Yay!!!!

[ving (David)]

for the first time in sooooo many weeks the weather was clearish last night!!!

Its been so long i didnt even know where to start to look! I sooo wanted to see saturn but it hadnt yet risen so I decided to go comet hunting... and to show how long its been i dont even know the name of the comet any more! ummm its above orion if that helps (i'll look it up later) very bright in the core with a small fan tail. BRILLIANT!!

I went messier hunting around CMajor to add to my list of found messiers. I found 5-6 of them

and finally saturn... it was hidden behind my house but i was so desperate to see it that i lugged the scope around the side of the house and braved the normally hidden street light to view. with so much light pollution i couldnt see it in the finder scope at all ( the street liht was shining directly at me at this angle) but thru the 32mm I spotted it and 2 of its moons (not yet identified). I'll need to have a look from my back yard to see things properly tho, so i'll have to wait till january so saturn is high enuff to be above the house.

gawd, I'm like a kid in a toy store... its amazing how much my spirits sored when i saw the clear sky from my bathroom window last night!


any other sydney siders go for a look?

[iceman (Mike)]

yah I could tell it was going to be clear after the storm went through, I tried to take some storm shots with Orion in view as well (like Mick), i'll download them off the camera tonight to see if they turned out. Of course though, the biggest and brightest lightening flashed in the clouds 2 seconds AFTER the camera finished capturing and started taking the dark frame.

I got up at 1am for some Saturn imaging, sky was nice and clear, saw 1 geminid (sad, I know ), would've been a nice night for the geminids, but for imaging the seeing was pretty bad.

Thanks for your report though Ving, sounds like you had a great night. I'm looking forward to Saturn being a night-time object again too!

[Mick (Michael)]

Good on ya both sounds like a nice night. Machholz is the comet ving. love to see those photos Ice.

[iceman (Mike)]

will do Mick, hopefully will get em up tonight if there's any worth posting

[ving (David)]

yup, thats the one mick!

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Yes I observed Macholz too last night. Didn't bother with setting up the scope as I could see lightning in the South and some cloud so I observed with the 7 x50s. Was particularly struck with how large the nucleus was. With binos could see no tail

I spent a lot of time -two satellites zipped past Formalhaut in that time-last night trying to track down the Helix Nebula with the 7 x50s but in the end gave up without succeeding..I am sure one should be able to observe the Helix even from suburban locations with a 7 x 50...but I couldn't last night even with my best averted vision attempts.



I stayed up till 1 am but no geminids that I could see. And then patchy cloud appeared.

Looks 60 % cloud just this minute over Western Sydney

[ving (David)]

the helix is very tricky i've been told. you need a huge FOV cause its easy to buzz straight into the center of it and not see it. really dark skies help too.
I have yet to see it.

[gbeal]

A brief clear hiatus for me as well.
Did the Machholz comet, but didn't image it (did this a few nights back, and posted the pic).
Imaged the Tarantula, and this will be in the deepsky section. I also imaged M42, first time ever, can you believe that, but wasn't happy with it, so will revisit it before going too far.
The Helix is very difficult. From home, (not Sydney suburbs) I can see it in the 8x50 finder, and it is nice in the 10" f5, especially with the OIII.
Try the finder with the OIII in front.
Gary