Amazing clear skies last night

[Sconesbie (Scott)]

I live North of Launceston and last night, we had some amazingly clear skies. You beauty.

As a beginner, I was quite happy finding stuff and looked for the usual things such as Orion Nebula, Pleiades, LMC and so on. I did notice that Betelgeuse is red/orange instead of white. Am I correct?

I couldn't find the jewel box or coal sack nebula.

I have a 10" collapsible dob. During the night a few funny things happened. Through the finder scope, everything started to look a little blurry or cloudy (skies were crystal clear). Through the eye piece it was fine. I thought it might have been fogged up and gave it a gentle wipe but didn't fix it.

Also as Jupiter was rising, you couldn't make any of the bands out (through the eye piece) no matter what size I tried. The thing just wouldn't focus properly. The higher it got, the better it became. Is that because it is has too much light from somewhere and the higher it gets, the further away from light allowing better viewing?

Anyway, I didn't stay out long (maybe hour and half) as I had work the next day. It's great fun this star gazing caper.

[ralph1]

Yes, betelgeuse is bright orange and so is aldebaran beneath it. You probably wouldn't see the whole coalsack in your telescope; if you have binoculars try using them, they're better suited to the task. The jewel box is low in the sky in the evening right now, in the morning it is high up. Point the telescope at the southern cross star closest to alpha and beta centauri and move about 1 moonwidth towards them. You should see a small group of stars. The jewel box does well with about 60-80X magnification which in your telescope would be close to a 15mm eyepiece. If the finder starts fogging up wipe it at your own risk but even if you do get it clean it will soon fog up again. Jupiter should have shown at least the two main cloud bands and up to four stars lined up in a row near it. those are its moons and they change from night to night. try looking for Jupiter around 1:30 a.m., that's when it's at its best for the night.
Ralph

[pmrid (Peter)]

Given the rubbish skies we've had to deal with for the past several months (and will continue to enjoy for several more I gather), anything even marginally less opaque than grandma's pea soup would seem marvelous. Come to think of it, I'd settle for that anyway.
Peter

[omegacrux (David)]

Don't worry Scott
That's happened to me its just the seeing conditions , it will improve
30mm ep and cruise around crux you'll find it at first you see a little triangle of stars zoom in and some nice colours there
my favorite target
You enjoying that scope .
I miss it now there is a comet about !

David

[acropolite (Phil)]

Scott, I find that seeing is not as good when viewing over the river, I suspect that there are warm air currents caused by the temperature differential between the river and surrounds. Also when objects are closer to the horizon you're looking through more of the atmosphere.

We'll have to get together one night and do some observing.

[Sconesbie (Scott)]

Originally Posted by omegacrux

Don't worry Scott
That's happened to me its just the seeing conditions , it will improve
30mm ep and cruise around crux you'll find it at first you see a little triangle of stars zoom in and some nice colours there
my favorite target
You enjoying that scope .
I miss it now there is a comet about !

David

Thank you David. Yep, am enjoying it. It's been put to good use. Thank you for the guidance. Next clear night, I'll head back out.

[Sconesbie (Scott)]

Originally Posted by acropolite

Scott, I find that seeing is not as good when viewing over the river, I suspect that there are warm air currents caused by the temperature differential between the river and surrounds. Also when objects are closer to the horizon you're looking through more of the atmosphere.

We'll have to get together one night and do some observing.

Thanks Phil. That would be great. Hopefully we get more clear nights soon. Maybe another location where it's darker. I'm slowly, very slowely getting used to things. Now I have a bigger scope I'm getting more interested as I go. The atmosphere thing sounds like it is the answer to what happened. Higher in the sky it wasn't a problem. The cloudiness in the finder scope lingered though. The funny thing was that the star or object was ok in the finder scope but had a cloudy like edge around it. Through the eye piece was ok. Weird. Let's work something out in relation to a viewing session soon.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Scott

One solution with a fogging finder is to keep the caps on it and only pop them of when you need to. Wiping it is always a rick as the thing you wipe it with needs to be clean and you risk grinding any dirt particles on the lens into the surface.
Best solution is an dew heater strap. On my old 12" I had straps permanently mounted on both objective and eyepiece end of the finder.
Another help is get an old stubby holder and rip the base out of it to make a DIY dew shield, often slightly too big so a couple of heavy duty rubber bands will hold it in place.

Cheers

Malcolm