Location: Melbourne
Time: 11pm - 1am
Seeing: 6 (Pickering)
Transparency: 5/10
Thumbing through the latest AS&T, debating whether to set up or go to bed. I read Les' binocular highlights featuring NGC 3766 and decided to set up and tour the clusters with an atlas. Ten minutes later I was at the eyepiece.
Beta Crucis / NGC4755 - just low power viewing at 22x. Lovely view, plenty of colour and contrast in the field. White Beta Crucis, it's ruddy close neighbour, another gold star close by, and the Jewel box. Iota and Lambda Crucis completed the picture.
NGC 3918 - planetary nebula in Centaurus. Star hopped from Beta Crucis across to Delta Crucis (not necessary, but I really need to polish up my L/R translation skills at the atlas/eyepiece). Kept going through chains of stars until I got to the Blue Planetary. There are so many stars in the field along the journey, it's easy to get lost, especially with left/right flipped. The planetary was easy to hold with direct vision at 49x, and a blue/grey colour. I bumped the power to 154x and studied it for around 10 minutes, but it didn't give up any more detail. Perhaps slightly oval.
Sirius - with 154x in the eyepiece, I swung over to Sirius for another go at Sirius B. I printed off a Cartes du Ciel chart to compare with the view at the eyepiece. The chart had stars down to magnitude 12.5, but I was seeing more. Not sure what is going on there - I'll check what catalogs it's using. Seeing wasn't as good as Friday night, however Sirius looked steady, in a blinding way. I couldn't see the companion I thought I saw a few nights ago with direct vision, so I let Sirius drift out of the field and watched the glare leave the field. Every time I saw a star suddenly pop out three or four seconds after Sirius left. I held it for five or six seconds before it to left the field. I tested internal reflections by moving the scope so Sirius was exiting at different locations around the field. The PA was slightly north of east - it wasn't in the same exit plane as Sirius. I'll keep an eye on this puppy (ahem) over the next few years and see what it does. I'm about 50% sure this is Sirius B. Les was right in his recent AS&T article - it is addictive.
Centaurus A - galaxy in Centaurus. Quite easy to pick out at 49x from the 'burbs. Saw the two halves quite clearly with hints of the lane using averted vision. The half with the star superimposed seemed brighter than the other half.
Omega Centauri - stunning as usual. I'm beginning to dislike this object as I forget to go after Centaurus' other wonders - the Tweezers, 5286, etc. All things I haven't checked out with this scope.
Cluster Hopping ... popped the 49x/1.73 degree 11mm Nagler back in and centre Acrux. Hopped to Zeta Crucis, onto Theta Crucis (both of them), and dipped into Musca to try to find
NGC 4372. I used to view this a bit with my dobs and found it moderately difficult from Melbourne. Couldn't see a thing with the 4" refractor. Just washed out.
Cr 249 - open cluster in Centaurus. Hopped over the Lambda Centauri and had a look at Cr 249. Lambda Centauri had a milky glow to it from the almost invisible nebulosity (IC 2944, and nearby IC 2948). The cluster itself is interesting - long and narrow, around 30' in length. The shape of the cluster reminded me a bit of the constellation of Orion, after he'd had a session on the rack!
NGC 3766 - open cluster in Centaurus. Nice cluster, around 30+ stars resolved at 49x. Two obviously orange stars are immediately evident. I like getting a snap impression of a cluster, and this one struck me as being in the shape of a letter "W".
NGC 3532 - open cluster in Carina. Huge cluster, spread out over almost the entire 1.7 degree field at 49x. Stunning cluster.
Cr 240 / NGC 3572 - open cluster in Carina. (Is this the same object, two names?). Just over 1 degree south of NGC 3532. Sparse cluster (?) - resolved around 8 stars over 30' field.
Eta Carina - nebula in Carina. Spent ten minutes just tracing the nebulosity. Lovely object. The orange star, Eta, was surrounded by tiny pin-pricks of light - small stars embedded in the dust. I hadn't noticed that before - usually trying to resolve the homunculus. I could just make out the two lobes of the homunculus at 49x.
NGC 3293 - open cluster in Carina. Lovely, tight cluster about a degree from Eta Carina. I counted 35 stars I could easily resolve, with many more popping out, and vanishing as my eye raced to the spot. I see a rose, with petals, in this circular shaped cluster. Three stars tracing off to the east make a nice "stem".
NGC 3114 - open cluster in Carina. Large cluster, around 40'. Quite a striking shape, dominated by two almost complete circular loops of stars, one inside the other. The loop goes around three quarters of a circle, tracing from the south - west - north. Impression was two letters "C", one inside the other.
1am, the door opens and I get the "ahem, do you know what time it is" from the better half. Reluctantly, I stretch and think about packing up. I glance up and am stunned to see a band of cirrus cloud has come in and is over the area I'd been observing.
I'd been so intensely hopping down these clusters from Acrux, I hadn't looked up for an hour. Sounds crazy, but it's true. Atlas - eyepiece - notebook - atlas - eyepiece - notebook. I had taken the whole tour with the one eyepiece (11mm Nagler) at 49x - very rewarding.
I broke everything down and packed up. I get inside and see Mrs. Goober had just put an episode of Buffy on. Forty more minutes I could have had outside!
