Finally some clear skies! (a sort of observation report)

[Nab (Darren)]

It must be the night for it in Victoria after what seems like weeks of cloud. Apart from a bit of gusty wind it is almost pleasant!

I was finally able to get my scope (8” dob) out and into position to look north. I was rewarded with a great view of M42 and associated regions. Followed by some good low power views of Jupiter (convection currents off the house roof spoiled higher power).. I finally did get to really try out the 13t6 Nagler I picked up a few weeks ago and was very impressed by it's performance over the supplied plossls. To my surprise was able to fairly easily pick out the e and f stars in the trapezium in m42. I had to keep going back and looking again to convince myself I was really seeing them!


Lets hope for some more clear nights – although it looks like rain over the weekend


Darren.

[Scorpius51 (John)]

Hi Darren

I was looking at the same part of the sky last night, too! We had what started out as a clear sky, but unfortunately the clouds came in from the East by ~ 2230 .

In my 10" Dob, M42 looked splendid, and I'm sure I was seeing red/blue nebulosity - it usually looks grey to me.

A clealy banded Jupiter, and its moons, looked so good all lined up at x50. At x100 the atmosheric turbulence was not kind to this great view.

To top it off, the stunning 43 Tuc near the SMC, and the Tarantular Nebular in the LMC, completed the evening before the sky disappeared.

To more clear skies!

Cheers
John

[MortonH]

Nice report Darren. Maybe you can try to get away from the houses for decent planetary viewing. When I got my first serious telescope years ago I couldn't get a decent view of the planets and didn't understand what I was doing wrong. I had never heard of "seeing" or the heat that radiates from concrete buildings, etc. during the night.

Cheers

Morton

[MattT]

Nice one Darren.
John I did the same combo down here!!!Weird or what Seeing was OK for the first time in a long while and I split Rigel but can't remember what was in the focuser at the time.
Matt

[Varangian (John)]

Yes I echo the comments of others, had a good night out in this area from the back yard within the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne. Was trying to get up to ASV last night but the kids didn't let me get away, maybe next time. I had a good look at M42 and picked up blue nebulosity, also took in M45 and M41 before blasting out the eyes on Jupiter before bed.