Obs report 8th + Half a sketch

[orestis]

8/1/10
Telescope-130mm
Sky Conditions-3/5
Transperency-4/5

It was afternoon and i couldn't believe there were no clouds:party:.
So i set up the scope and brang out all the essentials eg. eps, sketch pad, planishere and a red light.

As i was waiting for it to get dark , i could see jupiter so i had a look but couldn't see much due to jetstream.

Then more stars popped out and i could see the constellation of orion.

Rigel- I read somewhere that rigel is a double star so i had a look to see if i could see it.I popped in the 6.5mm plosoll 138x and i could see Rigel with its difraction spikes but whats this, a tiny white dot next to rigel.It was a spectacular sight.

It was getting a bit dark now so off i went to sketch m41.

M41-compared to ngc2516 it was quite smaller but about the same amount of stars but fainter.The cental star had a red/orange hue but other than that not much colour.A beautifull cluster.

When i was sketching it i had done about half when it was really dark and i had a sudden urge to find those galaxies that rob had observed,so off i went.So i didn't get to finish it but have posted half of it anyway.

I must of been in that spot for an hour and still i haden't found them so quite frustrated i gave up and went and had a look at the tarantula nebula which was pretty cool.

My dad came and i showed him some dso's and then i was abot to pack up when i noticed a red star just above the tree tops and i thoght it must be mars so i had a look but it was so blurry that all i could identify is that it had a disk.After a short view i packed up everything and went inside.

One question that i'd like to ask is that when your viewing something do you sometimes see sattelites go through the fov because i saw two on this night and many more other times.How many sattelites are there?

All in all it was quite an enjoyable night apart from not finding those galaxies,i later found out that i was looking about 10 degrees lower than were i was supposed to look .:mad2:.

Thank you for anyone patient enough to read my obs report an look at my sketch.

orestis:stargaze:

[Dave47tuc]

Good little report. There are many thousand of satellites and junk in orbit around the earth.
You will see a few go through your field of view when your out observing.
The other night about 30% of the objects I looked at had some junk or satellite go through the field.

It great to see you, Robk reporting your observations with a small scopes well done:thumbsup:

I remember many years ago young Sab, PGC hunter. Showing me his sketches through a small Meade scope 5" If I remember and his sketches where fantastic. :eyepop:

Enjoy hunting down your galaxy it will be rewarding to find them.
Remember low field eyepiece to star hop with the finder then put a medium to high power eyepiece to look at the galaxy.

Happy viewing.:)

[barx1963]

Nice observations Orestis!
Yes you will often see satellites whizz throgh the FOV, happens all the time. There are hundreds of satellites in low earth orbit, off the top of my head, there are 66 Iridium satellites, and currently about 30 odd GPS ones. Then there are a whole host of military, science, weather etc satellites. The USSR/Russia Kosmos program is up to 2458 satellites since 1964, many of which are still in orbit. Obviously any in Geostationary orbit which are largely communications satellites, you will not see as they don't move. For info on more interesting ones (ISS, Iridiums, Hubble etc) check out http://www.heavens-above.com/

Rigels little mate is hard to see, I find it a good test for seeing, if i see it first glance, I know the night will be a good one!

M41 is a great OC. The orange central star is feature. According to O'Meara, in his book on the Messier objects, some observers see two reddish stars, must check that out!

Mars is still fairly low unless you are staying up very late, once it gets a bit higher, should become easier to observe.

Good luck with galaxies, be patient with them, enjoyed reading your report!

Malcolm

[dannat]

love to see the sketch orestis..is it on black cartridge paper..what type of pencils did you use?

[Rob_K]

Hi Orestis, nice report! :thumbsup: Sorry you didn't get to see the galaxies - there's always a chance you might have been in the wrong spot, but as Dave said it's very important to use a low power eyepiece or with a small aperture the faint fuzzies will disappear. And get your eyes well light-adapted!

Good charts are also important so you can find the exact position of the faint fuzzy you're chasing. I have attached a copy of the chart I made up for observing this cluster - you're welcome to use it. The circle represents my field of view as generated in Starry Night (a planetarium program), although the actual eyepiece FOV is slightly larger. Your FOV may be different. The triangle of stars marked at right is the naked-eye triangle referred to by Patrick. Ignore any galaxy in high mag 12s or into the mag 13s as you won't see them I don't think.

If your skies are dark enough, moving through the area in short bursts should reveal at least the three brightest galaxies, 1365, 1399 & 1404. They will all be small, just a faint little tuft of a glow that makes you think, hey, what was that? However, seeing very faint objects does take practice. They won't look like miniature NGC 253s unfortunately. I know when I first bought this scope I simply couldn't see things that now are blindingly obvious to me!!

Good luck with your observing, and keep persevering, it's worth it! :)

Cheers -

[orestis]

Thanks everyone i'm glad you enjoyed it.:thumbsup:.

Rob_K-Thanks for the chart and info.

Daniel- No,it is 100 gsm white paper.I used a 2b mechanical pencil and just plotted the stars.then i scanned it, inverted it and made the stars all round added some colour and it was finished.I used a 2'' circle to draw it in.

Malcolm-Wow thats a lot of sattelites .What are iridium sattelites? Rigels companion was easy on this night so maybe i had very good seeing.Two red stars,must check that one out.When will we be able to observe Mars in the early evening?

David-Thanks i will enjoy hunting down those galaxies:thumbsup:.happy viewing to you too.

Clear Skies
Orestis;)

[barx1963]

Iridiums are low orbit telephone satellites, you occasionally see flashes from them that can outshine anything else in the sky aprt from moon and sun up to mag -8 or -10.
Cost the iridium company billions to put up, then they went broke and sold the whole lot for $15 million:P

[pgc hunter]

nice report there mate!



still got those sketches, tucked away safely in me folder :)

[ngcles]

Hi Orestis,

A good report mate and nice sketch.



Yep, as others have already said, it happens frequently.

As for Rigel (Alpha Orionis) I find it interesting that the secondary star is basically the same sort of animal as Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) -- only we're looking at Sirius from 8.6 ly and Rigel B is (for all intents and purposes) one-hundred times further away.

http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/rigel.html

You can look-up the Iridium flares for your location at:

http://www.heavens-above.com/


Best,

Les D

[Paddy]

Nice report and sketch, Orestis. Keep 'em coming!

[barx1963]

Finally went out to have a look at M41. Definately 2 orange stars with cluster about 2.7' apart. One is slightly deeper colour than the other, hence that is why many observers only see one.