Veil Nebula And Eta - Aquarid Meteors

Last night turned out to be a great night after it being cloudy all evening. The clouds cleared at late evening and the breezy conds promised to clean the sky up very well. As darkness eventually fell the sky became alive! The trans was 10/10 with a very dark clean sky background and it looked like you could touch the milkyway. I spent several hours searching for comets with the 16" at 57X working my way from the western sky all the way around to the north east. The starfields in Lacerta and Cygnus where absoultely INCREDIBLE!!!!!......each FOV contained countless stars and open star clusters, they felt impossible to count. i couldnt believe how many i was seeing in each field...then field after field. As i moved into the area of sky below Deneb i got a tremendous thrill when i swept up the Veil Nebula visually. It was the western section of that elusive expanding shell of gas that was the remenant of an ancient supernova which exploded in our own galaxy. It looked like a long glowing irregular bar of mist sitting in a sea of stars that took up nearly the full 63' field.....fantastic! This is the 2nd time i have seen this nebula (both during comet sweeps) and it has only been seen on the most transparent and darkest of nights like tonight.

I took some images of the summer triangle which rose high in the NE over my house. I was suprised how well it turned out with an ordinary digi at ISO400 on night mode!...i was really pleased with it!

The Eta - Aqaurid meteor shower peaks on the morning of the 5th and 6th of May (thurs + friday). Although it is best seen from the S.hem we can see it before dawn as the radiant rises low within Aquarius near Mars. We can see some real nice earth grazers so do keep watch if you have got up early to observe....full details are on www.spaceweather.com

Clear Skies!

Martin, I know how it feels to nearly 'touch' the Milkyway, it's an unbelieveable sight out on the coast at home in Waterford, looking south in a black sky, on a clear night, it's something you don't forget!

Yeah, the starfields in Lacerta and Cygnus are amazing, I search for nova, but in these starfields, anything fainter than mag 4 and it's near impossible, did you ever just look from lacerta all the way down to sagittarius with a pair of 10x50's? Take your time and just enjoy, we'll have more of that over the next few months Her's to the next clear night!

Keith..

Thanks for your reply keith, you are obviously talking from experience....and lots of it! I will try it with the 10X50s asap. I am interested to hear you are a nova hunter, i was wondering of you could tell me a little more about how you are getting on with your search programme....how long you have been doing it? and do you use a tripod and to what mag level? I am glad to hear there are other people who visi ually search the sky as i spend a lot of time searching for comets myself.

Clear skies keith and i wish you the best of luck with your Nova search!!

All Best!

Hi Martin, My nova hunt programme is really ongoing for the last number of years, my pair of 9x60mm binoculars serve very well, I usually scan the milkyway because that's where 90% of novae occur, more so the summer milkyway. There are quite a few nova/comet hunters out there, these sites are definitely worth a check:

www.aavso.org
encke.jpl.nasa.gov/

It's not easy, a lot of memorising starfields, it really takes years to build up a mental picture of the sky, someday I hope it will be all worthwhile. I used to shoot the sky for searches with film, but now with dslr's noise is a problem which really rules out that, I used to piggyback 3 minute exposures getting down to about magnitude 10.

Anyways, get out as soon as you can and look at that milkyway from Cygnus to sagittarius, especially in Aquila and Scutum, lovely areas, I'm heading home now tonight to go out to the coast - shoot the summer milkyway with my Canon 300D, 1st time with digital, wish me luck


Keith..

Keith thanks for the feed back! I bet its hard work memorizing star fields but i am sure it is time and energy well expended and it WILL pay off. Using a star atlas for this work is really a waste if time and your 100% correct putting the fields to memory, you certainly sound like you know your stuff indeed Its good to hear from another visual searcher from Ireland.

I was out before dawn this morning comet searching with the 16" but this time in the lovely star fields of Scutum and Sagittarius but i promise i will sweep through the Lacerta/Cygnus region with binos soon, the bright pre - dawn glow seems to be getting earlier and earlier every night and i am now fighting for a dark sky background in these regions but it is great fun....i love it!

I wish you the very best of luck keith and i know it will pay of for you. It would be great to see a Nova discovery from Ireland!!

Here here for a comet discovery from Ireland too! Keep searching, I think the best way to approach things is actually not to expect to find anything! That way you won't be dissapointed, and anything else is a bonus, sure wish I had a 16"

Keith..