BAM600 - John Bambury's Southern Skies Observing List

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Hi Grant,

Good to see you making in roads into the list.

That website is really helpfull and gives you everything you need. Alternatively most good astronomy software programs/packages, like Sky Tools 3 etc, will give you all this information and much more.

Cheers,
John B

[Gem (Grant)]

193 and counting...

[Gem (Grant)]

219...

This is taking time!

[technofetishism (Nick)]

Whipped up a EQTOUR format file for those who use ASCOM devices

You'll need to rename the file extension to .lst for eqtour to use it though.

[andyc (Andy)]

I'm much enjoying tackling your list John, thanks for all the work you put into it . I'm up to 280/600, though I have the advantage (cheat?) of having viewed some of them from north of the Equator! Added 18 last night in a lovely tour of Puppis , Vela and Pyxis, using your list and SkyAtlas 2000, finding some hidden gems along the way. My last and favourite was the little NGC2972 cluster, a sparkling mound of dust almost hidden away.

It's also making me look for some things I don't always seek out, like the carbon stars and doubles, which is nice too!

A great list!

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Hi Andy,

Glad to hear your enjoying the list and getting a good ways through it.

I am just moving into a new house in Kiama in a couple of weeks on a 1 acre block on the outskirts of town with mag 6+ skies in the backyard. I am going to set myself a test to see if I can revisit all of these from my backyard in the 14" SDM. If I can get them all in the 14" from home I am then going to try for them all in the 10" SDM, which will be very tough from this location. I should get the 10" SDM within the next couple of months, if my good friend Mr Read extracts his didgit and gets his sheds built

Cheers,
John B

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Originally Posted by Gem

219...

This is taking time!

Hi Grant,

Seeing you have done so many "hard yards" you can now cheat a little A Gary Kopff supplied Argo Navis unit takes a lot of the pain out of it

Cheers,
John B

[Gem (Grant)]

The old dob and Sky Atlas 2000 have done many a nights observing... but now the dob is retired in a shed in QLD and the CGEM 925 is the main scope.
The C9.25 is doing a great job. I have been dabbling in imaging for the past 6 months... very much the amateur when it comes to that!
I need to count, but I would guess that I am near to 300 now. Need to stop imaging for a while.
My wife has promised a 16" dob, but it will probably come when the tax return comes...

With a 16" I will have no excuses not to finish the list! Our new place in Canberra has quite decent skies for a city location.

[andyc (Andy)]

Originally Posted by ausastronomer

Hi Andy,

Glad to hear your enjoying the list and getting a good ways through it.

I am just moving into a new house in Kiama in a couple of weeks on a 1 acre block on the outskirts of town with mag 6+ skies in the backyard. I am going to set myself a test to see if I can revisit all of these from my backyard in the 14" SDM. If I can get them all in the 14" from home I am then going to try for them all in the 10" SDM, which will be very tough from this location. I should get the 10" SDM within the next couple of months, if my good friend Mr Read extracts his didgit and gets his sheds built

Cheers,
John B

Hi John, it would be very interesting to hear if you can see all the faint ones / split all the tight doubles with the 14". Some of the close and unequal ones are too tough for the 8"! I'm up past 380 now as the centre of the galaxy has wandered into the evening sky. I've been pleasantly surprised how many of the Leo/Virgo galaxies I've seen from Melbourne, though you have to wait for the good nights. I reckon I can reach 500 with the 8", of which maybe 400 are visible in southern suburban skies (milky way visible but faint, LMC barely visible). 25 or so of my tally I've only seen because of having been in the Northern Hemisphere. A few more trips to dark skies might take my tally well above 500 with the 8", the rest will have to wait at least till I get my dream scope - my own 12" or similar. I don't doubt that some are probably too tough for even a 12"! Thanks again for the great challenge

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Hi Andy,

That's a really great effort to get that far with an 8" scope. The critical thing is sky conditions and you obviously have pretty decent conditions. Under pristine skies there are probably only a handfull (10 to 20) that are out of reach of a good 8"/10" scope. It's very refreshing to see people trying for these with with smaller scopes. I try to push my 18" to the limits and hunt targets that are on the limit for that aperture ( Arp Galaxies & Palomar globs, etc).

Cheers,
John B

[1kmodem (Will)]

Glad I came across this! can't wait to get started

[CAAD9 (Adam)]

The BAM600? Great, I need a new list. After 20 years of small aperture newts, which mostly collected dust, I decided to get into it properly and bought a push to 10" dob last year.

Wow what a difference, I chose the Messier catalogue to get started on ( I'm up to 91/110 ). Since I am coming to the end of what's possible from brisbane I have been scratching around for a new target list.

Since the 10 was getting used every second night the wife gave permission for a 14" goto dob when an opportunity came to get one on special. Size does matter, 14 teases out a lot more than the 10.

Thank you for putting this list together John.

Regards

Adam

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Originally Posted by CAAD9

The BAM600? Great, I need a new list...
I chose the Messier catalogue to get started on ( I'm up to 91/110 )
.....
Thank you for putting this list together John.
Regards

Adam

Adam Great effort there

[CAAD9 (Adam)]

Originally Posted by GrampianStars

Adam Great effort there

Thanks Rob.

I have to confess 5 of the 91 were found with the goto. But, the telescope itself is a tool, so one more layer to the tool can't really hurt. Or is that cheating?

Anyways, only 4 more to go that have a declination of 20 or less. It's all the northern stuff after that, will be a challenge from Brissie.

[bigjoe (JOSEPH)]

A belated thank you for this list John; that you have tirelessly put together.

I will be going through it at years end, when I have set up an observation
shed at a property in Castelreagh on the outskirts of Sydney that I have.

Let's hope some of us report on what we have seen in certain scopes that we possess; mine will probably be with a 10" SCT hope it is good enough!

Cheers bigjoe.

[CognitiveBias (Nathan)]

Great job glad to have found this

[gaseous (Patrick)]

I'm obviously very much a johnny-come-lately on this thread, but huge thanks to John B for this AMAZING list.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

I am not sure if anyone in Oz has completed this list but I can tell you that Brad Young from the USA who has been on 3 OZsky trips in the last 5 years has completed all but 10 targets on the list, necessitating his return next year to another OZsky event to finish it. Brad has managed to achieve this from only 16 nights observing. What is even more remarkable is that he has sketched all 590 of the objects he has observed to date. While Brad pulled "all nighters on the 6 clear nights we experienced at last week's Spring Ozsky event, it's still a remarkable effort. An accurately pointing Argo Navis Digital Telescope Computer was certainly instrumental in helping Brad observe so many targets in a short period of time.

Cheers
John B

[FourOwls]

Hi there
Thanks for your efforts but it is also nice to see people committed to something 'nature focused' and real! I live in Logan City (near Brisbane) and I hope that I can (with my slightly old 12 inch Dob) get through most of this list! Well, it provides focus and rids that aimless star hopping anyway!
Cheers!
Andrew Hill

[Bendy (Ben)]

Hi all,

Has the Bam600 list been converted into a SkySafari observing list (.skylist)? If so, I'd be most grateful if someone could share it as I don't fancy trying to create it myself!

Regards

Ben