Shangri La, Muscat, Oman Observations – Thursday 4 October 2012

Location: Barr Al Jissa Shangri La Hotel, Muscat, Oman
Conditions: Clear
Equipment: Naked eye, Celestron Skymaster 15×50 binoculars
Highlights: Mars,

18:00-ish watched the sunset from the sea having a bob. Best way to watch the sun go down. The resort had a Lazy River running through it – a long loop styled on a falaj (Omani irrigation system used to bring water from the pools in the upper reaches of the wadis to the villages) with water jets to keep it flowing. We had one last float around on a rubber ring round this from where I could see a few stars coming out and in particular Mars high to the West.
We returned to our room via the pool where I had a moment lying on my back in the empty pool looking up at the stars at the zenith. The moon was not yet up. Once again Cygnus was at the zenith and I could just make out a faint fuzz of the Milky Way across to Cassiopeia. That’s quite a way to see it I suppose and in some ways summed up the great day we’d had doing very little around the resort, just reading and messing about in the water.

We ate on the Corniche in Muttrach at Fast Food and Juice Centre cafe again, which serves great shawarma, felafel, hummus and a really refreshing lemon mint drink. A Tunisian family at the next table struck up conversation in a mix of French and English. They lived and worked in Oman and were very hospitable, inviting us to their home, which we had to decline as we were flying onto Dubai the next day. When we came to settle our bill we found they had very kindly paid it. “Welcome to Oman!”. This friendliness and generosity seems to be very much part of the culture and having travelled and been hassled in other countries was very surprising and refreshing. All too often you think that somebody has an angle. Whilst you should never be naive, people in Oman and generally and genuinely nice.

11:20 Back at the room, another observation of Jupiter through the bins. Didn’t sketch this time but did take a screenshot with SkySafari+ just to track the Galilean moons again.
screenshot from SkySafari+ Where is Io though?

Having sketched and tracked the positions of Jupiter’s moons nearly every evening I ought to make a chart of my observations to show the day to day movements. I know there is one printed in Sky at Night magazine each month but it would be interesting to compare and confirm my observations.

I also took some photos of Orion. I’ll have a go a stacking and processing them later, when I’m back home and it’s a cloudy night.

This was my last night of stargazing on this holiday. After this we had a couple of days in Dubai before returning home. This had been an incredible holiday. It was very much a holiday and all the stargazing I did was a bonus extra. I tried not to let it dominate but at the same time took the opportunity where I could.

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

Shangri La, Muscat, Oman Observations – Wednesday 3 October into Thursday 4 October, 2012

Location: Barr Al Jissa Shangri La Hotel, Muscat, Oman
Conditions: Clear
Equipment: Celestron Skymaster 15×50 binoculars
Highlights: Jupiter, Orion, M42 Orion Nebula, Trapezium

We left the desert and spent a day exploring Wadi Bani Khalid. We swam in the clear freshwater pools of the canyon up in the mountains. We wouldn’t need to visit Wild Wadi back in Dubai after this. I crawled down into the Mukhal cave with my headtorch and before long was quite deep within the cave where it was very hot and dark. Turning a corner and taking care to be able to trace my route back, I could hear running water. I headed towards it for a few minutes and it got louder but I never saw the waterfall that’s supposedly in there. I was conscious that A was waiting for me outside and didn’t want her worrying so I headed back.
It was over a three hour drive back to Muscat and with some fun stress with the traffic we finally arrived at the Shangri La, Barr Al Jissah well after dark.
I had high hopes for this as a decent place for some stargazing. Before we’d headed out to Oman I’d had a discussion with somebody on Stargazers Lounge that suggested it was a good site. The resort is quite isolated, in it’s own grounds, some way South of Muscat. We had a seaview room so when we arrived there were dark skies out over the sea to the East.

12:48 After a late dinner I went out on the balcony and set the binoculars up on the tripod. The moon was out, about 3-4 days past full but very high so almost out of sight from the balcony. It did wash out the sky a bit but looking east there was no orange glow of light pollution. As I’ve done every evening I’ve been able to on this trip, I took a look at Jupiter and made a quick sketch of it’s moons.

It was interesting this evening and I needed to use SkySafari+ again to identify and locate moons. Io was in front and on the edge of the disk of Jupiter. I couldn’t make it out individually but there did appear to be a slight notch to the disk. It was hard to be sure if this was being caused by the shadow of Io on the disk or was just an artefact of the fact that the disk is very bright. It might have been due to a bit of flare or radial spiking. I get that sometimes due, I think, to my contact lenses.

12:55 Orion was up and on it’s side.

M42, the Orion Nebula was clearly visible as a smudge to the naked eye. It showed up well in the binoculars and seemed to surround a couple of the brighter stars. One of these brighter stars was actually the open cluster known as the Trapezium, although I was unable to resolve that to individual stars in the bins.
Observing M42, the Orion Nebula means another Messier Object spotted, taking my tally up to 8/110.

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

Muscat, Oman Observations – Saturday 29 September 2012

Location: Chedi Hotel Muscat, Oman
Conditions: Warm, Patchy cloud. Misty and hazy. Coastal location. (Northern coast)
Equipment: Naked eye, Celestron Skymaster 15×50 binoculars
Highlights: Moon, Tycho, Jupiter

22:30 I had been expecting to get clear skies in Oman. Muscat is a city of about 3/4 million people that sprawls long and narrow along the Northern coast. Light pollution is a problem and this is not helped by the haze and mist. I suspect a certain amount of that is due to dust from the mountainous landscape and the desert interior. A certain amount will have been due to humidity, probably because of the coastal location. I was surprised at the amount of patchy cloud that came over as the evening progressed. I’d noticed similar in Dubai the night before. It was also full Moon, reaching the zenith at around 23:00 and washing out a lot of the sky. The moon was bright enough to cast sharp shadows and being on the approach to the airport several of these were cast by planes.

After dinner, down at a cafe on the Corniche in Muttrrah, we went out by the Long Pool at the Chedi with a beer and the bins. Lay on a divan by the pool looking right up at a full moon. A was asking about the big white crater with the lines coming off it – I identified Tycho for her.
I set the bins up on the tripod to get a look at Jupiter which was about 30° up in the West. Through binoculars Jupiter appeared very orange due to the dust. Seeing and transparency not great.
I thought I’d spotted two moons around the 7 o’clock position. As my eyes got used to it i noticed the closest one in to Jupiter had one at it’s 10 o’clock position. A bit later I spotted another at Jupiter’s 2 o,clock position.

I made a quick sketch and used SkySafari+ to identify which moon was which.

A Lebanese couple came past and were curious about what I was looking at. They’d seen people around the resort before with binoculars or telescopes but never taken a look so I showed them Jupiter and it’s moons.

It’s interesting to compare my experience of observing from The Chedi in Muscat, Oman with that of of a fellow member of the Stargazer’s Lounge forum who was in Oman a few days before me. It seems like I was following him round.