 208x. I was expecting to see a mushy blurry koosh ball. Instead, I was confronted with atleast 3 streamers hanging from the NEB, a couple of white ovals adjacent the north and south edge of the NEB and detail within the belts themselves. The GRS was easy and was a pale pinkish colour. To be honest, I haven't seeing the GRS delineated so well yet! I could also spot another 2-3 additional belts. The NTeB was pretty obvious. My mum (who isn't experienced with telescopic observing) said she could see the differences in size of the moons. Very good result considering I was looking through my TV antenna in poor seeing!
Started my *promising* night with
NGC7009-Saturn Nebula. Dropped in the TV 32mm plossl to hunt it down. Took me a while aswell. At 227x, it looked distincly green and it's eye shape was obvious. Using the Narrowband filter it was alot 'brighter'. Increasing power to 333x it appeared to have a bright ringlike structure surrounding the center. At 454x (the highest possible with my current eyepieces - and probably a sensible upper limit) with the narrowband, I tried to spot those potrusions that give it its name. Couldn't see anything. I stared at the thing for about 20 minutes and I actually got rare, fleeting glimpses of the two bright knobs at the extremities of both potrusions. It was very difficult to glimpse and only spotted them 2 or 3 times with averted vision. Some amatuers recommemd using at least a 10" scope under dark skies.
Next I headed for
NGC253. Unfortunately the infamous Melbourne cirrus cloud was covering the area but at 69x the galaxy was easy to see as a wide, elongated haze strentching across 2/3rds of the fields. Had Melbourne's weather not intervened, the view would've undoubtably been better.
The area around
47 Tuc was still clear. At 69x, looked nice, stars resolved across its face. Increasing the mag to 227x the core appeared hazy but covered with tiny pinpricks. At 454x it was bloody amazing! Stars filled the
entire FOV in the 60º Meade 5000 plossl, you could trace dark rifts, lanes and chains/streamers of stars against a velvet-black background across the outer edges of the cluster and the center was dense clump of tiny faint pinprincks drenched across the hazy core.
The
Tarantula Nebula was still low, perhaps only about 25º above the horizon and seeing wasn't satisfactory, but I went for it anyway. Melbourne clouds were moving in (as I predicted
). At 39x, the tarantula already exhibited some detail and was accompanied by numerous other knots. At 227x, the nebula nicely showed its structure plus the FOV was awash with faint plumes of nebulosity. By now, cirrus cloud was littering the area and transparency would've been poor. My best view was at 333x with the narrowband. The Tarantula was huge and bright in the FOV, I could see its filamentary form with ease. The entire FOV was literally bathed in surrounding fainter nebulosity. Pretty awsome but sadly it got cloudy and didn't have an oppurtunity to make a sketch. Viewing the LMC at a dark sky site would be mindblowing at the very least...
Despite Melbourne's foul weather, which is completely unsuitable for astronomy of any kind, it was one of my better evenings at the eyepiece Plus it's good to see that I can push this thing beyond 400x with good results in ordinary seeing
