Hi all
Just to fill you in on a great observing session we had on Saturday night at my home in Maghera. With me was Mark Stronge and Neill Patterson from the East Antrim Astronomical Society. See
www.eaas.co.uk
Scopes used.....
16" F/4 Meade Dobsonian reflector
10" F/4 Meade LXD SCt Newt
80mm Orion ED refractor
I would like to say that this was a great spare of the moment observing session. Everyone was set up as darkness fell and we where ready for it. I did some comet hunting with the 16" in the western sky and despite light clouds in that sector i still managed to sweep up 19 galaxies. Neill let me search using his awesome 30mm eyepiece. This baby generated a true FOV of around 2 degrees in the 16" which is pretty amazing for a scope of that size. It felt like i had a new scope as the images produced where so clean,dark, wide and contrasty, i found that i could cover large areas of sky in a short time frame with M81 and M82 in the same field standing out in my mind.
Observing with Neill's 10" was like an art form in itself as the movements where so silent and silky smooth. This is a top notch telescope and seemed to do justice to deep sky wonders. With it we observed m81,82,double cluster, m52, Mu Cephei, m15,m56,m57,m34,m31,m32,m110,m33,NGC404. My first view of M31 and its companions simply blew me away. I can say with 100% confidence that this was the best view i have ever had of this trio through any telescope...just stunning!!!!!
We tracked down the Veil nebula in Cygnus and again got another stunning suprise when we used a nebula filter on that elusive supernova remenant. The Veil seemed to jump out at us from the eyepiece, it looked like a stunning glowing silvery ribbon of ghostly light stretch across the fov and with slow hand guiding it could be tracked for two fields where we could watch it describe a beautiful unearthly smile as it curved to the south much like a Circumzenithal Arc in the day time....wonderfull
Then using Marks Orion 80mm ED refractor we observed Mars from medium to high magnification through a selection of different filters from Meade, the green filter was a clear winner on this night as we could see dark surface detail and more softer subtle structures as well as limb haze (or is that limb clouds?) the north polar hood (very blue) and most striking for me was how clear and bright i could see the shrunken south polar cap which stood out as a vivid white arc with a dark sharp border, for a scope of this size the detail was great and a detailed sketch could be done if one wished.
We had a good time pointing out objects of interest in the sky with the green laser pointer and had a great chat on all things astronomical. We did see a generous number of meteors from a variety of showers and one irdium satellite that flared up and faded so rapidly it was like no other i have seen before! Clouds and dew ended the session at 04.00LT (we where active from 19.30). We certainly made the most of the sky given to us tonight and i feel that the equipment was pushed to a high level tonight. Certainly that view of M31 and the Veil will be fond memories for all of us.
I would like to thank Mark and Neill for comming down and for making what would normally be a routine night into another nice memory and observing experience....so thanks guys!!
* Thanks Mark for showing me that very detailed planisphere!
* Thanks Neill for sharing your fantastic telescope and sorry for hogging it all night
Clear skies everyone and i look forward to the next one!
  