Pony club Nov26

[Zincberg (Andrew)]

Im going to head up there between 6:30 and 7:00, See you all then

[Rick Petrie]

Here's hoping all you that go have a nice clear sky. Sorry I can't make it.

[gb_astro]

I hope to there.
Travelling lite with just the 102 refractor.

Greg.

[Rodstar (Rod)]

I am a definite.

Car/trailer packed. Mirror cleaned.

Just waiting for Jack (aged 13) to decide if he wants to come and spend the evening with daddy under the stars!

[vic4loc (Victor)]

Sorry guys have to cancel, good luck with the clear sky.

Victor.

[Allan_L (Allan)]

A small but enthusiastic group attended the pony club last night.
7 timer proved correct again with good clear skies and a good time was had by all.
Possible Exception being Andrew who suffered the dreaded equipment malfunction, and with no backup, decided to leave the party early and offer himself as sacrificial lamb, to the passing clouds.
Sorry you had to leave before dessert was served Andrew, but your ploy worked, and the clouds cleared away nicely, thankyou.

Thanks for the many looks through the Mary Rose, Rod! An awesome optical instrument!

Good to catch up again with Greg and Geoff.
Nice to meet Pony Club debutante John, hope to see you here again soon.

Good viewing, comfortable conditions, great company, and NO DEW!
Perfect!
And it was good to hear the sweet sounds of the "Coffee Grinder" at the Pony Club again, after the silence of last week.
The gate was locked behind us at 2:00am.

[Irish stargazer (John)]

The weather did indeed turn out for the best. I did get to put the new Lightbridge scope through its paces. Very easy to set up and use but I don't think I have cracked collimation just yet. The Mary Rose is indeed a super scope. Thanks for the views.
Nice to meet you all. I hope to be a regular around the new moon.

[Rodstar (Rod)]

Dear all,

I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening - good company and at times some reasonable observing conditions. Welcome to John, we hope you can become a regular at the Pony Club. Thanks to Allan for the iced Apple pie and good chat about matters legal. Geoff was fantastic helping me with set and pack up - thanks mate! Greg shared some stupendous wide field views through his refractor - I have never seem the LMC as one single object through a scope before. The 5 degree FOV is wonderful, and the way you have your set up, it is buttery smooth and wonderful to use. A real shame Andrew that you had equipment failure- hopefully Bintel can sort the problem out in time for the Christmas holidays, so you have a chance to take an image of the horsehead!

As for the observing itself, the seeing was only average, at times we had some still views of Jupiter, but generally it was a tad soupy, not at all suited to high power observing.

Some of the objects I enjoyed during the course of the evening:

Andromeda (M31) - was surprisingly clear and well defined, notwithstanding its low altitude (kneeling on the grass to observe). I must admit I have never really tried to observe Andromeda properly because of its very low position from our latitude, but I was amazed by the brightness of its core, and the extent of the galactic disk, which far exceeded the FOV in my 20T5. The disk fades out fairly uniformly as one moves further from the core, but at the same time you can make out very distinctly the overall shape of the galaxy as per the many classic images of this beauty we have all seen many times.

NGC253 - was lovely and mottled, the spiral arms could be discerned with effort, best framed in the 31T5, although better detail picked up in the 20T.

NGC55 - much more whispy, hard to discern any specific detail, long streak, like a puff of cigar smoke. Unfortunately RB and Deeno were nowhere to be seen.

NGC 247 - like a smaller version of NGC55, hard to discern any detail, but clear overall galactic shape.

Burbidge chain - this is a chain of galaxies running close to NGC247. They were very faint, and required averted vision to locate. Approximately 4 galaxy smudges able to be detected.

Abell Cluster 194 - a wonderful galaxy cluster in Cetus. It was perfectly positioned last night, and we all had a wonderful time teasing out the 15 or so galaxies which could be detected in the FOV around the brightest member, NGC535, which was best placed to the L of the FOV, with a jumble of galaxies assorted running to the R of the FOV. Several people described the view as "lumpy". There is no doubt, at a casual glance, that there are galactic ghosts about, time and attention and a generous helping of averted imagination bring out more and more galaxies.

NGC1365 - best seen in the 20T5, the Zorro shape was well defined.

Helix Nebula - looked like a dusty football without filter, with the OIII it looked more like the Eye of God we all know and love.

NGC1232 - Andrew had mentioned possibly imaging this galaxy, so I thought I would have a peek. It was a face-on spiral, fairly compact. Conditions were not up to high power viewing. At low power the sense of spiral arms was a suggestion at best. I am confident under the right conditions I would be able to see the spiral arms. I think Andrew should definitely give this object a go.

NGC288 - glob in Sculpter. Unfortunately conditions had deteriorated by the time I got to this object. It was about 20 arc mins in diameter, stars distinctly yellowish like we see with 47Tuc. Low density glob by the looks.

NGC1300 - A galaxy blob - again I think adverse conditions meant this was not at its best. I have seen wonderful Hubble photos of this object before - a striking barred spiral, almost squarish with the spiral arms tightly following the bar. I had trouble discerning any such detail last night at the EP.

We spent time throughout the evening visiting some targets multiple times: M42, 47 Tuc, the Tarantula, Jupiter. All were easy on the eyes. Unfortunately with M42 the F star in the Trap was only discernable at moments of stillness - a clear reminder of the limitations of the conditions.

Until next time.....

[gmbfilter (Geoff)]

What a great night

Johns mods to his lightbridge made it a pleasure to use
Greg's "odd things" stuck on and around his 31 nagler gave amazing wide field views
Thank you for the apple charlotte Allan, and thanks to those not there I had a second peice!
Mary Rose is a fabulous telescope. Thank you Rod
Good luck with the repairs Andrew

[gb_astro]

Thanks all for a good night and ditto all of the above.
What an amazing turn around in the weather.
Not even any dew.

Greg.