Observation report from tassie - fog!!!

davidpretorius · #1 21-01-2006, 03:27 AM

Yes, or maybe higher level mist???

Thunderstorms and humid during the day. A lovely clear still night @ 16 degrees early on. Everything dewed up in minutes of taking outside, so there must be heaps of moisture in the air.

I have used the lask of viewing to good effect and so tried my hartmann & aperture masks at around 12am, some good solid time on star testing. I also have made a "Bird" peltier cooler system for the mirror cell, not quite wired up, but I thought i would set up for imaging and get up at 3am anyway.

Well here i am and the moon is only just viewable as thick wisps of mist streak across the sky. There is no wind - it is really wierd.

Maybe the weather gods determine atm stuff as an appendix to the spending money rule!!

Oh well, the seeing was really god early on, but life goes on!

I will finish wiring up the peltier cooler, post some pics tomorrow and see what tomorrow night holds!

acropolite (Phil) · #2 21-01-2006, 08:59 AM

Same here Dave, I had a couple of good hours until the moon came up, then the fog came in. The seeing was the best I have had for 9 months, despite the LX not being properly cooled. Didn't have any problems with dew, the dew shield worked well, but judging by the amount of moisture on the OTA and inside the dew shield, another hour would have seen problems.

davidpretorius · #3 21-01-2006, 09:34 AM

and it still hasn't gone????

Miaplacidus (Brian) · #4 21-01-2006, 09:58 AM

D'day Dave & Phil,

Sorry to hear that you've been fog bound. Down here it was actually pretty good. I even had both scopes out at the AST dark site, a mate had his LX90, someone else their dob, and a couple of refractors too. Spent a couple of hours touring through several challenge objects in the LMC (NGC 1866, 1783, 1712, 1850, 1835, 2032, 2080, etc, etc). The goto guys would locate it, flick on the green laser, and the push to guys would follow. Every effective. The worst thing was the mozzies. And then the moon came up, a bit of cloud. Packed it in about 12.30.

Cheers,

Brian.

davidpretorius · #5 21-01-2006, 10:09 AM

great to hear you have a great night Brian,

the fog is now lifting. I am hoping the seeing will be ok tonight. It was a pity, as saturn did not reach transit and jupiter had the grs, so no imaging!!

iceman (Mike) · #6 21-01-2006, 11:13 AM

I had the scope out from 9:30pm, and got up at 12am to image Saturn. It was quite wet with dew, but the seeing was fairly average to start with but got better as the hour went on. Had enough with Saturn by 1am and went back to bed, and got back up at 4:15am to do Jupiter.

Got some good data, will take some time to process it!

Was so nice to see some clear skies after 10 days of rain and clouds.

cjmarsh81 · #7 21-01-2006, 02:21 PM

Is 4am the time I need to get up to see Jupiter? Or is it just the optimal time to take pictures

cheers

davidpretorius · #8 21-01-2006, 02:26 PM

jupiter is rising at 1.30 i think, but is obviously very low on the horizon and there is too much atmosphere to look thru. the higher it rises, the better.

also 4am, temps should have stabilized ie the ambient should be same for a few hours and thus the mirror has had a chance to catch up to the ambient.

therefore, you have taken tube currents out of the equation and then only worrying about the atmospheric conditions.

Jupiter is so bright, that even as dawn approaches, and all other stars disappear, it still stands out and can be viewed!!

basically it gets better each night!!

cjmarsh81 · #9 21-01-2006, 02:31 PM

Great. Guess I will be setting the alarm clock to get up and check it out.

Which direction is it?

acropolite (Phil) · #10 21-01-2006, 02:49 PM

cjmarsh81 wrote

Quote:

Which direction is it?

Up, and slightly north of east in the sky. As DP said rises around 1:30AM it will be obvious, very bright and even binocs will show a small disk and possibly moons.

gaa_ian (Ian) · #11 21-01-2006, 02:53 PM

I even got a bit of clear sky in Gove last night !
Had a peek at Saturn, Orion, Clusters in Carina, before it got hazy again.
So good to see the night sky again

, like you Mike with 10 days plus of rain !
The clouds have closed in again today & down it comes

davidpretorius · #12 21-01-2006, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cjmarsh81

Great. Guess I will be setting the alarm clock to get up and check it out.

Which direction is it?

jupiter rises at 1:08 am at ESE, very very bright!

cjmarsh81 · #13 21-01-2006, 04:38 PM

Thanks David, that is a little better than 4am

davidpretorius · #14 21-01-2006, 04:50 PM

actually if you can afford to watch it for a few hours say from 1am to 3 am, you hopefully can see the difference in seeing from low on the horizon to say 30 or 40 degrees above the horizon

cjmarsh81 · #15 21-01-2006, 05:01 PM

Might give it a go. Will probably fall asleep though.