20th-Dec Observing Highlights
Hello DSF,
This weekend i was able to go observing (12°16'13.4"N 77°08'17.3"E ) with Akarsh's 17.5" Discovery but as we had moon till 1am it was a short(5h) but a very productive session, this session gave me a chance to test the contrast of the new Tele Vue 18.2 and 7mm which i tried on a few objects. most objects were just repeaters but saw a lot of details this time, overall it was a fun session.
1) Hind's Crimson star: i had never seen a carbon star before and the view through finder itself was just amazing, using a high power eyepiece helped further.
2) SiriusB aka the pup: The pup was easily resolved and was really small and dominated compared to the A component, saw this at 315X with the 7Delite.
3) M81: Hints of the spiral arms but the galaxy looked featureless .
4) M82: this really showed some features, the central region showed a dark feature with few other features on the galaxy itself and the galaxy looked thicker on on side, lots of surface features were seen and the views were really good at 315X.
5)NGC2392: the nebula was seen with the central star and the surrounding bright ring like structure and again some fainter outer structure, and had its greenish blue color.
5)NGC3242: Ghost of jupiter also looked greenish but revealed few more finer details than the eskimo nebula, the region between the central star and the outer ring looked feature rich and the two ends of the bulb shape looked elongated.
6)M42: I must say, i really enjoyed the orion this time, i saw some features which i never noticed before, i used a H-Beta filter on this with a 18.2mm Delite and the nebula just went 3D, Thin dark filament like structures were seen all around the trapezium stars, i had to look at the HST image to understand what they are, but the views through the telescope were much better and details much finer, the details on the brighter portion of the nebula were also highly detailed.
7)NGC2024: the flame nebula showed a lot of details and was impressive as always.
8) NGC 2023: i use this as a check for B33, if i can't see this i don't try for the horse head, this technique has worked for me, i was able to see some tiny details in the nebulosity.
9) B33: i misjudged the size of the object and tried with 315X and then i realized that its a larger nebula, but a mishap led me breaking the H-beta filter, so i had to attempt the nebula without the filter, i used my 33mm William optics eyepiece and scanned the area, it took me a few minutes to register the larger nebulosity (sh-2 277), and i focused in the region where the horse head is supposed to be, i was able to see a dip in a region with AV and a star on top of the horsehead, i went and confirmed it with the software, this is my first time attempting without the filter, i think that i was not able to see any features but just detected it, unlike with the filter where i remember seeing with 10 Delos and H-Beta i could see the boundary of the horse head well defined.
10)M79 was resolved all the way till the core and was a treat to the eyes.
11) NGC3190: the galaxy was seen with its dark lane which looked a offset to the galaxy .
12) NGC3187: this galaxy was fainter compared to the other members of the HCG44 but a faint arms extending from the elongated ends of the galaxy was noted.
13) Leo triplet: Ngc 3828 was seen with a dark lane and looked like an ideal edge on galaxy specimen, m66 was seen with some features and both the spiral arms.
14) M51 was seen with its companion and both its spiral arms, but no surface features.
15) pinwheel galaxy: this was a bit low in the sky and was seen with 2 spiral arms with one of them more pronounced than the other.
16) The eyes (NGC4438): the galaxy was seen with its strange shape and the brighter core with its companion n4435.
17) NGC4594: or m104 was seen at 315X and was seen with its dark lane, the dark lane was not seen completely dark but as a shade of grey and extended till the edge of the galaxy, using the high power gave a nice view of the galaxy, the halo on one side looked larger compared to the other.
18) US10 catalina, this was visible in the 8X50 finder, and had a big core, i used a 33mm & 18.2mm eyepiece, a hint of one sharp tail and a diverging tail was noted.
19) NGC:5139: omega centauri covered the whole fov in the 7 Delite and was a treat to the eyes.
Sky had good seeing but average transparency due to haze and was NELM 5.5mag with some sky glow upto 20º in all directions.
a lot of other objects in virgo and some detailed views of jupiter and its surface features were observed, main intention was to test out the scope and the sky quality at our new observing location and also the new home made dew heater system, i will be observing again with some actual challenging objects soon, thank you for reading :D .
cheers.
