Category Archives: Observing

More ‘Glorious Globulars’ – well, two of them

Yesterday, 19th August, was one of the every-other-day warm and sunny ones in this strange mixed bag of a summer. The evening was cloudless and, although the Moon was going to rise before it got astronomically dark and it was forecast to cloud over later, I decided to set up the 8″ Newtonian and catch some low southern globulars. The 8″ is a good scope to get low objects because its tripod is higher than my 12″ scope’s Dobsonian mount and, as such, I can get at the hedgehopper objects, objects that are inaccessible with the bigger scope.

Date: 19th August 2011
Conditions: Clear at first, rising 75% illuminated gibbous Moon, dew.
Transparency: I, deteriorating later on as clouds appeared
Seeing: III
NELM: 5.9 under the gibbous Moon
Equipment: 8″ f/4 equatorial Newtonian. Televue 22mm Panoptic (36x), Televue 15mm Plossl (53x), Televue 8mm Radian (100x), Televue 5mm Radian (166x) and Televue 3mm Radian (267x).

NGC 6642, globular cluster in Sagittarius – Found easily at 36x, it is small, bright and round. Unresolved at 53x and remains unresolved at 100x although it does look slightly granular. Condenses to a bright core. Outlying halo looks granular but not resolved. 36x, 53x, 100x

Palomar 9 (NGC 6717), globular cluster in Sagittarius – You see the word ‘Palomar’ and you think ‘not easy’ but this one is not that hard, even in an 8″. However, it would be easily overlooked if you weren’t actually looking for it. Palomar 9 is right next to Nu 2 Sgr, a 5th magnitude star, and is slightly overwhelmed by it.
Pal 9 is very small round patch with a brighter, tiny, core. Totally unresolved. 100x, 160x, 267x.

I packed up at 2330 because clouds were forming, as forecast, and the Moon was getting higher. I only observed two objects in 50 minutes, as most of my targets were getting too low and had vanished behind the garden hedge.

 

Perseid Party – with no Perseids

Despite the fact it was nearly full Moon, there was a small gathering at a friend’s house last night to watch the Perseid meteor shower. The weather forecast was lousy but we decided to get together and have a barbecue anyway. The clouds showed little sign of shifting, with only the occasional sucker hole showing tantalising glimpses of the stars beyond.

This garden, belonging to fellow VAS member and Isle of Wight Star Party organiser Stephen, is in an enviable spot on the south coast of the Isle of Wight and in a blue zone, with views over the sea and an unobstructed southern horizon. It’s darker than the garden at home and, as it has that unobstructed view of the south I am going to be doing some observing there on occasion with the 8″ (I am not sure my 18″ will fit into my little Citroen C3). On a Moonless night, the only form of light pollution is St. Catherine’s Lighthouse, whose beam sweeps the hillside above the garden every few seconds, but it doesn’t actually interfere with night vision as the beam is blocked by trees to the west. An observer in the garden is also below the beam. There are, of course, also large ships passing on their way to and from the port of Southampton but they don’t hang around, fortunately.

Despite the rubbish observing conditions we had a good time and were treated to a spectacular view of the Moon reflecting off the sea as it shone through breaks in the clouds, and even through the clouds when they thinned enough. We didn’t see a single meteor but had a nice time, nonetheless.

 

Driving home around midnight, I couldn’t help noticing the sheer amount of streetlights and (in)security lights everywhere. There’s absolutely no need for these lights in rural areas but there are so many of them, it’s depressing. It’s also depressing how most members of the public seem to need the ‘blanket and teddy bear’ (as my friend Ted Saker puts it) of outdoor lighting so when the council come to renew the lights, as they’re supposed to do in the next few years, you can bet they won’t be actually thinning the damn things out a bit. However, the new ones are supposed to be cut-off fixtures, so the overall light pollution should be reduced quite significantly.
On a related note, while watching the TV news coverage of the riots, mayhem and looting in England’s major cities last week, I couldn’t help noticing that the crimes were all carried out in the full glare of the street lights! That’s another nail in the coffin of the mantra ‘lights deter crime’, I hope.

It’s another cloudy Moon-ridden night tonight but what a spectacular sunset there was. I don’t like clouds, at all, but they do provide some drama.

‘Glorious Globulars’ – observing, 30th July 2011

We’ve had quite a spell of cloudy weather just lately here, all a bit depressing really – a friend of mine confessed that it’s the first time he’s ever had SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in July – with only the occasional clear spell at night and only the odd sunbeam poking through during the day. Humans can’t, of course, control the weather or climate (putting aside anthropogenic climate change) – if we did, I’d make sure the UK had an Arizona climate! – but it’s hard not to blame the messengers, in this case the weather presenters and forecasters who smugly, it seems, inform us we’re in for yet another crappy dull summer day or cloudy night.
Last night (30th July) it cleared, sort of, and I decided to track down some globulars in Ophiuchus and Sagittarius.
I had recently dug out an 8″ Celestron scope on a Vixen GP mount, which I was given several years ago but haven’t used for various reasons (mostly because I prefer using my 12″ Dob, as aperture counts in deep sky observing). I didn’t know the focal ratio or focal length of this scope, just that it was ‘pretty short’, so I posted a photo and description on Cloudy Nights and it turns out that my scope is a 7.9″ (20cm) f/4 (800mm focal length) GP-C200 made by Celestron back in the late 90s/early 2000s. 7.9″ is a strange size but it seems that a lot of 8″ mirrors are actually 7.9″ in diameter. I’ll call it 8″ for convenience! Anyway, I decided to give this scope a fair go so I fitted it with my Telrad and collimated it after setting it up in the garden.

20cm f/4 Celestron

 

 

The evening was decidedly unpromising – after a clear late afternoon and early evening, it clouded over again and I thought the session would end before it began. Fortunately, it improved enough to do some observing, at least.

 

 

 

I got off to a slow start for various reasons but, once I’d settled my differences with the equatorial mount (reminding me why I prefer Dobs!), all was ok, apart from the endless procession of cars coming down into the village and sweeping the trees with their beams.

Date: 30th July 2011
Conditions: No Moon (New Moon), partly cloudy, 82% humidity (very dewy), 12° C (53.6° F)
Transparency: III, deteriorating to IV later.
Seeing: Antoniadi II
Equipment: 8″ (20cm) f/4 Newtonian, 22mm Televue Panoptic (36x) and 8mm Televue Radian (100x)

NGC 6426, Ophiuchus – This globular is very faint, not helped by the poor transparency. It is faint at 36x. Putting in the 8mm (100x) is not much of an improvement, so it is not surprising I did not see this with the small scopes or binoculars last week. Very faint and unresolved.

NGC 6333 (M9), Ophiuchus – Round, bright and dense with a very bright and dense core. Granular-looking at 100x but unresolved. One for a better night.

NGC 6342, Ophiuchus – Fairly bright, despite its low altitude (the transparency had improved by this time). Smaller and fainter than M9 and fits into the same field of view at 36x. At 100x, a round halo with a brighter, dense core. Slightly granular but unresolved.

NGC 6356, Ophiuchus – This is close to M9 and NGC 6342 but I didn’t see it, probably because it was too low and had gone behind the shed.

NGC 6626 (M28), Sagittarius – Very bright, quite small and round. Unresolved, although that might be due to the poor transparency. 100x

NGC 6656 (M22), Sagittarius – Large and very bright. Not round, more irregular. Mostly resolved at 100x but with a nebulous background hinting at many more unresolved stars. The overall appearance is almost that of a crab or a spider. There are dark patches within the cluster. Very nice indeed.

NGC 6638, Sagittarius – Small, moderately bright. A round halo surrounds a dense, compact core. The edges are diffuse. Unresolved.

By this time the transparency had got a lot worse, so I called it a night at 0035 BST. As I was packing up, I got to listen to a couple of women prowling up and down the footpath next to the garden. I am not sure what they were doing but I think they were looking for something, especially when I heard ‘Darling! Come to mummy!’ from one of them. Probably a cat or dog, or something. To be honest, no matter who they are or how nice they are, I don’t like people hanging around or being loud outside at night, it makes me nervous – probably a hangover from when I lived in towns and cities where it was noisy and anti-social behaviour was common – and it’s a feeling I can never shake off.
Anyway, the scope performed beautifully and is a real little gem, perfect for those nights when getting the big scope out is too much hassle or the conditions aren’t good enough and I want something more than binoculars and the tiny scopes. The coma isn’t too bad, considering it’s an f/4 mirror, and as a coma corrector won’t fit (it only accepts accessories with 1.25″ barrel size) that’s a bonus. It’s also good for putting into the car and taking somewhere with a better southern horizon. I’ll be using it more from now on.

 

Sweet Pea

Last year, while I was in Texas, I got a chance to observe with Jimi Lowrey, Alvin Huey and Jimi’s huge 48″ dob up at Limpia Crossing, near the ranch where TSP is held. While we were talking over dinner before heading up to Jimi’s observatory, Jimi and Alvin told me about a discovery that Jimi had recently made while looking at the Sloan Digital Sky Survey images; Alvin had also been there at the time Jimi found it on the Sloan image. It was a small round green object in Draco and, due to its colour, Jimi nicknamed it the Sweet Pea. The Sweet Pea’s status isn’t certain at the moment although it’s believed to be a planetary nebula. The strange thing about the Sweet Pea is that it is in the galactic halo and not the disk, meaning that it could be an object captured when the Milky Way galaxy consumed a neighbour that came too close. Most stars – and planetary nebulae – are in the disk of the galaxy.

Later that night, May 11 2010, when we were observing, Jimi asked me if I wanted to see the Sweet Pea and, naturally, I said ‘yes’.

Sweet Pea, planetary nebula(?) in Draco, 18 41 41.9 +65 11 58 – The Sweet Pea was round and fairly faint. I didn’t sketch it, although I wished I had now! I initially saw it without a filter and it was tough, seen as a round brightening against the sky. It was definitely fuzzy, not stellar and a UHC filter helped a bit. 48″ Dob @ 488x. Jimi and Alvin had already seen the Sweet Pea before, so that apparently made me the third person ever to visually see it. That’s pretty amazing and what hard-core deep sky observing is about.

So, why didn’t I mention the Sweet Pea when I wrote about the TSP way back last May? Well, Alvin and myself were sworn to secrecy as, understandably, Jimi did not want anyone else to nip in and steal the discovery for themselves, until the astronomers up at McDonald Observatory had studied it and confirmed it. It has now been confirmed, using the Hobby Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, is now in the public domain and Jimi was awarded the Lone Stargazer Award for the discovery at this year’s Texas Star Party.
I understand that the Sweet Pea was a major target for Larry’s 36″ and others at TSP this year, although I don’t know if anyone saw it or not. It was tough with a 48″ under dark and transparent Texas skies, it will probably be impossible with an 18″ or 20″ from the UK.

Jimi and professional astronomer Steve Odewahn from the HET feature in a program on Marfa Public Radio, talking about the Sweet Pea. Click here to listen. Go to Jimi’s Page on Dark Skies Apparel for more about the Sweet Pea and some of Jimi’s other observations.

I am hoping to catch up with Jimi and Alvin, as well as my other friends, at TSP 2012…

Summer observing

As those of us stuck at high latitudes know (I’m at 50° North), the long twilights of summer aren’t that conducive to deep sky observing. When it does get ‘dark’ it’s only astronomical twilight as the sun is less than 18° below the horizon. But while it may not be good for the really faint fuzzies (and here, I admit that webcam users and imagers have an advantage over us eyeball-only types) it’s still dark enough for the bright DSOs. Even Messiers you’ve seen countless times before are worth repeated looks and, as it is really the only observing you can get during summer at these latitudes, it’s better than nothing.
The good news is that sunsets started to get earlier from July 1st and from the 16th true darkness returns, only for 36 minutes on the first night but the hours of darkness soon get longer. With a reasonable 30-day forecast (‘reasonable’ meaning average for this time of year – warm sunshine, some showers, average/slightly above average temperatures), I should hopefully get in more observing later this month, good news as I am hoping the new 18″ will be finished in around 3-4 weeks’ time.
I did a little observing last night, going after the supernova in M51, which is still on show, and a little open cluster-hunting in northern Cygnus. There are several on the Herschel II list and real little gits they are too. NGC 7031, NGC 7067 and NGC 7082 were on my list as well as the bright nebula NGC 6857. I also took a look at M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra.

My notes are as sparse as the clusters themselves were!

Date: 2nd July 2011
Conditions: Cloudless, cool (12° C/53.6° F), some dew
Seeing I-II (later)
Transparency: II
NELM: Around 5.5-5.8 due to the astronomical twilight. Definitely less than 6.0. Milky Way visible all the way to Sagittarius but lacking contrast
Equipment: 12″ f/5 Dobsonian; Televue Panoptic 22mm (69x), Televue Radian 8mm (190), Televue Radian 5mm (304x)

SN2011dh in M51 has got a little brighter recently. It was definitely easier to see than last time but that’s probably as much to do with no Moon in the sky as it is to do with the brightness of the supernova – M51’s spiral arms were certainly easier to see this time out. I didn’t make a sketch this time.

NGC 7031, open cluster in Cygnus – Small and quite poor. Compressed. 69x, 190x
NGC 7067, open cluster in Cygnus – Faint, adj to 9th mag star. In rich surroundings. 69x
NGC 7082, open cluster in Cygnus – Scattered, large, cluster. In rich area. Not that great and looks more like a richer portion of Milky Way. 69x

I’ll come back to these on a darker night, and the same goes for NGC 6857 which I looked for, a little over-optimistically, but didn’t see. It was at this point, around midnight, that the observing was interrupted by the kids in a house the other side of the footpath putting an insecurity light on, which encroaches on our garden – although it’s worse in winter because of the lack of leaves on the hedge and trees. They’d gone out into the garden do do some camping (I assume they were camping as I heard what sounded like a tent being put up and a tent zipper being opened and closed) and obviously wanted to see what they were doing. I wish they’d used torches though. I decided to pack up, an hour earlier than I’d intended, as the light was a nuisance – and I didn’t want to disturb them with ‘funny noises’ from across the way (it’s strange how loud switching eyepieces and moving around can be in the dark) and, more importantly, I didn’t want them disturbing me!
At least, when I get the new scope, it will be easier to move to another location in the garden, as it will break down and have wheelbarrow handles on it. I’m intending to move my observing spot further down the garden, although the ‘observashed’ will remain where it is, although I can move around depending on where I am looking at the time.
I shoved the 12″ back into the shed and closed the doors on it. This morning, when I went up there to put it away properly, I found I’d left the Telrad switched on. Fortunately, a Telrad reticle uses up hardly any power so the batteries were far from flat. It’s not the first time I’ve left a Telrad on and I guess it won’t be the last!

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Collimation’s one of those weird things that has a reputation for being awkward, annoying and downright difficult and it’s viewed almost as being akin to witchcraft, with ‘The Knowledge’ being available to only a select few individuals. However, observers need to know how to collimate their scopes properly in order to get a decent image in the eyepiece and to achieve focus at high magnifications. There’s no real risk of buggering it up as the mirrors, even if they end up miles out of alignment, can easily be put right again. My current scope, a 12″, is a real git when it comes to going out of collimation and I have to fix it before each and every session. I am hoping my new 18″ won’t be as temperamental.
For me, cleaning the mirrors holds far more trepidation than merely aligning the things. That’s where things can really go wrong…I’ve managed to scratch a mirror attempting to clean it in the past.

For those who can’t quite ‘get’ collimation – and in the past I have been among those people – check out the brilliant video tutorial on the website Andy’s Shot Glass, which explains visual and laser collimation, simply and perfectly. Click here to see it. I have no association with Andy or his website but it’s the best and most simple explanation of the process I have ever seen. Just reading about the process doesn’t make it immediately clear and it may take several re-reads in order to make sense of it; seeing it, though, makes it much clearer. There are loads of websites which offer help with collimation, and there are threads about it on Cloudy Nights, but nothing is as helpful as actually seeing something demonstrated such as in the video.
The way to do it (and the best way for a lone observer such as myself) is to use the sighting tube to centre and tilt the secondary mirror, then use a laser collimator to get the beam right into the centre of the primary. Then you go to the back of the scope and adjust the primary mirror itself, getting the beam in the centre of the laser’s display window, meaning everything is centered nicely when you look in the sighting tube again and your collimation is spot on. It’s not hard and takes a couple of minutes. Pure visual collimation without a laser is more awkward, as that requires two of you to perform the procedure, unless you have arms like Mr Tickle, which most people including me, don’t!

Supernova SN2011dh in M51

Despite my knee problem, I decided to get the scope out and look at the supernova in M51. I didn’t want to wait until the knee was better (it’s improving all the time) or until the Moon was out of the way as the supernova might have faded by then and I didn’t want to miss it.

Date: 8th June 2011
Conditions: First quarter Moon, all-night astronomical twilight. Milky Way visible. No dew, breezy.
Seeing: II
Transparency: II
Equipment: 12″ f/5 dob. Televue 22mm Panoptic (69x), Televue 8mm Radian (190x), Televue 5mm Radian (304x) and Televue 3mm Radian (507x)

I observed the supernova under less-than-ideal conditions, thanks to first quarter Moon and the all-night astronomical twilight we’re cursed with at this time of year – and I have certainly seen M51 better than this. However, the Milky Way was visible and the transparency and seeing were both good. The supernova was best seen at medium to high magnifications. It wasn’t immediately obvious but after a minute or two with averted vision, popped into view as an extra star. I made the sketch without a photo to guide me and checked it against a photo of the supernova’s position later.
The best views were at 190x and 304x. The view at 507x was terrible, it was just smeared all over the place.

The supernova is arrowed on the sketch.

Mini observing session, 27th May 2011

After a stormy and unpromising day, Friday night cleared nicely. I was out all evening, not getting home until past 11pm although, given the light nights at this time of year, that’s not really a problem. However, I didn’t feel like getting the 12″ out – and the weather forecast indicated that clouds were soon going to roll in, continuing May’s unsettled note (May’s weather quite often is rubbish but I hope this isn’t the start of yet another lousy summer) so instead I brought out the little 70mm refractor, recently released from its dark prison in the depths of a cupboard. It’s imprisonment wasn’t intentional, it’s just that I don’t have a lot of use for such a small scope. Or I didn’t think I had, until I decided I want a travel scope just in case I am able to go anywhere next year. Unfortunately air travel restrictions don’t allow you to take anything much larger than a small refractor or Mak-Cass overseas. People better at woodwork and metalwork than I am have made collapsible 8″ or larger dobs for airline travel, but that’s beyond my limited practical capabilities.
Anyway, with the lack of anything else to write about on here, here’s a short account (I won’t say ‘report’ like a lot of people do on astronomy forums; I don’t like the term when used for descriptions of observing sessions as I think it’s too formal, making it sound compulsory and too much like work) of the Friday night mini-session with the Vixen.

Date: 27th May 2011
Conditions: Cloudless, no dew, chilly, breezy.
Seeing: II
Transparency: II
Equipment: 70mm (2.8″) f/6 Vixen refractor with Televue 25mm (16.8x) and 11mm (38x) Plossl eyepieces. Lumicon 2″ UHC filter.

The summer Milky Way was rising, and Cygnus was beginning to clear the nearby trees, so I aimed the little scope at the various star fields. The beauty of a small rich-field scope is that you don’t need a finder to aim it. Because of the wide field views, it’s easy to find what you’re looking for just by sighting along the tube, something which is all but impossible with a larger, longer focal length instrument.
As well as looking round the rich Milky Way of Cygnus, I looked for individual objects, bright Messiers generally. M29, a coarse and poor open cluster in Cygnus, was easily seen at 16.8x. Despite its sparseness it was an attractive sight at 38x, standing out nicely from the Milky Way. It’s seven brightest stars were all easily seen in the tiny scope.
In Lyra, M57 was easily seen at 16.8x as a non-stellar object in a rich area. Putting up the magnification to 38x showed an oval with a darker middle.
Turning to Hercules, M13 was easily seen in the scope, and was resolved, despite being at a neck-twisting angle. No surprise there, as it’s a naked eye object on a good night. It wasn’t quite naked eye the other night, though, as the sky wasn’t quite dark enough for that. I didn’t bother with M92, because of the awkwardness of the eyepiece angle – one of the areas where a reflector beats a refractor hands down.
M81 and M82 in Ursa Major provided a lovely view at 38x. M81 was oval, with a slight hint of spiral arms while M82 was a bit brighter and showed mottling.
Scorpius was rising so I decided to see what M4 looked like with the 70mm. Despite its low altitude, the view was surprisingly good and the cluster began to resolve at 38x. If it was higher, it wouldn’t be bad at all with the tiny scope.
Meanwhile, Vulpecula had cleared the trees, so I looked for and easily found M27, the Dumbell Nebula, at 16.8x, as a round patch in a rich area. I was expecting to just see M27’s ‘apple core’ shape but, somewhat surprisingly, at 38x, the fainter lobes showed up well.

Back to Cygnus and NGC 7000 and IC 5070/5067, the North America and Pelican Nebulae. NGC 7000 is a pretty easy naked eye object as a shining patch adjacent to Deneb, as by now, it was 0040 and dark enough to see fainter objects. The shape was easy to make out with the help of my Lumicon 2″ UHC filter held to my eye, with the dark ‘Gulf of Mexico’ prominent. IC 5070/5067 was fainter and needed averted vision to see properly. It’s a nice sight through my 8×42 binoculars though.

It was getting cold and it was nearly 1am, so I packed up – which was the work of less than a few seconds, another plus factor of a small scope. Unfortunately small scopes don’t cut it when you want to view faint deep sky objects and, with a rich field scope such as the 70mm, you can’t get enough magnification for detailed views of DSOs or the planets. However, for a ‘grab and go’ scope and a travel scope, it’s ideal. One scope can’t do it all; my 12″ is way too large and cumbersome to be much use as a ‘grab and go scope’ (being a one-piece tube it barely fits in my car) and doesn’t give wide field views. As noted Arizona observer Steve Coe once said, ‘There’s no such thing as an all-purpose telescope’.

The Texas Star Party begins today. Hopefully they’ll have good clear skies. I wish I was there.

A ‘sound approach’?

Just recently, because I have several projects on the go at once – the Herschel 2500 among them, plus as much of the NGC as I can possibly do from 50 North as well as some smaller ones – I am just taking notes and not doing any sketching. This is because sketching slows me down far too much. While I am not in a tearing hurry I do want to get through the projects in a decent time frame, so I am just sticking to writing notes down in a lined note book.
However, there are problems with this in that I need to use a light in order to see what I am writing. Even a dim red light affects my night vision and I have found that faint galaxies and nebulae disappear for a good few seconds while my eyes readjust. Not only that, the way things are set up it means that I have to physically move away from the eyepiece to the table where my notebook is in order to write things down. This also slows me down although nowhere near as much as sketching does.Then you have the sheer awkwardness of writing with gloves or frozen fingers during the winter. Finally, my writing is dreadful at the best of times and in the dead of night by red light it goes from merely ‘dreadful’ to ‘barely legible’!
Recently, I read about other observers using digital voice recorders (dictaphones) to dictate notes at the eyepiece, ready to be transcribed into a notebook or onto a computer later. Now, as I detest the sound of my own voice and I don’t want our two sets of neighbours, whose gardens are just the other side of a footpath from ours, to think that I am a nutcase chatting away to myself outside in the middle of the night, I discounted ever getting a dictaphone. However, the more I think about it, the more sense the idea makes. Using a dictaphone means I don’t have to move away from the scope, apart from when I need to look up my next object on the charts, or even look away from the eyepiece. And I don’t have to talk loudly into it, a whisper should suffice which would get around the twin problems of the loathing of my own voice and the neighbours thinking I am a lunatic – I hope! I am hoping this will mean I get more objects observed in a session.
So I’ve decided to give it a go and went into town this morning to look for a suitable machine. I was surprised at the prices, starting at £39.99 and going up from there as I thought one of these things would be around £20 max. I shopped around and, as I don’t want to save my recordings for future posterity, because I’ll be transcribing them, I decided against getting one that plugs into a computer on grounds of cost and bought the cheapest I could find.
Instead of saving my inane chatter onto disk, I’ll be transcribing my spoken notes into Word, then printing them off, the same as I do now only without trying to decipher my bad writing.
Anyway, here’s the 40 quid piece of plastic, made by Olympus, which was somewhat over-priced for what it is. Now I need to read the book and work out how to operate the thing!

By the way, I *will* be going back to sketching, probably during the summer when the skies are not quite dark enough to go after the more elusive NGCs and ICs. I plan to carrying on a globular cluster observing project I began a couple of years back (globulars lend themselves well to light summer nights) and I’d like to sketch most, if not all, of them.

There are a couple of interesting threads on Cloudy Nights about note taking, including the use of digital voice recorders, here and here.

Observing, 8th May 2011

After getting back from my trip last Wednesday, the weather had turned nasty with thunderstorms and torrential rain (which, admittedly, was much needed, especially as the UK had forest fires everywhere) but yesterday was largely clear, apart from heavy downpours now and again.
I was hoping that the thunder and rain had cleared the atmosphere a bit and the sky was indeed more transparent than it had been for a while. Unfortunately, as night fell, there were more drifting clouds around than there had been during the evening and the waxing crescent moon, at around 30% of full,  interfered with the observing session, so it was a shorter one than I’d intended.

Date: 8th May 2011
Conditions: Mild, mostly clear although some drifting cloud about, waxing crescent Moon (30% illuminated), heavy dew, soaking wet underfoot because of heavy rain earlier in the evening.
Seeing: III
Transparency: III
Equipment: 12″ f/5 dob, 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), 8mm Televue Radian (190x).

NGC 4494, galaxy in Coma Berenices – Just SW of an 8th mag star this is bright and oval, elongated NW-SE. Brightens slightly to a non-stellar core. 69x, 190x.

NGC 4725, galaxy in Coma Berenices – Bright and oval, elongated SW-NE. Brightens to a very bright but non-stellar core. There’s a hint of spiral arms at 190x but the scattered light from the crescent Moon makes this hard to see properly. I want to have another look at this on a better night – it may have to wait until next spring, as we’re into May and the spring constellations will soon be lost in twilight. 69x, 190x.

NGC 4314, galaxy in Coma Berenices – This is a fairly bright oval with a brighter core. The Moon interfered with this one quite a bit. 69x, 101x, 190x.

NGC 4414, galaxy in Coma Berenices – A bright oval, elongated NNW-SSE. It brightens towards the core and has a stellar nucleus. The view at 190x is not good! 101x is much better. 69x, 101x, 190x.

I packed up at 2330 because the dew was a real nuisance and the Moon, despite being a crescent, was really interfering with observations. It was due to set at 0118 but my patience had run out so I called it a night.

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Back last summer, I posted about older observers who have amassed thousands of observations of deep sky objects and other astronomical objects and how I have a long way to go until I am anywhere near their records, as they have 40+ years observing experience as opposed to my 19 years. I thought about this today and it made me dig out old notebooks and sketchbooks and count up the number of DSO’s I have seen.
So far, on going back through these old notebooks and sketchbooks (unfortunately I have two or three missing) I find I have visually observed best part of a thousand NGC/IC objects and non-NGC/IC objects such as anonymous galaxies and galaxy clusters. On top of that, there’s all the planets (including ex-planet Pluto), double and multiple stars, the Moon(!), asteroids, a comet crashing into Jupiter, comets, lunar eclipses, partial solar eclipses with one cloud obstructed total in 1999, a transit of Venus, the Sun, occultations, meteor showers, noctilucent clouds, Mir, the ISS, the Space Shuttle and other satellites…but, sadly, no UFOs! All this with equipment of all sizes ranging from the unaided eye, binoculars and small telescopes right up to 36″ and 48″ dobsonians.
Not too bad, I guess, considering observing opportunites are often limited by weather, Moon and life getting in the way, including a couple of breaks from the hobby in 1999/2000 (7 months) and 2004/5 (16 months) which were the result of life totally interfering with the important stuff!

Observing, 27th April 2011

Yesterday, 27th April, was largely cloudy and grey but the clouds cleared during the afternoon to leave a blue and transparent sky. It remained clear throughout the evening so I set up the scope for some observing. Given the largely hazy conditions just recently, I didn’t hold out much hope for the transparency but, surprisingly, it was very good.

Date: 27th/28th April 2011
Conditions: Cloudless, chilly, no moon, no dew, slight breeze picked up later on, zodiacal light prominent.
Seeing: II
Transparency: II
NELM: 6.2 – 6.5 later
Equipment: 12″ f/5 dob, 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 11mm Televue Plossl (137x), 8mm Televue Radian (190x)

NGC 3631, galaxy in Ursa Major – Round and reasonably bright. Diffuse halo brightens to a compact core and stellar nucleus. 69x, 137x.

NGC 4026, galaxy in Ursa Major – Located just SW of a mag 9 star. Edge-on and very bright. Elongated NW-SE, with a bright elongated core. 69x, 137x.

NGC 3998, galaxy in Ursa Major – Located adjacent to 2 stars (mag 9 and 10) 3998 is very bright and round. It has a very bright stellar nucleus surrounded by a diffuse halo. 69x, 137x, 190x.

NGC 3990, galaxy in Ursa Major – Located just west of 3998, this is much fainter and more oval with a brighter core. Elongated NE-SW. 69x, 137x, 190x.

NGC 3982, galaxy in Ursa Major – Moderately bright oval glow, oriented north-south. Brightens to centre and a non-stellar core. 69x, 190x.

NGC 3898, galaxy in Ursa Major – Bright oval, elongated NW-SE. Fairly faint halo surrounds a much brighter, elongated core. 69x, 190x.

NGC 3888, galaxy in Ursa Major – Lies to the SW of 3898. Much fainter than 3898. Fairly dim oval with a brighter core. There is a distinct row of 3 stars which lie to the NE. 69x, 190x.

A bright meteor went through south western Ursa Major and into Gemini at this point. It was a bright yellow fireball.

NGC 2950, galaxy in Ursa Major – Small, round and very bright. It has a stellar nucleus in the core. 69x, 137x, 190x.

NGC 2768, galaxy in Ursa Major – A bright, flattened oval. Oriented east-west with a bright elongated core. 69x, 137x, 190x.

NGC 5676, galaxy in Bootes – Fairly bright oval with a bright core. Elongated SE-NW. 69xx, 137x.

NGC 5689, galaxy in Bootes – Bright, almost edge-on. Elongated E-W. Brightens to core and has a stellar nucleus. NGC 5682 and 5683 lie just to the SW and NGC 5693 to the SE. 5682/83/93 are all faint and very small. 69x, 190x.

NGC 5248, galaxy in Bootes – Large, oval and bright, oriented east-west. A diffuse halo brightens to the core and a stellar nucleus. At 190x averted vision shows hint of spiral arms. 69x, 190x.
I made a sketch, which is shown at left. Click to enlarge. Excuse the poor quality sketch, by that time my fingers were frozen!

Packed up at 0100 BST. The signs of summer were already there, with Hercules up, Scorpius peeping above the horizon in the south east and Cygnus above the horizon on its side.