kitsuna
17-06-2011, 12:57 AM
Hi Everybody (Hi doctor Nick!)
Some of you out there have enjoyed my occasional little (read; rambling) spiels about my astronomical experiences, so I thought I'd do another one.
This one concerns my first observation report. Be warned; its gonna be a long one! :D
************
On the afternoon of Saturday, 4th of June I packed up my shiny new Megrez 90 along with its second hand (but by no means second rate) ezy touch mount and tripod for the 75km trip out to the ASSA's Stockport Observatory site.
Skippysky had suggested that there might be a gap between two oncoming cloud fronts after dark that might allow for some halfway decent viewing. I was cautiously optimistic; this would be my 4th trip out to Stockport, and if the clouds interfered, it would represent my 4th completely wasted trip.
Worse still, due to fatigue on the way back from the last trip, after travelling through various 100 and 80 km limited zones, I accidentally (JUST) ran a red light in a 60 zone (but wasn't speeding fortunately) and Mr Plod slapped me down for $391. I'd been clouded out, and my pockets emptied on the way home. Talk about adding insult to injury... but I digress.
So as you can imagine, I was nervous given that the weather reports were not encouraging, I'd been caught out 3 times before, and to top it off, I was bringing a new scope. All I needed to do was walk under a few ladders and smash through a hall of mirrors to round out the day and ensure disaster. :P
I made a brief detour to Parafield Airport Liquor to pick up a few bottles of wine. I owed one of the other ASSA members for sharing their lovely barbecue with me on the previous occasion I'd been there, when I'd foolishly left my munchies at home. 2x Turkey Flat Morverde (sp?), a big bottle of coke and a packet of chips later, and I returned to Main North Road.
Things just seemed to get worse as I made my way down the highway. I peeked through the window of my Beemer and saw a sky the colour of ironclad hulls. The clouds looked thick enough to chew on. :sadeyes: As the time and miles ticked by, I found myself on the rural plains of South Australia. I was surprised to see how green it all was. The last time I'd been out, it was all bare dirt. It seems a few weeks of kindly weather and healthy rain can make a huge difference. I also noticed that as I moved further North, the clouds failed to follow. I suddenly found myself under the kind of big empty sky that is an Australian trademark. My spirits rose. Provided this clear sky held out, I could be in for a real treat.
Unfortunately, as I moved further north, I found that I was moving under another batch of clouds. I could not fail to notice that I was leaving miles of empty countryside with perfect views of the sky to drive to an observatory that was under a million tonnes of uncooperative rainwater. However, it seemed that SkippySky had been right. Hopefully the suckerhole would move it's way to Stockport. I kept my fingers crossed.
Tarmac'd though the roads might be, they still weren't kind to my car. I always worry that something is going to shake loose and fall off at 110kph. Luckily my scope was stored on the back seat in it's cushy case. At Hamley Bridge I took another look at the sky; still grim.
I pulled into the Stockport carpark in mid afternoon to find the gates shut... well no senior members of the society would normally be present this early so I can't say I was particularly surprised. However, there was another car in the carpark besides my own. I realised that someone else had been as optimistic as I, because I peeked over the fence to see a gentleman at the controls of a rather fine 12 inch Skywatcher collapsible dob. I squeezed through a gap in the fence and we introduced ourselves. I regret to say that I didn't think to write the man's name down in my journal, and time has swept it from my memory. If you happen to be reading this; please accept my apologies and reply. I'll be happy to amend my entry here. :thumbsup:
I opened the gate, and made my way further up to another one of the viewing pad's at a higher elevation. Clouds still darkened the majority of the sky, but twilight had not yet started. There was still plenty of time to improve. So with that in mind, I set the Megrez 90 on it's mount, and prepared my other goods and chattels. A cheap 8 dollar collapsible chair from BigW, and a relatively expensive camping table which can be disassembled and put into a bag similar to those nylon ones used for collapsible camping chairs. In a few minutes, I was all ready to go.
I had prepared a selection of Bambury 600 objects which should have been visible with my scope, provided that the sky cooperated. Again; it seemed I'd done everything in my power to ensure that the trip would be clouded out. I'm nothing if not consistent. :D
Intermittant gaps in the clouds allowed me to get a brief glimpse at what a dark sky actually looks like as early as 6pm in the evening. At this time I was just fooling around with my new scope. I hadn't had it long enough to be familiar with it's operations. I should also point out that this is my first refractor, and coming from a 10 inch dob makes things interesting. This basically meant that I found myself whizzing about trying to catch the gaps in the clouds before they closed up again. A celestial game of peek-a-boo, and I was losing. Badly. :rolleyes:
that said, I did manage to find and split Rigel Kent with my 5mm Vixen Lanthanum (111x). I was mighty pleased with myself at the time. It also gave me an opportunity to test the optics of my new scope (and new eyepiece for that matter; I had bought it specifically for this scope). The stars came into focus quite well, but something did seem a bit odd about them. I attributed this to turbulent and inconsistent seeing due to the weather, and the scope not being properly acclimatised to the ambient temperature.
I was also lucky enough to catch a brief view of the eta carina nebula in my 24mm Televue Panoptic (23x, and with a TFOV of 2.8 degrees). This was the first time I'd seen this nebula under proper dark skies. My suburban fortress unfortunately has always put Eta C in a rather unfavorable position. Out here, despite some turbulent seeing, I did have time to pick out some minor details, before the clouds closed in again.
Defeated, I capped my scope to ward off the dew, and wandered around the site after finishing off my bag of chips. Several other hopefuls had since arrived (again; all effectively nameless to me due to the dark, and my own bad habit of forgetting names. My apologies to you all). I had a hunt around to find the ASSA member who'd been kind enough to share some dinner with me so I might have presented that bottle of Red, but it seems he'd decided not to come that night. Thus I went home with both bottles of wine; deciding to bring them back at another time. Frankly, at the time, I didn't blame him for not turning up. It seemed that tonight would be another washout. I have to admit that I'd been relieved to see anything at all. But all it did was whet my appetite. I wanted more. MORE! :lol:
The cold quickly descended. I knew what to expect, and had prepared accordingly. I had my thickest socks on, long sleeve shirt, thick hand knitted jumper (courtesy of my girlfriend) and trusty brown leather jacket and beanie. I also had my thermal lined leather gloves, which were adequate to the task. I helped some of the other ASSA members bring out the tables and chairs from the store room for the inevitable barbecue. I personally had nothing to fry up, but I knew others did and loaned by back to the task. I had my beanie drawn down over my right eye to preserve my night vision; another optimistic idea on my behalf. :D
Afterwards, at around 7pm, I headed back to the parking lot to have a smoke; as much to kill time as myself. :P Humming to myself as I leaned against my car, I stared up. It was with embarrassing sloth that I realised that I could see stars. A lot of them in fact. Actually, friggin thousands of them... :eyepop:
I nearly dropped my Dunhill. I opened my car and grabbed my Tasco 8x56 binocs and started scanning.
I swept through the arms of the milky way galaxy (only now realising that it could basically be seen from horizon to horizon). I noted that I could clearly see the coal sack for the first time, before I realised that I should be looking through my scope, not gawping in the parking lot. I butted my smoke and raced back in to my Megrez. I uncapped and started on my BAM 600 list.
I started with NGC 4945 - The Tweezers galaxy. With patience, I found the appropriate star field in my 24mm Pan and then switched to my 14mm Televue Radian (40x). With averted vision, I could quite easily hold the nebulous smudge with the correct orientation exactly where it was according to my Pocket Sky Atlas. I ticked it off my BAM 600 list with a sense of elation. My first BAM Galaxy! In a 90mm refractor no less!
as an aside; I rather like this particular field guide. the pages are quite robust and dew resistant. The spiral bound layout allows you to ensure you can flip and keep the right page open. It is more than detailed enough for my lowly Megrez, and even my 10 inch dob. The size is also just right. The pages are big enough to show a reasonable swathe of sky, but small enough to be easily managed with one hand while at the eyepiece.
I moved on to NGC 4976. I found this one in my 14mm Radian. I wondered why it was so hard to find when it is so close to NGC 4945. I checked my BAM list details and discovered why. It's only Mag 10.2 (the Megrez manufacturer page lists the limiting magnitude as 11.5, and I'm a novice galaxy observer). So I was quite pleased when I realised I'd found it. I could only spot it with the magic of averted vision, and I had to pull a few of the tricks recommended by Jay Reynolds Freeman (super dark adaption, careful breathing, jiggling the scope etc) to do it, but I got there. I would say it was only glimpsed, but I repeated the action, and got the same results. Furthermore, a check of the atlas confirmed the orientation and placement. I ticked it off my list with a sense of pride. Who said galaxy hunting was hard? :P
After this, I wandered over to the ASSA's 15 inch dob. Another member was giving a tour of the sky to another novice, and I took this opportunity to have a look; if only as a sanity check against what I was seeing in my Megrez.
I saw M83 and the Leo Triplet. I found the view of 2 of the 3 Leo triplet galaxies in the same eyepiece rather humbling. The thought of two significant galaxies, each containing billions of stars all contained as a pair of elliptical smudges in one lowly eyepiece... This is what astronomy is about! :lol:
******
Some of you out there have enjoyed my occasional little (read; rambling) spiels about my astronomical experiences, so I thought I'd do another one.
This one concerns my first observation report. Be warned; its gonna be a long one! :D
************
On the afternoon of Saturday, 4th of June I packed up my shiny new Megrez 90 along with its second hand (but by no means second rate) ezy touch mount and tripod for the 75km trip out to the ASSA's Stockport Observatory site.
Skippysky had suggested that there might be a gap between two oncoming cloud fronts after dark that might allow for some halfway decent viewing. I was cautiously optimistic; this would be my 4th trip out to Stockport, and if the clouds interfered, it would represent my 4th completely wasted trip.
Worse still, due to fatigue on the way back from the last trip, after travelling through various 100 and 80 km limited zones, I accidentally (JUST) ran a red light in a 60 zone (but wasn't speeding fortunately) and Mr Plod slapped me down for $391. I'd been clouded out, and my pockets emptied on the way home. Talk about adding insult to injury... but I digress.
So as you can imagine, I was nervous given that the weather reports were not encouraging, I'd been caught out 3 times before, and to top it off, I was bringing a new scope. All I needed to do was walk under a few ladders and smash through a hall of mirrors to round out the day and ensure disaster. :P
I made a brief detour to Parafield Airport Liquor to pick up a few bottles of wine. I owed one of the other ASSA members for sharing their lovely barbecue with me on the previous occasion I'd been there, when I'd foolishly left my munchies at home. 2x Turkey Flat Morverde (sp?), a big bottle of coke and a packet of chips later, and I returned to Main North Road.
Things just seemed to get worse as I made my way down the highway. I peeked through the window of my Beemer and saw a sky the colour of ironclad hulls. The clouds looked thick enough to chew on. :sadeyes: As the time and miles ticked by, I found myself on the rural plains of South Australia. I was surprised to see how green it all was. The last time I'd been out, it was all bare dirt. It seems a few weeks of kindly weather and healthy rain can make a huge difference. I also noticed that as I moved further North, the clouds failed to follow. I suddenly found myself under the kind of big empty sky that is an Australian trademark. My spirits rose. Provided this clear sky held out, I could be in for a real treat.
Unfortunately, as I moved further north, I found that I was moving under another batch of clouds. I could not fail to notice that I was leaving miles of empty countryside with perfect views of the sky to drive to an observatory that was under a million tonnes of uncooperative rainwater. However, it seemed that SkippySky had been right. Hopefully the suckerhole would move it's way to Stockport. I kept my fingers crossed.
Tarmac'd though the roads might be, they still weren't kind to my car. I always worry that something is going to shake loose and fall off at 110kph. Luckily my scope was stored on the back seat in it's cushy case. At Hamley Bridge I took another look at the sky; still grim.
I pulled into the Stockport carpark in mid afternoon to find the gates shut... well no senior members of the society would normally be present this early so I can't say I was particularly surprised. However, there was another car in the carpark besides my own. I realised that someone else had been as optimistic as I, because I peeked over the fence to see a gentleman at the controls of a rather fine 12 inch Skywatcher collapsible dob. I squeezed through a gap in the fence and we introduced ourselves. I regret to say that I didn't think to write the man's name down in my journal, and time has swept it from my memory. If you happen to be reading this; please accept my apologies and reply. I'll be happy to amend my entry here. :thumbsup:
I opened the gate, and made my way further up to another one of the viewing pad's at a higher elevation. Clouds still darkened the majority of the sky, but twilight had not yet started. There was still plenty of time to improve. So with that in mind, I set the Megrez 90 on it's mount, and prepared my other goods and chattels. A cheap 8 dollar collapsible chair from BigW, and a relatively expensive camping table which can be disassembled and put into a bag similar to those nylon ones used for collapsible camping chairs. In a few minutes, I was all ready to go.
I had prepared a selection of Bambury 600 objects which should have been visible with my scope, provided that the sky cooperated. Again; it seemed I'd done everything in my power to ensure that the trip would be clouded out. I'm nothing if not consistent. :D
Intermittant gaps in the clouds allowed me to get a brief glimpse at what a dark sky actually looks like as early as 6pm in the evening. At this time I was just fooling around with my new scope. I hadn't had it long enough to be familiar with it's operations. I should also point out that this is my first refractor, and coming from a 10 inch dob makes things interesting. This basically meant that I found myself whizzing about trying to catch the gaps in the clouds before they closed up again. A celestial game of peek-a-boo, and I was losing. Badly. :rolleyes:
that said, I did manage to find and split Rigel Kent with my 5mm Vixen Lanthanum (111x). I was mighty pleased with myself at the time. It also gave me an opportunity to test the optics of my new scope (and new eyepiece for that matter; I had bought it specifically for this scope). The stars came into focus quite well, but something did seem a bit odd about them. I attributed this to turbulent and inconsistent seeing due to the weather, and the scope not being properly acclimatised to the ambient temperature.
I was also lucky enough to catch a brief view of the eta carina nebula in my 24mm Televue Panoptic (23x, and with a TFOV of 2.8 degrees). This was the first time I'd seen this nebula under proper dark skies. My suburban fortress unfortunately has always put Eta C in a rather unfavorable position. Out here, despite some turbulent seeing, I did have time to pick out some minor details, before the clouds closed in again.
Defeated, I capped my scope to ward off the dew, and wandered around the site after finishing off my bag of chips. Several other hopefuls had since arrived (again; all effectively nameless to me due to the dark, and my own bad habit of forgetting names. My apologies to you all). I had a hunt around to find the ASSA member who'd been kind enough to share some dinner with me so I might have presented that bottle of Red, but it seems he'd decided not to come that night. Thus I went home with both bottles of wine; deciding to bring them back at another time. Frankly, at the time, I didn't blame him for not turning up. It seemed that tonight would be another washout. I have to admit that I'd been relieved to see anything at all. But all it did was whet my appetite. I wanted more. MORE! :lol:
The cold quickly descended. I knew what to expect, and had prepared accordingly. I had my thickest socks on, long sleeve shirt, thick hand knitted jumper (courtesy of my girlfriend) and trusty brown leather jacket and beanie. I also had my thermal lined leather gloves, which were adequate to the task. I helped some of the other ASSA members bring out the tables and chairs from the store room for the inevitable barbecue. I personally had nothing to fry up, but I knew others did and loaned by back to the task. I had my beanie drawn down over my right eye to preserve my night vision; another optimistic idea on my behalf. :D
Afterwards, at around 7pm, I headed back to the parking lot to have a smoke; as much to kill time as myself. :P Humming to myself as I leaned against my car, I stared up. It was with embarrassing sloth that I realised that I could see stars. A lot of them in fact. Actually, friggin thousands of them... :eyepop:
I nearly dropped my Dunhill. I opened my car and grabbed my Tasco 8x56 binocs and started scanning.
I swept through the arms of the milky way galaxy (only now realising that it could basically be seen from horizon to horizon). I noted that I could clearly see the coal sack for the first time, before I realised that I should be looking through my scope, not gawping in the parking lot. I butted my smoke and raced back in to my Megrez. I uncapped and started on my BAM 600 list.
I started with NGC 4945 - The Tweezers galaxy. With patience, I found the appropriate star field in my 24mm Pan and then switched to my 14mm Televue Radian (40x). With averted vision, I could quite easily hold the nebulous smudge with the correct orientation exactly where it was according to my Pocket Sky Atlas. I ticked it off my BAM 600 list with a sense of elation. My first BAM Galaxy! In a 90mm refractor no less!
as an aside; I rather like this particular field guide. the pages are quite robust and dew resistant. The spiral bound layout allows you to ensure you can flip and keep the right page open. It is more than detailed enough for my lowly Megrez, and even my 10 inch dob. The size is also just right. The pages are big enough to show a reasonable swathe of sky, but small enough to be easily managed with one hand while at the eyepiece.
I moved on to NGC 4976. I found this one in my 14mm Radian. I wondered why it was so hard to find when it is so close to NGC 4945. I checked my BAM list details and discovered why. It's only Mag 10.2 (the Megrez manufacturer page lists the limiting magnitude as 11.5, and I'm a novice galaxy observer). So I was quite pleased when I realised I'd found it. I could only spot it with the magic of averted vision, and I had to pull a few of the tricks recommended by Jay Reynolds Freeman (super dark adaption, careful breathing, jiggling the scope etc) to do it, but I got there. I would say it was only glimpsed, but I repeated the action, and got the same results. Furthermore, a check of the atlas confirmed the orientation and placement. I ticked it off my list with a sense of pride. Who said galaxy hunting was hard? :P
After this, I wandered over to the ASSA's 15 inch dob. Another member was giving a tour of the sky to another novice, and I took this opportunity to have a look; if only as a sanity check against what I was seeing in my Megrez.
I saw M83 and the Leo Triplet. I found the view of 2 of the 3 Leo triplet galaxies in the same eyepiece rather humbling. The thought of two significant galaxies, each containing billions of stars all contained as a pair of elliptical smudges in one lowly eyepiece... This is what astronomy is about! :lol:
******