This morning the sky was magic.. I was doing some imaging because the seeing was so great.. unfortunately imaging for me is a busy time, constantly realigning etc, so I don't get a chance to just look up much..
But I took a break and put an eyepiece in and enjoyed some old friends that I hadn't seen in a while..
NGC4755 - the jewelbox cluster.. beautiful little open cluster near the south (?) edge of the southern cross.. visible in binoculars but resolves nicely at medium powers in a telescope, showing the "traffic light" stars near the middle - 3 stars in a line each with a different colour.
NGC5319 - omega centauri.. ahh, my old favourite, I missed her
How I long for a widefield eyepiece. With the 15mm in @ 83x the stars filled the view, thousands of tiny points of light.
I had a quick look at alpha-centauri and acrux while I was there, both resolved into their doubles easily with the 15mm.
One time also, while I was imaging, I looked up towards the East and saw a bright star (at least as bright as jupiter which I was imaging) that wasn't there before! "what the!?" was my initial thought, but a split-second after that thought, I noticed it moving, and then getting fainter..
Turns out it was "Iridium 3", peaked at magnitude -2.
Anyway was a great morning.. my new jupiter images are in the solar system forum.
Some old friends..
