Saturday Night Observing Session

Trooperstown was out of bounds last night, John made the trip down to the site and reported that there was a party of some description, with families camping out, so we headed for the Sugarloaf.

John Flannery, Paul Walsh, his son Joshua, Michael Murphy, Mr Aubrey and myself set up and waited for the night.

Planets dominated the early observing, Venus and Mercury were low to the west, with Saturn high in the south. In my 110mm refractor I grabbed three of Saturn's moons, Titan, Dione & Rhea. Aubrey, with the 6" apo grabbed more, at least five.

John had data on the passes of the ISS and the supply ship, the supply ship came first, moving from south-west to the north east, followed soon after by the ISS, the supply ship was seen about 90 minutes after its first pass. The sky seemed to be littered with satellites, we were also treated to a tumbling specimen that moved across Leo and down to the west.

Next up was an Iridium flare in Leo, a little after 11.30 it blazed into life, flaring to -5, I tried to capture it on the camera, but failed to do so.

Noctilucent clouds appeared to the north, they were low to the horizon, Michael and myself took some snaps, it didn't show the electric blue we expected. John, using his 25x100 binos informed us that he could follow the clouds as they spread out behind the mountain.

It was time to hunt down some deep-sky objects, the southern sky was a draw, Aubrey captured M4 & M80, he pushed the magnification up on his 6" apo on M80 and it was a wonderful sight.

John found M22 in his binos, it was sitting just above the hills and the binos gave a wonderful view of this glob, the object showed a uniform misty appearance.

By this time Michael and Aubrey had left, having engagements this morning, just before we called it a night John calculated that we should be able to make out M6 & M7, using 15x70 binos John hunted down M6, I wasn't convinced, Thomas is not my middle name, BTW. Smart phones were brought out by John and Paul, my phone has a low IQ, when Paul showed what M6 looked like I was converted, the five main stars that I could see in the binos co-responded to the image. M7 remained elusive, just staying behind the hill.

We packed up after two o'clock, two late nights were telling on me.

What a great variety of objects, planets, satellites, noctilucent clouds, double stars, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, low southern clusters, fires and the Gardai.

We are planning another trip for July, when Sagittarius will be better placed to show what it's got.

Thanks for your time.

Paul

Great report Paul! I really enjoyed the evening.

Apologies if anyone DID go to Trooperstown to find us not there. I tried to log on to the IFAS site to post the change of plan but couldn't get an Internet connection.

So true about the abundance of satellites ... it was like the M50 at rush hour at one stage! I could see a definite shape to the ISS in the 25x binos as did Joshua.

First light with the 25x was Venus but the phase is almost 100% and not resolved at this power. I next swung over to Saturn and could distinctly see the rings in the binos, with a clear gap between them and the planet's globe. Titan was also picked up quite easily.

Some nice globulars swept up, with M13 and M22 quite impressive. I spent some of the evening taking constellation shots to get familiar with using the DSLR and what ISO/Times are best. I also tried a Tiffin Fog 3 filter to enhance the brighter stars - the idea is based on reading Jerry Lodriguss's excellent www.astropix.com site

I am really pleased with the new big binos. I've owned 3 other models of 100mm binoculars in the past and the Helios are far superior to any of the others. They have individual focus eyepieces and offer long eye relief which is a big plus for me as a spectacle wearer. A sturdy tripod is a must and the Koenig could easily handle the weight. Next plan is to make a parallelogram mount to make viewing the high-up stuff less of a pain in the neck!

The NLCs display was a fantastic bonus and this year's season is promising to be a bumper one.

Fires ... Gardai ... People will be intrigued now Paul :laugh:

J.

It is wonderful reading all these reports as what various amateur astronomers have been recently observing. All these stories as to what people have seen encourages many of us to turn off the TV and go out to see what is really happening in the sky.
I reckon I have observed a full 6 hours in the last 2 nights and all this in the 2nd weekend of June when normally my telescope in put into hibernation until sometime in August!!
These are the 12 items I saw last night.
1. Venus 95% lit @ 11X and 40X.
2. Venus & Mercury in 6 degree of field of view -11X.
3. Mercury 112X 44% illuminated.
4. Arcturus -lovely golden colour -40X
5. Izar split at 225X.
6. One of the greatest phenomena I saw was Saturn. Even at a mere 40X, I could see 5 moons. These are Titan, Rhea, Dione, Tethys and Iapetus. At 112X, the Cassini Division was plain for all to see. However, I do have a question for Saturn experts on this forum. The Sun is shining down on the planet. Why then are there 2 black line going across? One is, I know, the rings' shadow appears on the south side, but is producing the northern shadow? Contributions please.
7. Struve 1837, double star 1.1" separation, split at 280X -brilliant! This is my 3rd double star that I have split at 1.1".
8. M4. Globular Cluster in Scorpius. Magnifications used: 40X, 112X, 140X and 167X. Paul Walsh considered this a constellation in itself. It is well scattered for a globular and has a lovely chain of stars going its northeast down to its southeast and has lots of dark lanes going through it.
10. Sigma Scorpii: double star split easily at 40X.
11. M80: a 2nd globular in Scorpius. The great Paul Byrne encouraged me to check this one out. Only from 140X, could I see any stars, and it was truly magnificent at 320X
12. Lastly, I found a quaint 6 star asterism in western Libra -lovely at 40X.

I would like to thank all for coming, the 2 Pauls, young Joshua, Michael Murphy and John Flannery for making it such a hugely memorable evening for me and my 6.2" apo. It was most wonderful going to the Sugarloaf last Saturday night. I can't wait for July.

Aubrey.