Saturday Nights Observing!

Had a great session here tonight. I began searching for comets from 15.30 using the 8" scanning very close to the sun in bright twilight. I could barely see stars at one stage but as darkness crept in the sky started to reveal its treasures to me. After 45 mins i switched to the 16" and completed another 3 hours comet hunting through the evening sky staying within 90 degrees solar elongation. I had to do a rough collimation of the scope in darkness without slipping on mud.. the result of the rescent thawed snow but i got a good result.

I picked up a host of deepsky objects within the mikway and generally had a great time surveying the sky in peace. I headed in around 9pm for a hot brew and wrote up my log book when i got a suprise visitor at the door. It was Les Gornal ready for astronomical action. We had a look at a few milkway star fields then decided to travel to his home to observe with his 8" Mak. Despite the prescence of light high level cloud the sky was STUNNING from his dark backgarden. I done a few testers..yip M33 with the naked eye no problem and stars to mag 6.5 without to much effort. Les set up the 8" and let it cool down while i used his 70mm refractor for a little tour of the sky enjoying Mars, Saturn, M44, M42, M43, M35, Double cluster, M81, M82. It truely was a beautiful sight watching Orion and Sirius rising above the dark treeline in the east, the atmosphere was so calm and quiet...perfect really. We both seen the Gegenschein as a greenish patch of light 15* wide and extending away from it was the Zodical band expanding nearly 30* of sky and merging with the milkyway!!!

Once the Mak had cooled we had a good look at Mars using med - high mag however the atmosphere was unstable hiding the planets details however during short moments of good seeing the view was excellent, This scope is a planet observers dream, the image was so sharp and contrasty. Les told me that he had seen Vallis Marinarus through that very instrument! We were having some probems with the mount so Les used the old fashioned way of manual guiding. When i seen M42 i couldnt believe my own eyes, this was the best view i have ever seen and i found it difficult to find words to describe the detail which looked like a CCD image. Maybe Les would like a go at a description? This was the highlight of the night and we both felt very satisfyied with that gorgeous sight..WOW!

During the session we spotted 15 meteors (most of them Taurids) including a nice red meteor which slowly grazed the amtosphere and fragmented into 2 pieces. Les also spotted a Taurid fireball. Light showers ended the session at 01.00. This was a great unexpected session and was the icing on the cake after a great evening under the stars. Thanks Les for the company, lift and astro chat. It was a good one!

Clear skies!

That's a lot of looking around alright! I was gonna take out the scope and shoot some stars, but I chickened out :oops:

It's great this time of year at how clear the sky is...pity about the cold....maybe tonight.

Keith..

Thanks keith. Hope you get out soon. You never know...the next bright Nova could appear anytime. Hows your search going keith?

All best and clear skies!

Good run down Martin, I was out for a while also, had a good look at syrtis major, all the same it was bitterly cold here last night.

It's getting tough this time of year, and you're right Dave, it is a bit nippy alright.

I'm keeping up the search though......maybe tonight..........
Seen Orion in all it's glory last night at about 11pm!!
Keith..

Thanks all and good luck with your search keith. Heres a copy and paste of Les Gornals reply who was observing with me last night...

Thanks Martin for saving me the trouble of a large write up. The night was a gem. If anyone has not had the pleasure of watching the sky with Martin (almanac) McKenna, I highly recommend it! Martin's report forgot to mention the 70mm telescope was no less than the £49 Lidl offering with a good eyepiece. Amazing value - watch out its that time of year again. The highlight of the evening was M42 - the Mak was singing (apart from the flat battery), and just before the rain came on the atmosphere settled down. We were watching as wide a field as can be achieved on an f20 scope (200mm objective and 4000mmFL) through the 2inch 42mm eyepiece. We pushed this straight into the optical back of the scope without a diagonal and achieved utterly stunning focus. The trapezium of stars at the center was surrounded by billows of clouds with so much detail you could see how each star was pushing on the hydrogen masses. The dark clouds and subtle faint nebulae were three dimensional - we took the space walk, we did not observe, we entered the heart of the star birth. Unforgettable!

clear skies

Les.