Gargoyle_Steve
23-06-2007, 04:48 AM
Given the large amount of rain, cloud, rain again, and that overpowering jetstream that have all plagued observers across SE Qld it was with some optimism that Ron and I decided to do some observing last Tuesday night.
:rolleyes:
The day in question was clear and the skies were blue - so far so good, compared to the previous night having been totally clouded over all night long. Vehicle packed I set out on the pleasant 1 hour drive to Ron's place, arriving around 4:30 pm to find the gate closed, and no Ron! Thinking to myself that this did not auger well I drove through to the observing field and set up my dob to cool, hoping Ron would soon arrive. Luckily he did, no more than 5 minutes later. Everything was back on track.
:thumbsup:
Equipment set up we took a few minutes to enjoy the spectacle of Venus blazing away to the west, a reasonably thin moon a little above her in the sky, and Saturn lurking even closer above the moon - this was the night that later saw the moon move to within 0.4 degrees of Saturn from our perspective, and an occultation for parts north of Australia!
I tried to capture this site with my digital camera (pretty much crap results) before we headed in to have some dinner and a chat - both very satisfying! We came outside again around 6:40pm, just a couple of minutes before my alarm went off to advise of the imminent Iridium flare. We nearly missed it as it appeared much higher in the sky than my figures from the heavens-above website predicted (my fault, co-ords I used for Ron's place were not entirely accurate) but we did manage to see the satelllite before she faded out to nothing.
And so it was that we began our observing in earnest around 6:45 pm - for what neither of us suspected would be a wonderful night, certainly one of the finest I have had since I bought my first scope around 15 months ago. It also became one of the longest observing sessions I have ever enjoyed, as we observed for 10 hours with only 2 breaks for coffee and more chat during this time.:lol:
The ONLY downside to this night was the jetstream, which was very clearly still considerable, but as we are both visual observers and don't much around with all that tedious alignment and tracking and imaging and swearing and tripping on cables ;) the jetstream was of much less concern to us. Planetary detail was not possible to gain in any more than split second glimpses, and early in the night even bright double stars such as Alpha Centauri were not "split" but rather appeared as 2 overlapping points of fuzz.
(Even this did clear up somewhat much later in the night)
The night remained cloudless, and I mean cloudless, all night long! There was zero moisture - let me say that again : Zero! My dob can be seen trickling condensation like a tap many nights by 8pm, running like a fountain by midnight. There was not a single drop, not the slightest smear of moisture felt on the body all night long. Eyepieces did not fog, not at all - despite the cool 6 degree night - neither did mirrors on our 2 reflectors. No fog rose up from the river, no moist layer 20 feet above our heads, no clouds at all.
The wind WAS cold when it gusted up, adding a few degrees chill factor to the night - this was the same night where 60km winds had been predicted, and I heard the next day that the Port of Brisbane and the Bay islands had felt gusts of up to 100km/h.
None of that mattered - we had dark skies, no moisture, wonderful transparency, and good company to observe with!
So what did we observe then? Well what else do you observe with clean dark skies, but a jetstream that makes things look fuzzy - you observe any fuzzy object you can!:doh:
Nebulae, galaxies - they fell before us one after another. I hope we can manage to reconstruct a list of objects that we viewed that night. We woudl observe solo for a while, then we would point both scopes at the same object - Ron's 16" and my 12", each armed with a 13mm ep (his a Nagler of course, mine a humble Hyperion ;) ) and compare views. Ron got out his OIII filter and we compared that against my DGM-NPB and we'd compare again.
Both armed with Argo Navis's we went from object to object on the merest whim - I think the most obscure thing we looked at was an ESO galaxy - from memory (:eyepop: ) it was ESO-98-G13. I used my An at one point somewhere after midnight to run through every Messier object visible to us in the sky - I think I observed around 40-45 of them?? Hard to remember now but there's a lot of them in Scorpius, Sagittarius, etc, etc.
We looked at Vesta earlier in the night, then again 2-3 hours later, then again even later. Star clusters, nebulae large and small, globular clusters, galaxies, planetaries - they were all ours for the taking! But from the moment that the first star in the Great Square of Pegasus rose from behind the hill we decided we were not quitting until we saw the Andromeda Galaxy rise! I don't think we realised that this would be after 4:30 am, but we stuck at it and saw Andromeda eventually rise between the trees that crest the hill to the north.
Satisfied at a fantastic night we packed it in finally - glad to be heading inside and out of the wind and cold at last, but I wouldn't have missed this night for anything!
:thumbsup:
PS : The next morning the sky was overcast, and the air cold - and we saw no sun for the next 3 days after that again. We sure picked the one right night to go observing!
:rolleyes:
The day in question was clear and the skies were blue - so far so good, compared to the previous night having been totally clouded over all night long. Vehicle packed I set out on the pleasant 1 hour drive to Ron's place, arriving around 4:30 pm to find the gate closed, and no Ron! Thinking to myself that this did not auger well I drove through to the observing field and set up my dob to cool, hoping Ron would soon arrive. Luckily he did, no more than 5 minutes later. Everything was back on track.
:thumbsup:
Equipment set up we took a few minutes to enjoy the spectacle of Venus blazing away to the west, a reasonably thin moon a little above her in the sky, and Saturn lurking even closer above the moon - this was the night that later saw the moon move to within 0.4 degrees of Saturn from our perspective, and an occultation for parts north of Australia!
I tried to capture this site with my digital camera (pretty much crap results) before we headed in to have some dinner and a chat - both very satisfying! We came outside again around 6:40pm, just a couple of minutes before my alarm went off to advise of the imminent Iridium flare. We nearly missed it as it appeared much higher in the sky than my figures from the heavens-above website predicted (my fault, co-ords I used for Ron's place were not entirely accurate) but we did manage to see the satelllite before she faded out to nothing.
And so it was that we began our observing in earnest around 6:45 pm - for what neither of us suspected would be a wonderful night, certainly one of the finest I have had since I bought my first scope around 15 months ago. It also became one of the longest observing sessions I have ever enjoyed, as we observed for 10 hours with only 2 breaks for coffee and more chat during this time.:lol:
The ONLY downside to this night was the jetstream, which was very clearly still considerable, but as we are both visual observers and don't much around with all that tedious alignment and tracking and imaging and swearing and tripping on cables ;) the jetstream was of much less concern to us. Planetary detail was not possible to gain in any more than split second glimpses, and early in the night even bright double stars such as Alpha Centauri were not "split" but rather appeared as 2 overlapping points of fuzz.
(Even this did clear up somewhat much later in the night)
The night remained cloudless, and I mean cloudless, all night long! There was zero moisture - let me say that again : Zero! My dob can be seen trickling condensation like a tap many nights by 8pm, running like a fountain by midnight. There was not a single drop, not the slightest smear of moisture felt on the body all night long. Eyepieces did not fog, not at all - despite the cool 6 degree night - neither did mirrors on our 2 reflectors. No fog rose up from the river, no moist layer 20 feet above our heads, no clouds at all.
The wind WAS cold when it gusted up, adding a few degrees chill factor to the night - this was the same night where 60km winds had been predicted, and I heard the next day that the Port of Brisbane and the Bay islands had felt gusts of up to 100km/h.
None of that mattered - we had dark skies, no moisture, wonderful transparency, and good company to observe with!
So what did we observe then? Well what else do you observe with clean dark skies, but a jetstream that makes things look fuzzy - you observe any fuzzy object you can!:doh:
Nebulae, galaxies - they fell before us one after another. I hope we can manage to reconstruct a list of objects that we viewed that night. We woudl observe solo for a while, then we would point both scopes at the same object - Ron's 16" and my 12", each armed with a 13mm ep (his a Nagler of course, mine a humble Hyperion ;) ) and compare views. Ron got out his OIII filter and we compared that against my DGM-NPB and we'd compare again.
Both armed with Argo Navis's we went from object to object on the merest whim - I think the most obscure thing we looked at was an ESO galaxy - from memory (:eyepop: ) it was ESO-98-G13. I used my An at one point somewhere after midnight to run through every Messier object visible to us in the sky - I think I observed around 40-45 of them?? Hard to remember now but there's a lot of them in Scorpius, Sagittarius, etc, etc.
We looked at Vesta earlier in the night, then again 2-3 hours later, then again even later. Star clusters, nebulae large and small, globular clusters, galaxies, planetaries - they were all ours for the taking! But from the moment that the first star in the Great Square of Pegasus rose from behind the hill we decided we were not quitting until we saw the Andromeda Galaxy rise! I don't think we realised that this would be after 4:30 am, but we stuck at it and saw Andromeda eventually rise between the trees that crest the hill to the north.
Satisfied at a fantastic night we packed it in finally - glad to be heading inside and out of the wind and cold at last, but I wouldn't have missed this night for anything!
:thumbsup:
PS : The next morning the sky was overcast, and the air cold - and we saw no sun for the next 3 days after that again. We sure picked the one right night to go observing!