4 planets in one day.
date: 23/8/05
time: 5pm - 8:30pm
seeing: from 3-5/10
transpearency: 5/10
telescope: 200mm reflector
location: my backyard
light pollution from home and neighbours lights: medium/low
I got home early yesterday so I decided to make the most of it (tho in retrospect I should have used the time to collimate too). during twilight I viewed venus and found that the earlier in the day you view the more you see. tho bright I could clearly see the shape without all the extra glare. quite nice really! I even bumped the mag up and it held well... almost seemed like there was some surface detail there but i was probably just imagining it.
next up was jupiter. the skies needed to be just a tad darker for joop, but it looked fine and very steady in my 10.5mm TV. brimming with confidence i bump it up putting my (gasp) 6.5mm 500series in. the seeing was almost not up to it but during steady periods i could see a wealth of detail on the surface. sorry to disagree with all the nay sayers but my 6.5 focuses well is crystal clear and shows no unexpected distortions in colour shape or anything. yeah its not a TV or UO ortho but its not bad.
at this stage it was plenty light out still but I'd finished with the 2 planets for now and stayed in till dinner time was over and darkness (my friend) came...
popped outside whenit was dark and looked around. it wasnt really dark enough but was getting there so i scooted around centaurus and cruxus looking at various clusters, stars and nebula till I could get into some serious observing.
I decided to go for another planet, neptune. I found the approximate area easily enough and hopped around the stars till i found it... easy. It was a nice little blue orb in the TV 10.5mm. uranus was harder. my pda software was showing it to be n the wrong area
and after a whole bunch of hopping i became hopping mad.... I ducked inside and looked on CDC, I was aiming too high. with the new info i soon found it. nepturne looked better....
while in the area i decide to hit the helix. i have
never been able to see this from home... till tonight. with my 15mmSV inplace with a skyglow filter on it I star hopped till i found the area where it was supposed to be. Once you get the star hopping stars down the area is quite easy to find.
I FOUND IT!!! I couldnt make out much at first but after spending some time there (about 20mins) a very faint ring structure started to come out. gawd! never thought I'd get it from home I tells ya
. I now have pictured in my head some guide stars to make it easier for next time. averted vision did little to help, but a narrowband filter would have...
next up: gamma delph. the constellation stands out pretty clear in my sky even tho it is trapped in the worst part of sky glow. after consulting CDC I found that gamma was the bottom star. so it was an easy find and an easy split for me. the colours were and orangy-yellow for the primary and grey-blue for the secondary. pretty.
second last stop was the dumbell. spotted about a week ago i guess i tried again with no moon. in my SV filtered it clearly stood out. the dumbell shape was present but a little vague.
last stop ngc 5286. this is a great little glob in centaurus for glob nuts nice and tight. next to yale 5172 the pair are quite good to look at. go hunt it down peeps!
![[1ponders]'s Avatar](../vbiis/customavatars/avatar45_9.gif){kind=avatar}
) and a dozen or so globs from all around the place. You gotta get an Argo. Its brilliant for that sort of stuff. I also did gamma delp and Albiro and a couple of others. Fun isn't it.
