Avoiding the fireworks, Observations – Monday 5 November 2012

Location: Home, garden, on the grass
Conditions: clear but misty. Damp.
Equipment: skywatcher 130 scope, Celestron 15×70 binoculars
Highlights: Jupiter, Andromeda M31, Pleiades M45

21:03 Jupiter
Started here just to get aligned. Can see both N and S Equatorial belts in 25mm eyepiece. 4 moons visible . I to East. 3 to West. Jumping up to 6mm eyepiece it’s a bit hazy. Not sure if this is down to dew. I have the camp mat protective cover I made round the mirror end of the OTA. I can feel moisture condensing on cool surfaces like the OTA and even my iPad.

21:11 Pegasus
Located the constellation with naked eye. Some of the stars are quite faint. Moisture in air. Not helped by fireworks.

21:13 Great Square in Pegasus
Located this asterism linking Pegasus to Andromeda. It’s a test of how dark your sky is to count how many stars you can see with the naked eye with the square. Erm… None.

21:20 Mirach – Beta Andromedae
Double Star in Andromeda – didn’t split the double.
Starting point for M31 starhop. Yellow star.

21:26 Andromeda Galaxy – Messier 31
Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda
A quick and easy starhop from from Mirach via u Andromeda and v Andromeda. Spotted easily in the RACI and then moved to the 25mm eyepiece. Tried 17mm plossl EP too. Not as clear. 25mm really show up the bright core. Had a bit of a tranquil moment marvelling at this galaxy 2.5 light years away.

21:49 Metallah – Alpha Trianguli
Variable Double Star in Triangulum – will have to look at the variable nature of this star at a later date.
I actually ended up here having overshot the starhop trying to find M33 from Mirach. This does seem to be an empty area with these conditions. However I was able to identify Triangulum constellation with the naked eye having arrived here. Easy really. It’s a trangle. Above Aires so I am widening my constellation experience.

22:14 Pinwheel Galaxy – Messier 33
Spiral Galaxy in Triangulum
Tried to find from both Mirach in Andromeda and from Metallah-alpha Trianguli. Couldn’t find it. It is quite an empty area with few stars of significant brightness to navigate by. Think it’s too misty so while I was in the right area, unable to see the faint fuzzy. I can see my breath and there’s an orange halo around the street lights.

22:18 Pleiades – Messier 45
Open Cluster in Taurus
Not within sight of the scope due to a fir tree so I got the 15×70 binoculars out. Between fir tree and street light, I could see the blue glow with naked eye. Bins show More detail. Moved scope to observe through that. There’s too much moisture in air now. The RDF is misted up. The Pleiades sit tight in centre of RACI. Through the ‘scope with the 25mm it fills the eyepiece. Can’t stay at the scope too long now. The eyepiece is misting up with my breath too. It gives a false impression of nebulosity. Stepping away from the scope to let it clear I noticed two orangle lights tracking fast and East towards Jupiter. These were two sky lanterns. The globes were very clear through the bins. Viewed Pleiades again after EP cleared. Shining a bright blue against a black background. There’s a definite nebulosity around some of them this time.

22:33 Double Cluster – NGC 869
Open Cluster in Perseus
I think i got it in bins by following a line from two stars in Cassiopeia toward Perseus. Looked like a double smudge. It was difficult to keep it steady. It was very high, almost at the zenith, so tough leaning back.
Too much mist and dew forming now and my feet are getting cold so time to call it a night. A good session though. Feels like I saw a lot.

Observations from the Back Garden – Friday 12 October 2012

Location: Garden, Home, Top of drive – had started down in middle of the so-called lawn.
Conditions: cloud gathering through evening.
Equipment: Skywatcher 130 scope, assorted eyepieces, new streetlight baffle.
Highlights: Andromeda Galaxy, M31

22:00 Andromeda Galaxy – Messier 31
First time out in the garden in a while. Was a clear night when heading home so I was hopeful to get some decent observing in. It’s also dark a lot earlier now. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve been out here. Not as dark or warm as Oman though.
I recognised constellation of Andromeda high to The East. I starhopped from Mirach through u and v to find M31, the Andromeda Galaxy which was distinct in the RACI view finder. Switching to the 25mm eyepiece on the scope Andromeda was very obvious. No detail but an expansive smudge of light from 2.5 light years away. I moved up to the 17mm plossl and it was OK-ish, a bit disappointing. I was starting to battle against gathering and drifting clouds though and the 6mm superwide was just useless. At this point I gave up. Cloud stops play.
It’s a start on the Sky At Night Magazine Oct 2012 Deep Sky Tour anyway. That’s Just as well as my November subscription arrived today. Also got the Moore Winter Marathon to try. I saw it on this month’s TV show. I never did get anywhere with the September Deep Sky Tour around Cygnus. It’s dark earlier though so maybe I’ll get a last chance early one evening in the next week.
I think I’ll set up a page to keep track of my observing objectives or plans. At the moment I feel like I’ve a lot of catching up to do.

I also pressed a new bit of kit into service tonight and it seems to have been a success. I mounted a large sheet of plywood on uprights that I can move around the garden to shield me from the street lights. It was very helpful in keeping the light out my eyes and stop it reducing my dark adaptation.
Only cost about £4 to make too.

Observing programs
Messier: 8/110
Lunar 100 observed: 8/100
Lunar 100 imaged: 8/100

Oman Desert Stargazing Observations – Tuesday 2 October 2012

Location: Desert Night Camp, Wahiba Sands, Oman
Conditions: Clear, dark. No cloud, no mist, no haze.
Highlights: Dark Skies, Milky Way, Mare Criseum, The Desert

I’d really been looking forward to our stay in the desert in Oman. We stayed at the marvellous Desert Nights Camp in the Wahiba Sands region. It was great fun driving 11km into the desert with our 4×4 Land Cruiser drifting through the sands.
After settling into our luxurious tent they took us up onto the dunes to watch the sun set.

19:00 By 7pm it was dark. I’d expected dark clear skies but this was incredible. Before my eyes more detail came into view minute by minute. I used the Summer Triangle to get my bearings. The Milky Way was visible stretching through Cassiopeia in the East, Cygnus at the zenith and to Sagittarius in the West.
I had the binoculars with me and I also had my Canon EOS400D on the tripod to take some long exposures for potential processing and stacking later. However I was more interested in just viewing the spectacle of it with the naked eye and had a bit of a wow moment at the detail I was seeing.

19:30-20:00. the moon rose at about 8pm. It was about 3 days past full and very bright, again washing out the sky and lighting the camp. This was a major shame as a lot of the detail was lost to me and the Milky Way pretty much disappeared from view. I could discern it in places but that might have been more of a case that I was expecting to see it there.

21:45 Before booking the Desert Night Camp I’d been in contact with them by email and they had told me they had a telescope I could borrow when I visited. When we checked in, it was there in reception a 114mm newtonian with a 1000mm focal length in a shortish tube – a parabolic mirror I guess. They told me it wasn’t working but I was welcome to try it. I think they hoped I might be able to fix it. After dinner (which was great, although I thought the ice sculpture was a bit over the top. The Oud player was brilliant though – unusual stringed instruments – another of my interests) I went to check it out but couldn’t get anything out of it. I suspect the collimation was way out. It had probably been fiddled with by a well meaning enthusiastic amateur trying to fix it. I hadn’t really got the skills, equipment or time to do much with it and figured I was wasting my time and would be better off with my binoculars instead.
I spent some time observing the moon – 2/3 days past full so some detail along terminator. The Mare Criseum was a standout and the walls around it formed a horseshoe with the upper edges of those extending like two horns into the darkness. I was using my Cambridge Star Atlas to identify the lunar features.  The numbers refer to the numbering in the Star Atlas.  Of particular note were the rays from Proclus.  This is number 12 on the Lunar 100.  This takes my tally up to 8/100.
 There was also a distinctive line of 4 craters along the terminator – Petavius, Snelius, Stevinus and Rheita.

22:15 I observed the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 through the binoculars. Really impressive.
Jupiter rose above the Eastern dunes and once again I sketched the positions of it moons to compare their progress from night to night. I could only see 3 of the Galilean moons this evening as Ganymede was really close to Jupiter and i was unable to discern it.
I’d given up on the tripod for the binoculars as lengthy viewing was giving me some neck ache. Instead I was outside our tent on a beanbag. There wasn’t anybody else about. There weren’t many other people at the camp and it’s not a place for late night drinking and partying. I heard a burp footsteps nearby behind me and turned to see two camels wandering through the camp. A little later I heard some more grunting sounds and thought the camels were back. However it was just a couple in a nearby tent shagging.

05:30 The following morning we were up early at 5:30 to catch the sunrise over dunes.
By now it was getting light and only planets were visible to the naked eye. Jupiter was up at the zenith. Venus was to the east. Observing it through the binoculars showed a bright star nearby which A spotted when she took a look. This was Regulus in Leo which was within about 8 arcminutes and this conjunction had been mentioned in the highlights for the month in various publications and podcasts. Closest approach was 3 October so this was a fortunate treat. I hadn’t been looking for it.

The moon was also still up now over in the Western sky.

Observing programs
Messier: 7/110
Lunar 100 observed: 8/100
Lunar 100 imaged: 8/100

Celestron 15×70 Skymaster Binocular – First Light Report

This week I took delivery of some new binoculars. I bought some Celestron 15×70 Skymasters from Rother Valley Optics. As with any new astronomy kit you have to be careful unboxing them so as not to let the clouds out.

My Skymasters may have arrived cloud free too thanks to the courier DPD who obviously though GLASS HANDLE WITH CARE meant the exact opposite. When the package above arrived at my workplace, i got a call from reception to go sign for it. The driver was a total idiot – “it’s not my fault, nothing to do with me”. I suspect it may have something to do with him in the next day or two thanks to trackable consignment numbers. Rother Valley Optics were great about it. They had packed them well inside despite the worst efforts by the tossers from DPD. They refunded the delivery costs and if there’s any probs will take them back. DPD’s customer services were also very responsive to a tweet I posted about it and contacted me to apologise and make good.
Good to see such good customer service, despite the actions of some of their employees.

So having got the unpleasantness out the way, I’ve had chance to try these monsters out and they’re pretty good. They are heavy and handholding isn’t that easy but I did know and expect that. To explain the numbers, 15 is the amount of magnification and 70 is the size of the big end-70mm of objective lens. This is a good thing for astronomy as that’s the aperture, how much light they pull in. Without that any magnification is pretty much a waste of time.

I was out again on Friday night with friends and as we left a curry house up in the dark skies of Clent I gazed up to notice a clear sky. This was my opportunity to give the bins a bit of a test run when I got home.

Whilst driving home approaching midnight I could see Jupiter in the East Northeast sky. I found a spot in the garden down by the pear tree where I could look out through a gap in to trees to get a look at Jupiter with the bins. The disk resolved clearly and looked almost orange, although I couldn’t make out any surface detail. I also couldn’t make out any moons although that might be due to the fact that the street light lies in that direction.

I came back up to the back door and hunted for M31, then Andromeda Galaxy. Didn’t take long to spot it near the zenith and it was an impressive sight. I had one of those wow moments – it’s another galaxy two and a half light years away! More than just a fuzzy blur, it showed as an eclipse with a bright core. I was amazed how much sky it seemed to cover, especially as when I put the bins down there was no sign with the naked eye. That’s the power of those 70mm objectives I guess. Writing this up on Saturday evening I can still recall the image in my mind.

So far I’m pleased with these binoculars and they don’t seem to have any problems despite the courier so I’m keeping them. They’re going to be ideal for travelling or when I don’t have enough time to get the ‘scope set up.

Observations – Friday 7 September 2012

Location: Home, middle of the lawn
Weather: Clear but cold by 23:30
Highlights: Iridium 58 Satellite, M29 Open Cluster, M31 Andromeda Galaxy

22:00 Iridium 58 satellite
I started off lining up on Sadr in Cygnus, ready to starhop to the M29 open cluster like I did on Wednesday.  A very bright satellite passed through my view in the RACI finder and distracted me for the next half an hour trying to work out what it might be.  It was very bright and when I looked up from the ‘scope, it was visible to the naked eye, although not as bright.  At first I thought it might be the ISS but having checked the app on my phone and confirming on SkySafari+ I established it wasn’t.  I spent some time with satellites enabled in SkySafari+ running through an animation using the the time buttons in the app to see which satellites were passing through this area of sky around this time.  I’m pretty sure it was an Iridium flare, the reflection of the solar panels on Iridium communications satellite 58. SkySafari has it down as only mag 5. It was definitely brighter than that, although that might be the flare.

22:37 M29 Open Cluster
I finally started observing properly after much mucking about getting the finders aligned with the ‘scope.  I had a quick look through the 25mm and then the 6mm ultra-wide.  I spotted a nice double nearby so went and took a look at that.

22:43 HD194206 double star.
I spotted this interesting looking double in the vicinity of M29.  It looked like a double in the RACI finder but was only just about splittable with the 6mm eyepiece.

23:07 NGC6888 Crescent Nebula
Did not find!   I found the area and the stars around it.  I was able to identify HD192163 at its centre.  There was no sign of the nebula though in 17mm Plossl eyepiece.  I tried the light pollution filter but this didn’t help.  I wasn’t sure if a light pollution filter helped with emission nebula or not though.  I’ve checked since and they do.  It’s meant to be good for emission and planetary.  The screenshot below shows how I got there.

23:17 Andromeda Galaxy M31
I was getting frustrated at not finding much on the Sky at Night September Deep Sky Tour.  I Went up by the house, over by the fence again and found M31 with binoculars, a pair of 8×40 Omiya that belonged to my Dad.  They must be over 30 years old.  To find Andromeda I located Mirach, through u and then just up a bit from v Andromeda, there it is.  Not very distinct though.  Just a smudge really.  Hopefully in a month or so when it’s in a more southerly position it’ll be easier to observe with the scope.

Observations – Wednesday 5 September 2012

Location: Home, outside back door
Weather: clear at first, high thin cloud towards end. Getting colder
Highlights: Sadr, M29 Open Cluster, Epsilon Lyra Double Double, Andromeda Galaxy M31

21:21 Albireo – Beta Cygni Double Star in Cygnus
Started off here this evening to get the finders and scope aligned. It’s first item on September Deep Sky Tour from Sky At Night magazine.

21:48 Ring Nebula – Messier 57, Planetary Nebula in Lyra
I was set up outside the back door so there was some light from kitchen. Observed through 17mm. Tried 6mm eyepiece without any joy. My plan for the evening was to complete the August Sky at Night magazine Deep Sky Tour so I wasn’t hanging about much on things I’d seen before. I was going to have a quick whip round the things I had seen and bag the rest of them.
And onwards….

22:05 Messier 56 Globular Cluster in Lyra
Didn’t find it. There was too much stray light from the kitchen and it was disappearing into the trees anyway. I have observed this before though on 14 August.

My next target was M29

22:10 Sadr – Gamma Cygni Double Star in Cygnus
I used this as a starting point for a starhop to m29. Luminous yellow-white. Impressive number of stars in the starfield surrounding it. Although I can’t actually see the band of the Milky Way from my garden we’re in the main band of the Milky Way here.

22:27 Messier 29 Open Cluster in Cygnus
There’s something very appealing about this open cluster. Got here in a starhop from Sadr and through Cyg 40.

Using SkySafari+ on the iPad with the field of view rings marked really does help. I’ve got the hang of starhopping this way now. I should try it with a book of starmaps too though. There’s a lot of stars round here, a very rich starfield. M29 was east to spot in 17mm Plossl eyepiece. I went up to the 6mm ultra-wide. It was still easy to see despite it being very bright outside kitchen door. A was working at the kitchen table so the lights were on. I made a sketch, which I later tweaked and inverted in Photoshop.

One more from the August Sky at Night Deep Sky Tour and another new Messier object.

;

I had to chase the cat off too. She was catching mice under the table. I really didn’t need her taking them in. I’d have to go into the light to deal with that.

22:47 Double Double – Epsilon Lyrae Double Star in Lyra
I’ve seen this double before. The double is very clear in RACI finder scope. Splitting further to the components took some doing though. I did it with the 6mm ultra-wide eyepiece. I needed some help from the 2x Barlow but the view very misty with that. Not sure if it’s dirty. I cleaned it but there was quite a bit of colour aberration creeping in. I ought to get a lens cap for it. Having seen and understood how it splits with the Barlow in place I then went back to the 6mm on its own and now it was clear. The doubles split perpendicular to each other. The view is of course inverted when looking through the scope. The screenshot from SkySafari+ shows how they split.

So that’s the August Deep Sky Tour or Summer Triangle objects completed. I’m quite pleased with that. First one I’ve managed to see everything on.

23:00 NGC 6819 Open Cluster in Cygnus
Spurred on by my completion of the August Deep Sky Tour, I decided to make a start on the September one of objects in Cygnus. I made a start on NGC6819 but gave up pretty quickly. It was getting misty at zenith and with the Summer Triangle wheeling South West across the sky by this time of a night. I need to come back to it another evening and start earlier.

Decided instead to go for a bit of naked eye astronomy and learn a few more constellations that are starting to appear to the East.

23:30 Andromeda Galaxy – Messier 31 Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda
I finished off the evening with this, although not with the telescope but with the unmounted 9×50 RACI finderscope. Another new find and the second new Messier of the evening. Takes my total to 7/110.

I’d been wandering the garden learning and identifying new constellations. Cassiopeia was an easy spot and then I worked out Andromeda lounging above the roof of the house to the east side. I stood by the back fence with the RACI finderscope looking due east and worked my way up through Andromeda.

The smudge of M31 the Andromeda Galaxy was visible. It was too low and too East to try it with the scope though. The House was in the way.

It was getting cold and the high thin cloud was coming in so it was time to pack up. This was a really good evening though. (It’s taken me days to compile and write-up the notes.)