Subject:  Monday Night Feb 24th nice night out viewing. |
Author:
Darrell.
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 00:43:28 02/25/03 Tue
Monday night is my 'Friday' night. By sunset, most of the smog had gone south. After supper I loaded up my 8 inch f-8, the first time in 10 months. Stopped by the Park at 7:40, just checking if someone had the same itch as me. No one there so kept going another half hour east to my side of the road site up Chilliwack River Road.
Set up and collimated by 8:35. Good sprawling Winter Milky Way, a very nice sky. Had shipped my 16.5 inch mirror back to my optician so wanted to see what my old 8 could do. M 42 was nice with distinct dark areas (contrast!) The Trapezium only had 4 stars in it and I could only really magnify to 101X before things got too mushy, so the seeing was only fair. 1977, just north of M 42 was there but that's all. 1973 was there but 1975 was too faint. M 47 the open cluster in Puppis was nice. It has a nice double in it, Struve 1121, mags 7.9 and 7.9 at 7.4" apart. Nice white pair. Just east of that, M 46 was good and the planetary in it, 2438 was easy at 46X. At 101X the planetary was a good sized disc.
M 35 was great and it's companion, 2158 was easy at 46X and a glittery fuzzball at 147 X. Jupiter was best at 101X and I glimpsed a dark oval off the side of a belt once. Saturn showed Cassini's division about 10 to 20% of the time. Pleiades had no identifiable Merope Neb, at least none that I could ID.
M 38 and its companion 1907 were great in the low power wide field. (something I don't get as wide with the 16.5 in.) M36 was smaller and M 37 was good with a yellow orange star in the center, most evident at low power. M 81 had some outer halo. M 82 and 3077 were good. Still in the dipper, I passed through M 108 on my way to M 97, the Owl. It was easy to find but too dark at 101X with the OIII filter. Without the filter there were no real eyeholes, well maybe one.
M65 and M66 in Leo were great and full of character. The third of the trio, 3628 was faint but definitely there and three times there was a hint of a dust lane at 101X. This was quite surprising since 3 weeks before, under better seeing, I couldn't get the lane with the 16.5 inch. (contrast?) To double check conditions I searched for the Flame in Orion but it wasn't there and so this evening wasn't special, but I'd still seen that dust lane. hmmm.
So went to Coma Berenices, 2 degrees east of the large open cluster's brightest (top) star to 4559 and ignoring that nice galaxy, I hurriedly went 2 degrees south to 4565, the easiest dust lane of them all. It was seen but fleeting, 3 times over a 4 minute stare. I checked the seeing again with Jupiter and Saturn and things had become worse, Cassini's div didn't really show at all. I packed up. 10:10 and -3 deg. C.
But I was happy. I got out and gave my 8 inch a good test. Just shows what can be done with a good mirror, a nice clean sky, and only fair seeing. I hope the rest of you can get out on your weekend and have a good look too.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 