Session 20 – A quiet night

Thursday 16th November 2017 – 21:56-22:48

It had been a cloudy evening, but the forecast was good, and it cleared up around 21:30 or so.  I aligned on Vega and Capella – an ideal combination given their distance apart in the sky.

As Orion is appearing earlier and earlier in the sky, I decided to spend some time surveying the main stars of the constellation.  I went for the four corners, the three stars making up his belt, and the top star of his head.  My aim was to observe the colours of the stars, and see if what I saw matched up with their actual colours.

Star	Observed Colour	Actual Spectral Class
Betelgeuse	Orange	M
Meissa	White/Blue	O
Bellatrix	White/Blue	B
Rigel	White(/Yellow?)	B
Saiph	Yellow	B
Alnitak	White	O/B (Multiple Star)
Alnilam	White	B
Mintaka	White	O/B (Multiple Star)

The stars of Orion I observed and their locations within the constellation (from Starry Night Pro)

After observing the main stars in Orion, I spent some time observing M42 and M43 (the Great Orion Nebula and De Mairan’s Nebula respectively).  The trapezium was really nicely visible, and there was also a good amount of nebulosity to be seen as well, which was very gratifying.  Nebulæ are always difficult to see due to the light pollution, so for it to be so bright and easy to see was fantastic.  I wasn’t sure of the boundary between M42 and M43, but I will have a closer look in future observing sessions.

I then turned my attention to Uranus, which was quite high in the sky at this point.  It was a good view, with the disk fairly bright.

Aldebaran is another bright star in the sky at this time of year, in the constellation of Taurus, and so I looked at it.  It appeared to be a golden colour.

The Spiral Cluster followed, and as ever, was the usual beautiful group of stars.  Messiers 35, 36, 37 and 38 all came next.  M35 was a good cluster, with another classic “starry sky” look.  M36 was smaller and less spectacular.  M37 was fainter but had more stars than M36, and M38 was another decent cluster.

After this little sequence of Messier objects, I elected to observe some heavyweights once again, with the Double Cluster and Pleiades following in quick succession.  The Hyades (C41) followed, but as is the case with the Pleiades, due to its size, it is difficult to appreciate all at once.

The Andromeda Galaxy came next, and the galactic core was quite bright and easy to spot.  I then ended the evening with a final view of M42 and M43.

 

 

Session 17 – Mixing it up

Friday 27th October 2017 – 19:26-21:31

Tonight was a Friday, and the sky was perfectly clear.  I’d made an extensive list of objects to observe tonight, and as such, it was going to be a marathon session.

I aligned on Vega and Altair, and opened the session by looking at the moon – currently around 50% illuminated and waxing.  It was pretty bright, but I didn’t spend too much time looking at it.

M31 was the first deep space object of the evening, and I had a good view of the centre of the galaxy.  Unfortunately however, neither M32 nor M110 (two of its companion galaxies) were visible today.

M52 was next, but it was quite faint, although I was able to see several stars in this particular cluster.  M103 followed, but it was hard to identify.

Moving onto brighter and more easily identifiable objects, I had a look at M39.  This cluster is large and bright, and as such, is a good option if you want to look at an open cluster.

It’d been a while since I saw the Wild Duck Cluster, and so I slewed to it.  There was a slight issue though, in that a few leaves were obscuring it.  Luckily there weren’t too many, so I went to my shed, took out the shears, and gave the shrub a quick trim.  The horticultural issue now being resolved, I had another go at observing the cluster.  Typically, it was now behind a cloud!  Evidently I had to return to this later on.

Turning back to objects that weren’t obscured, M27 was next.  This classic nebula was good to see, but quite faint.  Its characteristic shape was just about visible though.

I decided it was time to look at a globular cluster.  M15 was the one I chose, and it proved to be marvellous.  It was bright and clear, and gave a great view in the 9.7mm eyepiece as well.  Well worth a look!  M56 was the next globular, but proved disappointing in comparison to the previous one.

The Ring Nebula followed these, and I was given a decent view of it.  Luckily the cloud problem was now resolved, and so I returned to M11 (third time lucky)!  It was quite faint, but easily identifiable nevertheless.

I next attempted to view M71 but couldn’t find it.  I checked the alignment on Vega, and it was spot on, so I guess I was just unlucky.  I returned to M71, and still couldn’t see it, but I did see a satellite.  I was unable to be certain of it, but I think it was SL-16 R/B (rocket debris).

M29 (the Cooling Tower) followed after, and gave an excellent view, with its brighter stars making a nice looking asterism:

Simulated view of M29 from Starry Night Pro, showing the bright stars forming the asterism

Back to the globular clusters once more, and M2 proved to be a good one.  It wasn’t as good as M15, but even so, it was large and easy to find.  M13 followed as the next globular cluster, as did M92 after that.  The former is larger than the latter, and although it has a lower magnitude, it appears less bright (as it is more spread out).  In terms of size though, M13 is very impressive.

I returned to an old favourite at this point – M34, and it is always a joy to see this particular open cluster.  C8 was unremarkable, but C10 had lots of stars and was a good cluster.

At this point, the AutoStar handset crashed, emitting a loud beep at a frequency I’d not heard before, which was rather alarming.  I attempted to reboot it and realign the telescope, but it crashed again.  It appeared to be a power failure, as the batteries were too low.

Earlier in the session, I’d thought about splitting it into two halves, and moving the telescope nearer the house so I would be able to observe the northern sky better (in spite of its horrendous light pollution).  I’d had a few more objects I wished to see before doing this, but owing to the power failure, I had to move the telescope earlier than anticipated.  Luckily the location near the house was close enough to the mains power supply, meaning I was able to use the AC adapter to run the telescope for the rest of the evening.

With the telescope moved and set up near the house, I aligned on Capella and Altair, and got started with the second half of the session, using a new observation target list I’d drawn up consisting of objects in that particular part of the sky.

I started the second half of the session by viewing M36 and M38, two open clusters.  They were both quite small and not massively exciting.  I then viewed the Pleiades, which are always good to see, although due to the size of the cluster, the whole object does not fit into the field of view (so I may need to buy a focal reducer).

As the typical telescope location has its view to the north blocked by a large tree, I took the opportunity to view the most northerly parts of the celestial sphere.  I spent a while looking at Polaris (the North Star), followed by C1 – which was faint and unexciting.

C28 proved to be much more rewarding, and is a large cluster.  Slightly larger than the field of view, it would also benefit from a focal reducer.  It was an impressive sight, and a really good open cluster.  I followed this with C13 – the Owl Cluster, and the owl shape was discernible.  I was able to see both the eyes and the wings and tail of the owl.  It was a good sight this evening.

Continuing with the Caldwell catalogue, I returned to my favourite C14 – the Double Cluster.  It was gorgeous.  C16 was the next, and is another good cluster (although not as good as the Double Cluster).

The evening was drawing on, so I turned my attention to the ice giants.  Uranus was bright tonight, while Neptune was fainter but still visible.  I ended the session with a look at the Garnet Star.

All in all it had been very successful, with the alternative telescope location working really well.  I’ll certainly have to repeat the exercise in future!

Session 13 – Clusters Galore

Friday 6th October 2017 – 00:26-01:45

Tonight was the clearest it had been in a long time, and so proved to be the perfect opportunity to be outside observing.  Owing to a work corporate day, everyone was told to work from home on Friday, and so I was able to avoid the morning commute (and hence, stay up later than usual on a “school” night).

Alignment was with Vega and Capella, which give a good alignment, as they are very far apart in the night sky.  I’d opted to draw up a list of potential observation targets prior to heading outside (both because it made deciding what to look at easier, and because the night was a bit nippy)!

Both the ice giants were in the sky tonight, and I started with Uranus.  The view was one of the best I’ve seen, with a great disk visible, in both eyepieces.  The planet reaches opposition in about 10 days, so now is one of the best times to see it.

Neptune was next, and the view was ok, but nothing special (and much less exciting when compared to the view of Uranus I enjoyed right before).

Deep sky objects were limited tonight by the full harvest moon (I was writing my observatory notes by moonlight without the need of any artificial light).  It was very bright, and so fainter objects such as nebulæ would be.  As such, I turned my attention to open clusters.

I started with M34, being treated to a brilliant view last time, I wanted to start with this object tonight.  It looked excellent, and was better with the lower power eyepiece.

The next cluster had to be the perennial favourite M45 – the Pleiades.  Appearing much earlier in the sky compared to a few weeks ago, it is a winter classic.  I spent some time looking around it, as it is too large to fit in the field of view (perhaps I should invest in a focal reducer).

I tried looking for M1 – the Crab Nebula (and a few other similar Messier nebulæ), but the moon was too bright, and I was unable to find it.

I then moved onto a trio of open clusters, M36, M37 and M38.  I’d not seen any of these before, so was unsure what to expect.  M36 is a lovely cluster, and provided a good view through both eyepieces.  M37 seemed a bit fainter, and I think it would be better without the full moon, but it was another nice cluster.  M38 was also good, and in terms of brightness, lay between the previous two.  Before moving on, I looked at M36 once again.  At this point, my phone ran out of battery, so I was unable to record timings of observations.

The final new cluster for the evening was C41 – the Hyades.  It is a large cluster, so I focused on one part of it, and was treated to a good view.

Having bagged a good haul of open clusters, I now decided to look at some stars.  I started with the Garnet Star (μ Cephei/SAO 33693).  It is probably one of my favourite stars (as detailed earlier).

Orion was rising in the sky, and so I viewed both Betelgeuse and Bellatrix (the two “shoulders” of Orion), and their colours were very evident through the eyepiece.

I took another look at Uranus as it had been particularly good tonight, before moving onto the full moon.  The moon was very bright and quite painful to look at.  I could see a slight terminator on its edge, but I didn’t spend much time observing it due to its excessive brightness.  A moon filter is definitely a critical investment!

It was getting quite late now, and it had been a long day, so I took one final look at Uranus, M45 and M34 (the latter of which I saw a satellite cross, which turned out to be Iridium 76) and ended the session.  All in all, it had been a very successful evening.