IAS/SDAS Observing on Saturday 3rd

It was a most enjoyable session. I'm still getting to know my telescope, and also enjoyed sampling the views through Michael's, Tony's and David's telescopes. I strongly suspect that my small refractor needs to be collimated - anyone have experience with collimation of refractors?

The site is a car park/picnic site on the banks of the river, down a track that leads off the Laragh road across the road from Trooperstown Lodge, as Paul said. There is no barrier there so no danger of being locked in or out. The skies around Laragh are significantly darker than at Sugarloaf, so it it may well be worth the extra 20 minutes traveling time to go there.

Thanks again to Michael and the other "harmless lunatics".

Mike (Casey).

I shouldn't look at these threads. It just reminds me what I am missing and what I have missed over the last year and a bit. The middle of nowhere till 3am with a few fellow scopers and a clear sky sounds like my idea of Heaven. Yes, most everyone else thinks we're lunatics but we know better. We are the tiny fraction of humans who have ever lived to have seen some of the wonders of the universe. Yeah, for the most part they look like faint randomly shaped balls of cotton buts its the mind blowing context that feeds the mind rather than the visuals. Looking at something 2 Billion Lightyears away. Holy $%^$

Congrats on finding 3c273. EPK and I made a point of searching for it last year, it wasn't all that difficult.

If you enter "3c273 finder chart" on a search engine, you should find a very good finder chart from a guy called Jerry Xiaojin Zhu. I've been trying to cut and paste the link, but for some reason it won't work.

stevie wrote:

If you enter "3c273 finder chart" on a search engine, you should find a very good finder chart from a guy called Jerry Xiaojin Zhu. I've been trying to cut and paste the link, but for some reason it won't work.

And if you key in RA + Dec and then press Goto you can find it as well:) . I still had to check the view in the eyepiece against a chart tho'.

Michael.

Thanks to Michael, Aubry, David and Mike for an enjoyable night. The location was perfect, good call Mike! Personnally I was thrilled to observe such objects as the ring nebula and whirlpool galaxy. M108 and M97 both in the same field of view which was great, plus plenty of other messier objects which have been out of my grasp for so long, or just hazy clouds with my 10/42's it was finally great to see them. Looking forward to seeing lots more in the future.
Tony

PS. What constellation was the quasar in Michael, just out of interest? It was fantastic to see something so far away that most people dont ever get to see it.

Glad you enjoyed the night Tony.

The quasar is in Virgo.

Michael.