[Mick (Michael)]

Observation report from Kinchant Dam 24-09-05.

I meet up with a few of my astronomy club mates, three of them are IceInSpace members at Kinchant dam 40km south west of Mackay around 6:00pm to set up shop and settle in. It promised to be a clear dark night with the days cloud dissipating towards the north. We had gone to the dam in hope of dark skies to hunt down some faint and fuzzies. The first object viewed was M57 the ring nebular, a lovely little smoke ring but no central star was visible that night, it was easily seen in big binos (22x100). Neptune and Uranus were seen with amazing clarity I usually don’t spend much time on these distant gas balls but the grey/ blue hue of Uranus sucked me in for a long look. M27 the dumbbell nebular was the best I’ve seen for a long time, like a white bow tie, the dark sky defiantly improved this object. We travelled to a dark site to see some of the best galaxy’s on show that night, our own milky way and it’s companion galaxy’s the LMC and SMC all three were like fluffy silver clouds you could easily mistake them for the terrestrial version. NGC 253 at x77 was an amazing sight filling the field of view, cigar shaped with some brighter stars embedded in the confines of the outer edges of the star mass. Next on the list was the Helix nebular it is one object I have been waiting to see in large binoculars. We first found it using the lx90; I could make out a hint of the nebular in the telescope but wow what a difference in the binos. It looked like a largish white bubble, it’s a must see even using smaller binos at a dark site. Globular clusters were next on the menu M2, M15, M4 and other small globs including M13 were observed and appreciated but the best was left for last. Two of the best three globular IMO were on show that night M22 and 47 Tuc. M22 is a beautiful collection of light, it filled the eyepiece with hundreds of individual stars. We used the 20mm superview at f/10 in the lx90 to view 47 tuc, this globular cluster looked almost 3d with its condensed core and overlaying stars, it filled the ep to the edge and beyond a true jewel of the southern sky. The clouds were doing a back track around 11:00pm with just a little time left we caught a glimpse of the andromeda galaxy this giant was observed with 7x50 the central core was visible but it was only 20deg above the northern horizon at the time so that’s all we could see, maybe some other night. We headed home with Mars and the cloud rising in the sky and planing the next dark sky dam run.

Mick.

I have posted some of my photos from the night.