[slt (Gunther)]

Since acquiring my C11 Edge back in March I’ve been slowly working my way through the BAM600. By the end of July I’d gone past half way, which I thought wasn’t too shabby since from my terrace in Sydney’s north I cannot see anything below 60°S, and of course less than half a year has passed (and no, I don’t make it a habit of observing into the early hours of the morning ;-).

As it so happens, I also own a little land in SA, and this last week was my first trip there with a scope in the bag. And whilst I’ve been quite impressed with what can be seen with an 11” CAT in light-polluted Sydney, I had quite a few WOW and OMG moments coming…

I’ve been struggling a bit at my place in Sydney to resolve much below about 2”, but one of my first targets last week was Beta Mus (1.26" 3.06+4.01mag) … no challenge at x215 whatsoever.

The other thing I was struggling with was low surface brightness galaxies. But at the dark site they just pop into view, no jiggling or averted vision required. Had a look at NGC 6876 in Pavo (which is a BAM600 item at 12 mag) and three other 13 mag galaxies are just there, all in the same FoV. NGC 6769, 12.6 mag, same story, but now there are five of them. Polarissima Australis, 14.1 mag … just there for the picking!

Had a quick look at the Eta Carina nebula and was stunned by the amount and detail of the nebulosity visible. It was only when I recorded my observation in SkyTools that I realised I had been looking at an object at an altitude of only 12°!!!

The only thing bad was that I hadn’t quite prepared myself for the cold. At 600m+ above sea level the temperature dropped quite quickly into the low single digits soon after dark, and my light sleeping bag wasn’t up to the job of lifting me from a mild hypothermia in the early hours of the morning. Something I’ll need to keep in mind.

To all my fellow city dwellers I can only say, make an effort to get out to the dark skies, it’s well worth it!