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.)

Observations – Wednesday 8 August 2012

Location: Home
Weather: mixed cloud. Thin at start, cleared whilst observing, pretty much 90% by 23:30. Dry.

22:00 – 23:30 My plan had been to work my way through the Sky at Night magazine August 2012 deep sky tour. I’d set up an Observation list in SkySafari3+ on the iPad. A somewhat ambitious plan perhaps. I did start with M71 but the leap up from Altair in Aquila up to the constellation of Sagitta left me a bit lost so i moved on to the second target on the list M27, the Dumbbell Nebula.
I got there through some star hopping. I took a load of screen shots to get there, eventually arriving at 14 Vul. I’d got there through the 9×50 RACI finderscope. Twisting the crosshairs to line up with the RA and dec motion really helps and it also divides the area into quadrants. having lined it up with the OTA on Vega before i stated was crucial.
The other thing that really helped was that I’d calculated the FOV of my finder and eyepieces and so set them as target circles in SkySafari+. The following sequence shows how I got there through the faint constellation of Vulpecula.

Firstly I located the double star, Albireo in Cygnus. Shifting that to the top left of my finder brought 10 Vul into view.

Shifting 10 Vul to the centre of the finder showed a line of two stars heading WSW towards 13 Vul

Once at 13 Vul I was able to identify 12 Vul, 16 Vul, 17 Vul and 15 Vul.

So, having got to 14 Vul then the messing about started. I switched to a 25mm eyepiece on the Skywatcher 130M and instantly had to switch my mind into recognising the view was now upside down.
It took ages, perhaps 1/2 hour to actually spot the Dumbbell nebula. I could see there was another star….in a line with 14 Vul and the Dumbbell Nebula should be reasonable size in comparison to the stars and about double the distance away. Light pollution really wasn’t helping. I put the LP filter on the 17mm Plossl and where I knew it must be it began to drift in and out of view. It took a lot of averted vision before I would allow myself to believe I’d seen it. To confirm I stepped away from the scope a few times to check in books such as Turn Left At Orion and then go back and check if i could see what I’d seen before and confirm it wasn’t just a trick of the light. The other thing that helped was holding up a magazine in front of the OTA to stop a bit of the light from a nearby street light from bouncing down and washing out my view.
So that’s my second Messier object – 2 out of 110 observed. I’ll be back again to M27 later in the week hopefully to get a better view and understanding of it.  I’d be hard pushed to describe what I observed of the Dumbbell Nebula at the moment.  It was a fuzzy and indistinct smudge to me.  I know what it should look like but I don’t want to describe that.  Next time I hope to make better observations.   For this evening though, I take some satisfaction in successful starhopping.  After several evenings of getting lost and poking around aimlessly, I now feel that I can navigate the night sky. 

I’m actually sitting in the garden now, typing the initial observation notes up in SkySafari and will add the screenshots to them when I post them on the blog (as I now have done). The cat just came under the fence and made me jump so it’s time to pack up and go in.