New years eve observing 2010

[orestis]

Hi everyone:hi:,

It was a beautifull clear day yesterday and it turned out to be a beautifull clear night aswell.I thought what a great way to the end the year with a great observing session.

So, while waiting for it to get dark I looked at some old faves then once dark enough I think 9-30 .I decided to go for the faint stuff,mainly Galaxies. Here are my notes-

M33-It was quite difficult to find having low surface brightness.Once found it resembled a diffuse sphere of light,quite large also.It was faint.After a couple of careful minuted observing i started to see arms manifest,I saw one arm arcing towards the west and another arcing towards the east.the west arm had a big bright patch to the south of the core,Which is probably a HII region.The brightest feature referred to as ngc 604 I think I may have seen as a Bright fuzzy patch on the end of the eastern arm.As I was observing it a plane flew straight through the galaxy.It was awesome.I enjoyed observing this galaxy as it is the first face on spiral galaxy that I have been able to discern arms in.

M1-The crab nebula was surprisingly easy to find only a degree away form zeta tauri and it was quite bright.It Was elongated From NW-SE.I think I could discern the crabs claws on the eastern side:shrug:.This was a fun nebula to observe to think that i was viewing with my eyes a supernova remnant of a supernova that was witnessed by man, Awesome.

NGC 1365-This was easy to find and was bright.I couldn't believe my eyes I was looking straight at a barred spiral galaxy.I could see the shape almost straight away when I popped in the 9mm tmb.The bright bar had the bright core in the middle and was elongated W-E the arms were in the direction of N-S The shape resembled exactly the picture of this magnificent galaxy.This has to be one of the most awesome objects I have seen through my telescope.I then went to the nearby fornax cluster and spied out about 5 bright galaxies with some fainter ones in the middle.

Though the mosquitoes were annoying, I very much enjoyed myself on this night and it was a great way to end the year.

Happy new Year to all
Cheers Orestis:thumbsup:

[Paddy]

Pretty impressive detail in NGC 1365 with a small scope, Orestis. Nice reading.

[orestis]

Thanks Paddy,I was impressed myself as I would never have thought that my scope was capable of such detail but I was proved wrong.It was a sight to behold.

cheers Orestis:D

[pgc hunter]

Impressive report Orestis. Enjoyed reading your galaxy obs, that's more than I can see with a 12" from suburban Melbourne ;) You've shown us what a small scope is capable of under dark skies. From the suburbs, NGC 1365 is one of the most underwhelming, unimpressive barely visible balls of non-descript fluff you can think off :lol:

cheers

[orestis]

Thanks Sab,

It is unfortunate what light pollution is doing to our skies, but I suppose you are having more of a problem with clouds.

cheers Orestis:thumbsup:

[pgc hunter]

Yeah, another new moon period stuffed down the gurgler :(

Light pollution at my joint isn't terrible as far as suburban observing goes as I'm near the edge of town so I'm *kinda* lucky. It's possible to do serious DSO observing here but any further citybound, I'd probably just stick to planets/moon and save the DSOs for those rare dark sky trips.

[mental4astro]

I had to come back to this report after seeing your sketch of 1365, Orestis.

Like everyone before me has said, you are achieving so much detail from your small scope! Details that older eyes are not able to achieve even with larger scopes.

Sensational stuff, mate!

And your enthusiasm is exciting too!

Mental.

[Suzy]

Fabulous report Orestis! I particularly enjoyed your report on NGC 1365. I've not seen this yet, so I have put it on my list of "must sees" inspired by your report on it. If you can "see" this much stuff now through your scope, imagine what you will "see" in years to come! :eyepop: You are really working that scope well, one day when you get a bigger one, just imagine what levels you'll be able to push the bigger one to! The more I think of it, the more I'm convinced a smaller scope initially is the way to go when learning obs skills - they really make you work hard at "using" your eyes for every bit of detail you can bleed out of it, as I did with my previous 6". Best thing I ever did was to start small.

Just curious... what method do you use to record your obs? I've just gotten myself a voice recorder, tho haven't been able to use it yet due to poor weather.

[Rob_K]

Super stuff Orestis! :thumbsup: I haven't had a lot of luck with 1365, having teased a vague impression of the arms out only once, but never a good sight of the bar. Most of the time I find it pretty underwhelming (per pgc's description :lol: ), and get a lot more excited about the tiny faint galaxies nearby. But I think in light of your observation I'll wait for a night of superb transparency and give it a another try. You do have a bit more light grab than me, but I should have a hope! Thanks for your inspiration!

Cheers -

[orestis]

Thanks everyone:thumbsup:

Suzy-I just use pencil and paper.I write down my notes,this can be bad sometimes though when the dew is heavy and the paper gets soggy.With all my sketching i use graphite media and all on white paper producing a negative image of the object and the inverting it on the computer.

Cheers Orestis :)