I found a new galaxy!!

[janoskiss]

I couldn't believe my eyes! Big and bright. Probably a spiral galaxy edge on. But there was no galaxies here on the charts. And I'm under light polluted skies. I thought these things were supposed to be real faint! Will have to have a good look at the charts later ... ... ... :doh: M17!!! :rofl: And now I see it was an August challenge "galaxy"!

Had a great time under the night sky tonight. First real clear night in ages in Melbourne. Stayed near teapot galactic central. M22 was a real treat. Wow! Scope is miscollimated but in the end I just didn't care, because I was enjoying myself too much. And without planets to tempt me I did't need so many damn eyepieces and a barlow (and more stressing about collimation). The 30mm SV and the 15mm TV ploessl was plenty. And the binos to find the fuzzballs to point the dob at. I took a whole heap of charts with me with all the objects I was going to find and tick off the imaginary list. But I didn't even use them. You just don't want to look down at charts when you can look up. The binos were an excellent substitute for the charts.

[davidpretorius]

nice report. last might i had a wonderful time near the LMC in perfect seeing and transparency and then tonight the aurora (obviously no scope needed).

yes it is nice to put charts and laptops away and simply look and wander and wonder!

[elusiver]

awesome report steve.. didn't get a chance to get the scope out tonight.. but should be sweet for the weekend hopefully :D gonna give these august challanges a whirl.

el :)

[janoskiss]

Yes it's looking promising for the whole w/e. I'm going to going to go to Marysville on Saturday. Sat night will hopefully be nice and clear. Just need to rug up and try to keep the dew under control somehow.

[iceman]

Nice one Steve, was out last night myself testing the 15mm eyepieces..

Took in M22, NGC104 (47Tuc), M17, M8, M20, M7, M6, M11 and alpha centauri. The seeing was really calm and the air wasn't too cold. A nice night to be out.

[gaa_ian]

Yep ... conditions good up here too & we will be doing the Aug Challenge for our observing night this Saturday.

[BC]

Yes, last night was brilliant. I set up early as I find that Venus and Jupiter are excellent just after they become visible. I got areally good look at the GRS (9mm, 138x), which made me wish I already had a Barlow, it was fantastic. I found Venus to still be a bit flarey (?), but I found that putting the moon filter on, I got a really good view of the phase. I figured I wasn't looking for detail anyway and it seemed to work well. I then did a bit of nebula hunting and enjoyed myself immensely (yes, I took the filter off). I found the Saturn Nebula and could get an elongated image when averted. The Ring Neb was great, a real doughnut. The Dumbell was surprisingly large but not overly shapely, averted vision gave it a more more of the shape though. Then I did a fair bit of just cruising with the 32mm 2". I know people say this EP isn't that great in f/5, (and they're right, but that's what I have) but I found that if I take it fractionally off the sharpest focus in the centre (in the right direction), I get a pretty good view across most of the FOV. It was surprisingly good. It was such a calm night, I left the scope out on the (covered) verandah and set it up again this morning ~5.30am to check out Mars. I could see the phase quite well and a certain lighter part at the bottom (maybe the ice cap?). My wife joined me to check it out and was very impressed. We also did a close look over the moon, which got lots a wow from both of us. It seemed opportune to mention just how cool it would be to double the mag with "a thing called a Barlow". You know, father's day's coming up.

[ving]

great reports guys, sounds like yas had fun :)

every time fathers day comes up and cheryl asks me what I'd like she stipulates no astro toys :P
never mind :)

[janoskiss]

Buy her a Nagler for next mother's day, David.

[ving]

she'd find a use for it just to annoy me :P

[ballaratdragons]

In that case, buy her a telescope to put the Nagler in! :D

[asimov]

BC. Just a quicky about flare on venus. I find using an aperture mask along with a filter cuts down on the flare dramatically.