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GAA Observing Night - Oct 2012
Last night Gove Amateur Astronomers achieved a milestone with our large Aperture Telescope "Big Blue" (445mm Aperture) now in residence at a perminant Elevated (by Gove Standards) Observing site. It is set up and ready to use, with just a little effort of hauling it out on a trolley. Next step is to get the "Argo Navis" telescope computer up and running to easily find a whole stack more deep sky objects.
Then to work on a "Roll Out" observatory set up.
Our observing list on Sat 13th Oct started with Alpha Centuri (our closest star), before it dipped below the southern Horizon, The Butterfly Cluster (M7) in Scorpius, The dazzling Binary "Alberio" in Cygnus, The Lagoon Nebula that was particularly stunning with the use of a Nebula Filter, The Sagittarius star field including the Swan Nebula (M17), Globular Clusters M22 & M28 near the "Lid" of the Teapot of Sagittarius, the Dumbell Nebula (M27) in Vulpecula & the big bright Andromeda Galaxy with its Trillion or so stars, to name but a few of the deep space delights we looked at.
Having the big scope set up and ready to use, will I hope see us getting a lot more use out of its fantastic resolving power.
Thanks to Notch, Pete Hagen, Nicole & Adrian for coming out to our new site.
Everyone agrees it is a very pleasant location for our observing compared to our Dhupma Rd site out near the Airport which is dusty, suffers from passing traffic, and increasing light pollution from the encroaching mine face, though it has served us well for a number of years.
It is apparent already, that the new site has given GAA a new lease of life !
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