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Getting Lost in the LMC
Hello all,
Having been a city based observer for all of my life but hooked on deep sky, I’ve been restricted to owning scopes that I can carry around in my car (mostly sedans). For this reason, in recent years I have used a 10” Dob, with my only experience with larger instruments under dark skies being confined to brief interludes spent with O.P.s (other peoples’) such as at the SPSP.
This all changed over the last few months with my purchase of a 16” Lightbridge. Even then I was restricted until I could modify it to fit entirely in the back seat of my Ford (I’d be happy to start a thread on this if anyone is interested in what I did).
Over Xmas I stayed with some friends who are fortunate to live under the dark skies of Bethanga (east of Albury). I’d previously thought the LMC was very impressive, but the impact through the 16” was amazing. My friend Robert described the Tarantula as an Octopus with its numerous, detailed bright nebulae/arms and associated star clusters. Before this trip I had never appreciated the complexity of the dark nebula winding across this satellite of our galaxy – in many cases the dark regions were as obvious as the bright nebulae. Another first, I found using a 9mm Nagler (200X) made it much easier to distinguish between open and globular clusters – the extra magnitude and resolution of the 16” over the 10” really made a difference. Previously the individual members, of many of these clusters was either borderline or beyond the 10”. I also found having an Argo Navis was great in confirming my identification of open vs. globular. However this was only effective in regions away from the central bar. When on the bar it was not unusual to have 4-6 clusters and nebulae in the same field which made it difficult even for the Argo to sort out.
If anyone wishes to get serious in the future sorting out all these individual objects I’d recommend coming armed with the Herald-Bobroff charts or ‘The Night Sky Observer’s Manual, Vol 3, The Southern Skies’. Scanning them, reversing them east/west (to get a Newtonian image), printing and laminating them I find useful at the eyepiece.
Anyway enough of my ramblings – I could go on for another 2 pages with the new views I had of other old favourites elsewhere in the sky.
Regards
Glenn
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