Ob. Report 2nd March 2008

[leinad (Dan)]

*oops this shoulda gone in Observation reports area, can anyone move it?

Planned well ahead earlier in the night what my targets were. Setup at 1am watching the cloud cover slowly start to build up(grrr), the night was not looking promising.. 30mins later was no better so I packed up. 30mins after that and periodically walking back and forth outside frustrated with the view,.. magically the clouds began to clear so I rushed back out and setup again. I thought it wasnt gonna be the best of nights with the clouds covering everything. 2am I was given new hope Rush of excitement began as night sky came alive!

Eventual Transparency: 9/10
Seeing: 7/10
Scope: Skywatcher 8" Dob
EP/Barlow: Plossol/Spr Plossl 10mm 17mm 25mm 40mm/Televue 2x 3x
Guides: Stellarium/Starry nights

2am - 5am Targets:

M104 Sombrero Galaxy
Med-faint, but could clearly distinguish the long shape as seen in photos.

M65 Leo Triplet 1
Faint, long oval shape.
M66 Leo Tripet 2
Faint, more circular shape.

NGC5139 Omega Centauri
Sparkling blob of shiny stars, dark area in centre? glow haze, amazing.

NGC5128 Centaurus A
Hazy semi-glow nebula, dark wide channel through center.

IC2602 Southern Pleiades
Beatuiful 'bright' stars, slightly orange tinged

NGC3372 Eta Carinae Nebula
Dusty glow, could see a bright orange star with slight ring glow top and bottom?,

NGC3532 Open Cluster
Wow, could almost feel being pulled in the the dark depth and mass of deep bright stars scattered out. Unique view of depth in FOV

NGC3293 Open Cluster
Med-small group, slight glow, shape almost box like with bent arms on each corner, shape of star almost crab like

Saturn
Sharp view with low magnification. Blurred at 360, 210 mag.
90x mag gave more crisper view; showed three small moons(Dione, Tethys, Rhea) to side of saturn. slight darkness in edge of ring. ring shadow seen on surface.

Moon
Whoah! At 360x with 10mm and 3x barlow I was absolutely blown away.
Viewing the terminator, the mountains cliffs, showed shadows (5-6 peaks) strecthing over the lit surface. Must of been 1000fts high!?
Craters up north of face, clearly defined, resolution to eye very crisp.
Need more magnification!! Awesome view of crater shdows and crisp depth of crater walls. Inside of one crater looked leveled with rings(like a mine pit).

Best observing session yet(4th time). Was able to experience eye relief better, keeping my eye a distance from eyepiece gave a crisper view/focus on the target.
Star hopping and orientation improved greatly. recognizing constellation/s, points and magnitude objects more familiarized.

Had a great viewing session! Jupiter and venus were up after calling it in. Sorta wishing I stayed up longer to view Jupiter. No big loss,took a quick rough pic of both and the Moon to finish the morning.
Now to get a few hours sleep, get up, plan again for more targets, hope again for the best!

Astronomy has me hooked!

[Karlsson]

The right stuff - never give up

Good reading, this report... looks like you are making some fast progress there!

[goober (Doug)]

Great stuff - I know that feeling of walking out of the house every 15 minutes and looking up.

You're picking some nice detail out there.

[erick (Eric)]

Serious stuff, Leinad. Resign yourself to being tired many days from now on!

Mountains on Moon - "1000fts high" - try thousands of metres - it's mind-boggling.

I attached a pic - hope it works - will make you smile, or cry?

[§AB]

great report. Keep 'em coming

NGC3372 Eta Carinae Nebula
Dusty glow, could see a bright orange star with slight ring glow top and bottom?,

That is the Homunculus Nebula, an intense orange bi-polar nebula surrounding the star Eta Carinae. In good seeing, try using around 200-250x and you may see a very irregular outline of the lobes and detail within the lobes themselves.

[leinad (Dan)]

Thanks SAB.
I was in good focus, but this object would not focus no matter what, almost as if light was protruding the sides bursting outwards. Very interesting.
I assume what I was seeing was this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_Nebula

[leinad (Dan)]

Hehe, that cartoon was spot on.

I was checking Virtual Moon Atlas but couldnt find exactly where it was that I saw the sharp multicrested mountain. It reminded me of a citadel.
There was also a triangular structure that gave a broad triangle shadow which looked massive also.

Do people use a moon filter often? Its very bright, but detail is at its fullest.
I would think the best view is without a filter. But sometimes its like staring at a cars headlights for too long.

Originally Posted by erick

Serious stuff, Leinad. Resign yourself to being tired many days from now on!

Mountains on Moon - "1000fts high" - try thousands of metres - it's mind-boggling.

I attached a pic - hope it works - will make you smile, or cry?

[erick (Eric)]

Originally Posted by leinad

Do people use a moon filter often? Its very bright, but detail is at its fullest.
I would think the best view is without a filter. But sometimes its like staring at a cars headlights for too long.

Personal preference it seems. There was a thread recently with differing opinions. Some people report that the Moon is too bright, almost "painful". Others say that if you want to see detail, the last thing to do is filter out most of the light. I usually use a "moon filter", or more recently, two polarisers, so I can adjust for the amount of light rejection I want. But only for long focal length eyepieces. When I have pushed the magnification up, I find I don't need the filters.

Obviously, bright moonlight, magnified into your eye, destroys any night vision. I have a bright purple afterspot for a minute or two. Be careful turning away from the eyepiece - you may well fall over chairs and tables! And forget the rest of the sky for another hour....

[ngcles]

Hi Leinad,

Very good report, looks like your finding skills are coming along in leaps and bounds.

Just one thing of interest to note.

I see in your report of IC 2602 you say:

"Beatuiful 'bright' stars, slightly orange tinged"

But I think you ought to take a second look at this through less tired eyes or perhaps you have muddled up your impression/notes with another cluster you looked at.

IC 2606 (Theta Carinae Cluster or Southern Pleiades) is by-and-large a very young and quite "blue" cluster. It is also pretty close-by in the scheme of things. The nearest orange star to the centre of the cluster is fully 1.5 degrees westward -- it is magnitude 5.3 SAO 250979, a K0 (III) B-V +1.85 orange giant that will look golden yellow/orange in an 8", but is well out of the field of view of the cluster -- even with the 40mm ep.

In fact Theta Carinae (the star in the centre of IC 2602) is as blue as a star can possibly appear to the human eye with a spectral class of B0 (V) (a blue main sequence dwarf) and a B-V trace of -2.00. There are about 1/2 a dozen other bright cluster members with significant negative B-V figures that will make them look decidedly on the bluish side of white (or as I like to call it cold-white). Take another look and let us know what you think.

Mmmm ... NGC 3293 -- possibly my favorite open cluster.

As noted above, you certainly saw the astonishing Homunculus Nebula near the centre of the Eta Carinae complex (NGC 3372). Try it again on another night with higher magnification when the seeing allows. You can read all about this incredible and singular star here at Jim Kahler's site:

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/etacar.html

Quite possibly the most extreme star in our galaxy.

Best,

Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T