Clear on the South/East coast tonight!

iceman (Mike) · #1 01-03-2008, 12:01 AM

Well, finally!

A clear night with no moon! I'm sure Scott will be out amongst it, and h0ughy, and Paul Mayo and many others I'm sure.

And Melbourne is looking clear too, so I'm expecting we'll see a lot of images from Leon, Eric and others over the next day or 3

The seeing looked really good earlier - the guidestar just sat there, no jumping around. The temperatures have really dropped though, and the seeing has gotten worse.

I'm hoping it stays clear for Jupiter in the morning!

I'm capturing the jewelbox right now, and did another open cluster near Eta-Car earlier.

Looks like it could be a nice weekend!

matt · #2 01-03-2008, 12:20 AM

Yep. Have set up and just done a few RGB runs on Saturn.

Seeing doesn't look too good at this stage...but there are 5 hours for it to improve before I have a run on Jupiter.

It's been a good night so far. Went and watched 'In the Shadow of the Moon' at the Portside cinema at Hamilton (Bris) with Dennis and his wife Narelle.

Great film...and a pleasant evening

Thanks for the ticket, Tony.

iceman (Mike) · #3 01-03-2008, 01:04 AM

The moon is now coming up and has put an end to my deep-sky run.

Time to go to bed soon and get a few hours sleep before Jupiter.

Rodstar (Rod) · #4 01-03-2008, 08:21 AM

Glad you guys had some good time under the stars overnight.

I was late to set up the scope to cool (about 9.20pm), and so I had trouble with thermal currents etc. It seemed to me from Point Clare that the seeing was only average, perhaps 5/10. Coupled with a warm mirror, my evening was less than perfect.

Still, I spent some time enjoying some nice open clusters in Vela. IC2391 is an absolute cracker (Vela Omicron cluster) if anyone is looking for an interesting target for tonight.

Omaroo (Chris Malikoff) · #5 01-03-2008, 08:23 AM

I was out in it last night too - just for visuals though and only in the back yard. I was looking up thinking "wow - how nice is this? I hope it's OK for our club session tomorrow night!".

Time will tell....... (Murphy - go jump.)

Dennis · #6 01-03-2008, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matt

Yep. Have set up and just done a few RGB runs on Saturn.

Seeing doesn't look too good at this stage...but there are 5 hours for it to improve before I have a run on Jupiter.

It's been a good night so far. Went and watched 'In the Shadow of the Moon' at the Portside cinema at Hamilton (Bris) with Dennis and his wife Narelle.

Great film...and a pleasant evening

Thanks for the ticket, Tony.

It certainly was a very memorable and insightful movie, a great night out indeed and it was nice to catch up with you again Matt. Narelle enjoyed the sight of that big cruise liner pulling out of the dock – pity the Queen Victoria couldn’t berth there.

Well done on getting out too, you’re one dedicated astro dude!

Cheers

Dennis

PS – Really enjoyed your write up on Mount Stromlo in AS&T – well done.

PPS - yeah, thanks for the tickets Tony.

Deeno · #7 01-03-2008, 10:59 AM

First time for a while the scope has spent the whole night outside and I'm feeling much better after a good photon fix!
Feeling a little sleep deprived to play cricket today.

Better than being hungover though.........

Deeno

Glenhuon (Bill) · #8 01-03-2008, 05:11 PM

Had a session here in Coota too. Seeing was a bit average and only stuck it out till midnight. Tried a few frames of Orion and Omega Centauri, but not really happy with them. Saturn was just a blob in anything over a 25mm eyepiece, but it was still fairly low down in the East and the wind was shaking the scope a bit.
Looks good for tonight as the sky is really clear just now, and the wind has died down a bit.

§AB · #9 01-03-2008, 09:16 PM

clear again here, but ofcourse we have wind now and the associated ugly seeing. How Melbourne-like. If its not cloudy, its windy. The forecast says the winds should die down, hopefully that ends up being the case.

Alchemy (Clive) · #10 01-03-2008, 09:30 PM

The winds up a bit here, and the scintilation is noticable even at the zenith, the scopes been cooling down for the last hour so ill give it a wiz but its probably a waste of time......

last night was windy til midnight then it calmed down ...... up came the moon, well i got some nice washed out blue pics.

leon · #11 01-03-2008, 10:30 PM

Yep Mike, it is pretty good down here I'm out there trying my hand at a Nebula or two, see what happens.

Leon

robin · #12 01-03-2008, 11:47 PM

Perfect night in warrnambool. Clear skies, no wind, 7.5/10 seeing

§AB · #13 02-03-2008, 04:18 AM

just came in, very poor seeing and frequent windy conditions

but, the night was a most enjoyable one.

Glenhuon (Bill) · #14 02-03-2008, 09:36 AM

Gave up just before midnight here, wind started to pick up and seeing went down in proportion. Wasn't too bad earlier, got a few frames with the DSI of Omega Cent that are reasonable and a pleasant look around with the binos.

Bill

iceman (Mike) · #15 02-03-2008, 10:13 PM

Beautiful night out here tonight.. no wind, clear skies, seeing acceptable.

Drift aligning now, almost ready to start taking exposures.

Just gotta choose the target(s)!

Glenhuon (Bill) · #16 02-03-2008, 11:18 PM

Yep, drift alignment done, taking exposures of Omega Cent now as a test and thinking about Eta Carina next (if I can find it

).

iceman (Mike) · #17 02-03-2008, 11:22 PM

NGC4945 is my target for the night.. just waiting for it to get a little higher.

Drift alignment done, flats taken and taking some test exposures now.

Rodstar (Rod) · #18 03-03-2008, 07:10 AM

I had a great night last night under the stars. The conditions really were very still, and my mirror was properly cooled this time.

The pick of the night for me was Saturn, I could really have done with that 2xPowermate I am talking of buying! At 282x in the 9mm Nagler I could see colour gradations in the disk which I have not seen for a long time.

I spent some time hunting down some obscure nebulae in Orion before it set (vdB38 and vdB 49 were gorgeous), I spent some time enjoying NGC 3115 in Sextans, a lovely galaxy similar in some respects to M104 but not quite as bright.

I also enjoyed a jaunt through Carina, concluding with the Homunculus, which did not disappoint! I was able to see fine structure in the front lobe, the rear lobe was well outlined, the the flares that jet out from the centre between the lobes were very obvious.

I hope we are this lucky on this coming weekend!

iceman (Mike) · #19 03-03-2008, 07:17 AM

Yeh it's been a beautiful few nights. Some nasty cloud ruined part of the automated run I had going on NGC4945.. I set it up to take 20 exposures @ 3minutes each (plus ICNR) and went to bed. Got up at 2am and there were clouds. Luckily only 7 of the exposures were clouded out.

The clouds parted this morning for Jupiter though, and the seeing was amazing!

I'll be processing data for days and weeks to come. It's expected to be clear tonight too!

h0ughy (David) · #20 03-03-2008, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iceman

Yeh it's been a beautiful few nights. Some nasty cloud ruined part of the automated run I had going on NGC4945.. I set it up to take 20 exposures @ 3minutes each (plus ICNR) and went to bed. Got up at 2am and there were clouds. Luckily only 7 of the exposures were clouded out.

The clouds parted this morning for Jupiter though, and the seeing was amazing!

I'll be processing data for days and weeks to come. It's expected to be clear tonight too!

Mate you were game going to bed, with our weather it could have rained