Oh my! An observing report!

[iceman]

:scared2: Sky was clear, and decided to take the opportunity to look through an eyepiece again.. first time in a long time (since the last starparty at Kulnura). Been sick, it's been cold, and haven't felt like going out much, but last night I had to break the drought.

I didn't plan it to be a long and indepth session, just wanted to get some time in before Las Vegas, Lost and Amazing Race were on TV :)

No EQ platform
No DSC's
No charts
No chair
No dark adaptation
1 eyepiece (Meade S4000 UWA 14mm) giving me ~90x
However I did leave my scope out for 2 hours before to cool down :)

Spent about 40 minutes under the stars, transparency was quite good, could make out the milkyway clouds around sagittarius quite easily. Seeing wasn't bad, i'd give it 6/10.

Due to the lack of planning and tools at my disposal, I went for the old favourites and easily observed objects that I could find and observe from my backyard with little to no dark adaptation.

Objects observed included;


M4 (globular near antares) - Nice, small globular. Resolved to most of the core. In the 14mm UWA it only took up about 1/4 - 1/5 of the field
M6 (Butterfly cluster) - Framed nicely in the 14mm, but magnification too high to easily identify the butterfly shape
M7 (ptolemy's cluster) - Nice grouping of stars, no real shape to them. Almost filled the FOV of the 14mm
M8 (Lagoon Neb) - Could really have used a neb filter, quite washed out due to the skies and my eyes not being dark adapted. The darker lane was evident.
M20 (trifid) - similar to M8, the 3 dark spokes were visible but they didn't stand out. I made out 3 of the stars in HN40
M22 (globular in sag) - Very nice, not too dissimiliar to the view I had of M4. It seemed a little larger, with more stars.
M16 (eagle nebula) - I couldn't make out any nebulosity, but the cluster itself was nice
M17 (swan/omega nebula) - Quite bright compared to the other nebulas I viewed, stoof out nicely against the background sky
Alpha Centauri (double) - Well, John B might have a go at me if I didn't observe at least one double :)
NGC4755 (jewelbox) - Brilliant open cluster, one of my all time favourites. Framed very nicely in the 14mm UWA.
EB365 (carbon star near Beta Crux) - red, small, nice :)
Jupiter - wasn't expecting to be able to see it, as it was too low in the west behind the trees in my backyard, but a hole in the canopy let me see the GRS rising and Ganymede kissing the edge of the disc as it was about to transit. Nice view. A satellite also streaked through the FOV as I was looking at it, which was quite a surprise :)


So there you go, nice to get some eyepiece time again, albeit brief and unplanned. But it's rekindled the fire.

Thanks for reading.

[Brendan]

nice iceman,
sounds like that session would have kept you busy till vegas started.

you even taught me something new.. I didn't know the carbon star in crux had a designation.

[ving]

lol, you beat me to it... I am compilint notes currently from a 1 hr session last night. :)

[ausastronomer]

Brendan,

Locally amongst Aussies that star is also known as Ruby Crucis. Its more recent designation is DY Crucis as it is also a variable. EB365 (EB=Espin Birmingham) was its old designation. Unfortunately, being old myself, I will continue to refer to it as EB 365 as thats how I have known it all along.

CS-John B

[davidpretorius]

i like the style of this report, will use as a template for me

[ving]

good one dave. when do we hear your first report?

[dhumpie]

Great report Mike. Maybe you have started something good that others can follow...

Darren

[davidpretorius]

if you condense down my diatribe, it is sort of a report. I will start to do what mike did, as i am learning the names of stars through starcafe

[asimov]

Great Report Mike.

[Miaplacidus]

On this question of nomenclature, what gives? I thought ALL carbon stars were variable (and had been known to be so from the beginning). Am I wrong, or why the separate designation?

Enlightenment greatly appreciated.