erick
04-07-2007, 02:29 PM
First clear day in some time, I brought the 8" dob to Leo76's place. Leo76's recent baby has kept her indoors and busy, so she was really looking forward to a return to observing. We'd planned the evening for some days with an eye on the forecast and the sky did not disappoint - a clear blue sky all afternoon. Jetstream chart was worrying however, and seeing wasn't great to my eyes.
The youngest member of the household decided it was the evening to skip the sleep and "niggle" instead, so we lost some observing time to feeding, changing, burping (baby, not me!) while her husband did the shopping run. When he returned and took over, we could spend more time.
Still we had 60-90 minutes on and off (with one ear to the baby monitor!) in her suburban backyard, before the clouds rolled in. A little early breeze had to be endured. Neighbours had cooperated (without asking!) and all nearby outside and garage lights were off. No dew all evening.
I was pretty impressed with what we could see for a Melbourne glow- drenched sky. Omega Centauri just visible to naked eye.
It was also an evening to allow Leo76 to learn how to handle the scope - eyepieces, use of finder scope, tracking objects, use of electric focuser etc. She did well, even though she was nervous about dropping my el-cheapo eyepieces (she didn't).
Started with Venus and Saturn before they dropped too low.
She loved the crescent of Venus. Also Venus was very close to psi Leo, I think it was, when we observed - a lovely orange star. Moved down to Saturn in the muck, didn't spend long - view was poor.
Moved to Jupiter. Arrived too late to see Io pop out of the shadow, but surface features were visible, and Leo76's younger eyes were doing a much better job of seeing them. Put in a yellow filter and she said it improved the definition of the features considerably. It's never done much for my ancient eyes. She also claimed to see the GRS - I couldn't. (Checking Stellarium and Jupiter2 this morning - yes, GRS could have been visible. She'll be chuffed when I tell her.)
Up into Scorpius - her favourite constellation. Set her the task of locating M4 and she got there, with the aid of 12x binoculars to orient herself.
Located the Northern Jewel Box, NGC 6231. Been a favourite of hers since she first "discovered" it with 8x binoculars when we started in the game last October.
Turned our attention to a tougher target - M104 - up around 55 deg elevation. I just wanted to show her the star-hopping from Corvus to get to the vicinity, but when we got there, I could pick out the fuzzy. Leo76 was much more convinced she could see the central bulge and the dust lane (those young eyes again!). This was a surprise. I didn't expect to see this galaxy in these bright skies.
Over to Centauris, Crux, Carina - locating Omega Centauri, NGC 4755.
Then the Moon was rising so we turned out attention to that. ND filters in place, we looked at the limb and at the front-lit Copernicus, Tycho etc. Located Plato again (I still want to achieve the challenge to seeing some craterlets in Plato - one day when conditions are right?)
Heavy cloud rolled in, so proposed targets NGC 3532 and Carina nebula were no-shows.
Leo76 finished by just surfing around the last visible sky to the south and picked out a globular - I think it was NGC 2808 - but almost no reference stars were left un-covered for me to be sure. Well done.
Of course, by now baby was sound asleep, but sky was completely covered in threatening clouds that did rain as I headed for home.
Overall, a fun night, and we saw more than I expected in the location.
Eric :)
The youngest member of the household decided it was the evening to skip the sleep and "niggle" instead, so we lost some observing time to feeding, changing, burping (baby, not me!) while her husband did the shopping run. When he returned and took over, we could spend more time.
Still we had 60-90 minutes on and off (with one ear to the baby monitor!) in her suburban backyard, before the clouds rolled in. A little early breeze had to be endured. Neighbours had cooperated (without asking!) and all nearby outside and garage lights were off. No dew all evening.
I was pretty impressed with what we could see for a Melbourne glow- drenched sky. Omega Centauri just visible to naked eye.
It was also an evening to allow Leo76 to learn how to handle the scope - eyepieces, use of finder scope, tracking objects, use of electric focuser etc. She did well, even though she was nervous about dropping my el-cheapo eyepieces (she didn't).
Started with Venus and Saturn before they dropped too low.
She loved the crescent of Venus. Also Venus was very close to psi Leo, I think it was, when we observed - a lovely orange star. Moved down to Saturn in the muck, didn't spend long - view was poor.
Moved to Jupiter. Arrived too late to see Io pop out of the shadow, but surface features were visible, and Leo76's younger eyes were doing a much better job of seeing them. Put in a yellow filter and she said it improved the definition of the features considerably. It's never done much for my ancient eyes. She also claimed to see the GRS - I couldn't. (Checking Stellarium and Jupiter2 this morning - yes, GRS could have been visible. She'll be chuffed when I tell her.)
Up into Scorpius - her favourite constellation. Set her the task of locating M4 and she got there, with the aid of 12x binoculars to orient herself.
Located the Northern Jewel Box, NGC 6231. Been a favourite of hers since she first "discovered" it with 8x binoculars when we started in the game last October.
Turned our attention to a tougher target - M104 - up around 55 deg elevation. I just wanted to show her the star-hopping from Corvus to get to the vicinity, but when we got there, I could pick out the fuzzy. Leo76 was much more convinced she could see the central bulge and the dust lane (those young eyes again!). This was a surprise. I didn't expect to see this galaxy in these bright skies.
Over to Centauris, Crux, Carina - locating Omega Centauri, NGC 4755.
Then the Moon was rising so we turned out attention to that. ND filters in place, we looked at the limb and at the front-lit Copernicus, Tycho etc. Located Plato again (I still want to achieve the challenge to seeing some craterlets in Plato - one day when conditions are right?)
Heavy cloud rolled in, so proposed targets NGC 3532 and Carina nebula were no-shows.
Leo76 finished by just surfing around the last visible sky to the south and picked out a globular - I think it was NGC 2808 - but almost no reference stars were left un-covered for me to be sure. Well done.
Of course, by now baby was sound asleep, but sky was completely covered in threatening clouds that did rain as I headed for home.
Overall, a fun night, and we saw more than I expected in the location.
Eric :)