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

Dubai Observations – Friday 28 September 2012

Back from a holiday in Dubai and Oman. I had a great time and most evenings I managed to get some stargazing in while there. I’ve a bundle of notes and sketches scribbled on hotel notepads. Over the next few days I’ll be writing my observations up and posting them here. I took my Celestron Skymaster 15×50 binoculars with me and a tripod so observing was with those or naked eye.

Location: Dubai, Souq Al-Bahhar, Mall of the Emirates hotel.
Weather: Hot.
Equipment: Naked eye, Celestron Skymaster 15×50 binoculars
Highlights: Summer Triangle, Vega, rotation, moon, Jupiter, Venus

23:00 Sitting eating our evening meal at the Souq Al-Bahhar opposite the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Just watched the Dubai Fountain show in front of a lit up Burj. With the naked eye to the left of the Burj I can see a star. It must be a bright one as there’s a huge amount of light pollution around here and it’s not easy to see any. A quick check on Sky Safari on my iPhone confirms my suspicion that it’s Vega.
So, that fainter one I can just make out to the left of it must be Altair, and so the one above must be Deneb. Once again I’ve found my familiar signpost – the Summer Triangle.
But now the strange thing. It’s all rotated about 30° clockwise to what I’ve become used to. I need to work out and understand why that is. I was used to Vega being at the top of the triangle through the Summer back home. Here it’s Deneb. Is that because we’re at a lower latitude or is it just because it’s a few months on from when I was observing it back home? I haven’t thought it through yet but that probably makes sense as we’re about 30° further south at 24°N (Home is 52°N.)

Incidentally, I was looking at the moon earlier, through the binoculars through the hotel window, while A was getting ready to go out to eat. It was almost full. Below Tycho I could make out some edges of craters along the terminator.
I was noticing that curve of the terminator is at a different angle to back home. I think this is for a different reason though. I seem to recall listening to an Astronomy Cast podcast that explained that.We were out by the Creek just before sunset, on the roof of the Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House. The setting Sun was low, perhaps 15°, to West. Meanwhile the Moon was just becoming visible to the east, at about the same elevation.

Anyway, meanwhile back at Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Fountains. We left through the Palace Old Town hotel and whilst waiting for a taxi spotted Jupiter. It’s the brightest thing in this sky apart from the Moon, the planes, the crazy buildings….

Next morning was an early start to get a flight to Oman. From the taxi to the airport I caught a brief glipse (again naked eye) of Venus just before dawn and saw the Sun rise between the buildings to the East of Sheik Zayed Road.

Observations – Sunday 26 August 2012

Location: Cloud Farm, Exmoor. Somerset-Devon border.
Weather:clear to mixed cloud. Sheltered site but cloud cover changing all the time due to strong winds
Highlights: Milky Way, Pleiades, M45, Jupiter, Venus,

As mentioned in a earlier post I was heading off to Exmoor for a camping weekend with friends, at the excellent Cloud Farm campsite. I had hoped for clear skies but accepted that may not happen. I took the scope in case but the weather forecast wasn’t exactly hopeful. The first night, Saturday night, was too cloudy to make it worth getting the scope out despite the dark skies. In the few gaps there were, I was able to see as may stars with the naked eye as I get with the scope back home. Had a bit of a poke around with the binoculars though.
Having gone to bed I awoke around 4:00am Sunday morning needing the toilet. Leaving the tent, I looked up and despite not having my contact lenses in or glasses on, I was blown away by the sky. It was clear and the sheer number of stars was a bit confusing to be honest. It took me a few moments to get my bearings. Even with my blurred vision I could make out the Milky Way streaking across the sky from west to east, using Cygnus as a confirmation. The bright blueish glow around the Pleides cluster (M45) was also evident to the East with Jupiter shining brightly not far away. That’s my Messier count to 5/110.

I then rather foolishly went back to bed but found I couldn’t sleep knowing such a magnificent sky was out there.

So I got up again and set up the scope. By the time I had it aligned and balanced, it was no longer as dark and the clouds were coming in again. I spent my time observing and tracking Jupiter first, and a little later Venus rose above the hillside.
Even through the 9×50 RACI I could make out a couple of the Galilean moons and with the 6mm eyepiece on Jupiter I could clearly see all 4. More excitingly I could make out banding. I’d not seen this before through my Skywatcher 130M. I had seen the banding before, at a Stargazing live event run by Birmingham Astronomical Society at the Mailbox, through a 900mm refractor.
I made a sketch of the banding, remembering that the view was inverted through the eyepiece. I couldn’t see the Great Red Spot.

The sky was lightening as dawn approached, and Venus popped up over the hillside to the East. I tracked and observed that for a while, observing it shining brightly at half phase.
It was daylight by then and my fellow campers were starting to rise as I was packing up at around 6:20. I went back to bed for an hour or two.

Unfortunately Sunday evening was pretty cloudy with quite a bit of mist so no observing that night, just a bit of a late night ukulele singalong around the campfire instead. It turned to rain about 1:00am so there was no late night/early morning viewing to be had. It was worth taking the scope with me though, for the views of Jupiter and Venus the previous morning. It’s just a shame I didn’t know how clear the sky was whilst I slept else I’d have been up and out sooner to make the most of the dark skies.

Update: 10 September 2012. I was watching The Sky At Night this evening. In the night sky section, they were discussing Jupiter and how the Northern Equatorial Belt is rather thick and complex at the moment. The showed the image below, which I have cheekily screenshot from iPlayer, (inc the copyright for credit). I’m quite chuffed at the similarity between this and my sketch. I had noted and captured that thicker band.