iceman
27-06-2006, 08:26 AM
Hi all
Went out to Mangrove Mountain with some of the usual crowd on Saturday night. Was a clear night generally, with some low cloud over Sydney which reflected the lights and made it quite bright in that direction.
Seeing was about 4.5/10, transparency 6.5/10. Ambient was about 5.5° to start with, and reached about 2.5° by 10:30pm, and continued to get colder.
Had no observing plans for the night, but I don't get much chance to observe at other times of month so wanted to make good use of the dark skies and no interruptions tonight. I concentrated on the southern constellations of Crux, Carinae, Sagittarius and Scorpius, and used my Collins Star Guide book to point out objects for me to focus on.
A great start to the night was seeing a bright fireball in the south, heading from the false cross down to the horizon. It started out as about -2 and brightened to at least -8 as it reached the horizon.
Eyepieces used:
- 7mm Pentax giving 179x
- 14mm Meade UWA s4000 giving 89x
- 31mm Nagler giving 40x
A list of all objects observed:
Jupiter, 7mm, GRS was evident, about to cross the CM. Seeing wasn't very good which made teasing out detail very difficult.
Alpha Centauri, 7mm, nice bright diffraction spikes. very sharp.
Omega Centauri, 7+14mm, the view was nice through the 7mm as it filled the whole FOV, but because of the average seeing it was too soft for my liking. The 14mm provided a much more pleasing view.
Centaurus A (NGC5128), 7+14, the transparency was not great at this time of night and the background wasn't as dark as usual, making it very difficult to pick out any detail in the dark dust lane
M4 (glob), 14,31mm, easy to overlook this one but still gives a pleasing view and the widefield view in the 31mm was great.
Eta Carinae (NGC3372 neb), 14+31mm, A lovely view in both eyepieces. The humunculous was very evident and the whole regions remains one of my favourites in teh sky
Alpha Crux (triple), 14mm, nice tight diffraction spikes from the close pair.
Jewelbox (NGC 4755 open cluster), 7+14+31mm, one of my favourite open clusters and looked great in all eyepieces, but the 31mm nagler was my favourite view as it showed the cluster in "context" with the surrounding starfield. Just great.
NGC3532 (open cluster), 31mm, It took the wide view of the 31mm Nag to fit the whole cluster in the FOV, however it wasn't really spectacular.
NGC3766 (open cluster), 31mm, small open cluster with a prominent orange star.
IC2581 (open cluster), 31mm, Brilliant open cluster, like the jewelbox. I found very little info about this on the web. Would love to see some of our imagers get an image of this!
NGC3114 (open cluster), 31mm, wide, open, not really noteworthy.
IC2602 (open cluster), 31mm, the southern pleiades. Unremarkable really, a better binocular object.
NGC5286 (glob), 31mm, Great! Small faint glob with a bright star next to it. Here's a lovely image of it (http://www.astrosurf.com/antilhue/ngc5286.htm).
NGC2516 (open cluster), 31mm, low in the muck, unremarkable.
NGC3918 (planetary neb), 14+31mm, In the 31mm it was harder to find. Much more prominent in the 14mm. Blue hazy disc, not dissimilar to Uranus.
NGC4945 (galaxy), 14mm, cigar shaped galaxy, low contrast due to EP fogging up. Have seen better views of this GX than tonight.
NGC5460 (open cluster), 14mm, appearance of a snake like shape
M6 (open cluster), 31mm, Nice widefield view
M7 (open cluster), 31mm, this cluster never excites me.
M8 (nebula), 14mm, Great view of the Lagoon with the dark lane quite prominent
M20 (nebula), 14mm, Very nice, with great structure and detail within the trifid and excellent contrast.
M17 (neb), 14mm, Excellent view of the swan, great contrast with the nebula jumping out from the dark background. Detail and mottling within the nebula. Favourite neb for the night.
M22 (glob), 14mm, Excellent glob, 3rd best in the sky.
M25 (open cluster), 14mm, sparsely populated with but 2 bars running parallel.
NGC6716 (open cluster), 14mm, sparse and unremarkable.
NGC6818 (planetary neb), 14mm, Nice planetary neb, grey hazy disc.
NGC6822 (GX), 14mm, small and faint.
M75 (glob), 14mm, small, tight, compact glob
M23 (open cluster), 14mm, unremarkable.
M55 (glob), 14mm, fainter than M22, appears to not have as many stars
M70 (glob), 14mm, nice small compact glob with a chain of stars appearing to extend out
M54 (glob), 14mm, small compact glob with a bright core. Looks like a smaller version of 47Tuc.
M69 (glob), 14mm, another small glob, more open. Bright field star off to the right.
M28 (glob), 14mm, smaller, fainter glob. Not really noteworthy.
So I had a productive night, having seen loads of open and globular clusters in Carinae, Centarus and Sagittarius mainly. Some great highlights and some great company. It's given me a renewed love for simply observing and i'm looking forward to the next session.
Thanks to RB for the lukewarm cup of noodles :)
Thanks for reading.
Went out to Mangrove Mountain with some of the usual crowd on Saturday night. Was a clear night generally, with some low cloud over Sydney which reflected the lights and made it quite bright in that direction.
Seeing was about 4.5/10, transparency 6.5/10. Ambient was about 5.5° to start with, and reached about 2.5° by 10:30pm, and continued to get colder.
Had no observing plans for the night, but I don't get much chance to observe at other times of month so wanted to make good use of the dark skies and no interruptions tonight. I concentrated on the southern constellations of Crux, Carinae, Sagittarius and Scorpius, and used my Collins Star Guide book to point out objects for me to focus on.
A great start to the night was seeing a bright fireball in the south, heading from the false cross down to the horizon. It started out as about -2 and brightened to at least -8 as it reached the horizon.
Eyepieces used:
- 7mm Pentax giving 179x
- 14mm Meade UWA s4000 giving 89x
- 31mm Nagler giving 40x
A list of all objects observed:
Jupiter, 7mm, GRS was evident, about to cross the CM. Seeing wasn't very good which made teasing out detail very difficult.
Alpha Centauri, 7mm, nice bright diffraction spikes. very sharp.
Omega Centauri, 7+14mm, the view was nice through the 7mm as it filled the whole FOV, but because of the average seeing it was too soft for my liking. The 14mm provided a much more pleasing view.
Centaurus A (NGC5128), 7+14, the transparency was not great at this time of night and the background wasn't as dark as usual, making it very difficult to pick out any detail in the dark dust lane
M4 (glob), 14,31mm, easy to overlook this one but still gives a pleasing view and the widefield view in the 31mm was great.
Eta Carinae (NGC3372 neb), 14+31mm, A lovely view in both eyepieces. The humunculous was very evident and the whole regions remains one of my favourites in teh sky
Alpha Crux (triple), 14mm, nice tight diffraction spikes from the close pair.
Jewelbox (NGC 4755 open cluster), 7+14+31mm, one of my favourite open clusters and looked great in all eyepieces, but the 31mm nagler was my favourite view as it showed the cluster in "context" with the surrounding starfield. Just great.
NGC3532 (open cluster), 31mm, It took the wide view of the 31mm Nag to fit the whole cluster in the FOV, however it wasn't really spectacular.
NGC3766 (open cluster), 31mm, small open cluster with a prominent orange star.
IC2581 (open cluster), 31mm, Brilliant open cluster, like the jewelbox. I found very little info about this on the web. Would love to see some of our imagers get an image of this!
NGC3114 (open cluster), 31mm, wide, open, not really noteworthy.
IC2602 (open cluster), 31mm, the southern pleiades. Unremarkable really, a better binocular object.
NGC5286 (glob), 31mm, Great! Small faint glob with a bright star next to it. Here's a lovely image of it (http://www.astrosurf.com/antilhue/ngc5286.htm).
NGC2516 (open cluster), 31mm, low in the muck, unremarkable.
NGC3918 (planetary neb), 14+31mm, In the 31mm it was harder to find. Much more prominent in the 14mm. Blue hazy disc, not dissimilar to Uranus.
NGC4945 (galaxy), 14mm, cigar shaped galaxy, low contrast due to EP fogging up. Have seen better views of this GX than tonight.
NGC5460 (open cluster), 14mm, appearance of a snake like shape
M6 (open cluster), 31mm, Nice widefield view
M7 (open cluster), 31mm, this cluster never excites me.
M8 (nebula), 14mm, Great view of the Lagoon with the dark lane quite prominent
M20 (nebula), 14mm, Very nice, with great structure and detail within the trifid and excellent contrast.
M17 (neb), 14mm, Excellent view of the swan, great contrast with the nebula jumping out from the dark background. Detail and mottling within the nebula. Favourite neb for the night.
M22 (glob), 14mm, Excellent glob, 3rd best in the sky.
M25 (open cluster), 14mm, sparsely populated with but 2 bars running parallel.
NGC6716 (open cluster), 14mm, sparse and unremarkable.
NGC6818 (planetary neb), 14mm, Nice planetary neb, grey hazy disc.
NGC6822 (GX), 14mm, small and faint.
M75 (glob), 14mm, small, tight, compact glob
M23 (open cluster), 14mm, unremarkable.
M55 (glob), 14mm, fainter than M22, appears to not have as many stars
M70 (glob), 14mm, nice small compact glob with a chain of stars appearing to extend out
M54 (glob), 14mm, small compact glob with a bright core. Looks like a smaller version of 47Tuc.
M69 (glob), 14mm, another small glob, more open. Bright field star off to the right.
M28 (glob), 14mm, smaller, fainter glob. Not really noteworthy.
So I had a productive night, having seen loads of open and globular clusters in Carinae, Centarus and Sagittarius mainly. Some great highlights and some great company. It's given me a renewed love for simply observing and i'm looking forward to the next session.
Thanks to RB for the lukewarm cup of noodles :)
Thanks for reading.