Clear night but full moon...

OK, I'll confess right up front that I'm just not a moon guy. So when we got our first clear nights in over a week, and that great big glowing lump of rock was up there, what was I to do?

I first tried a few open clusters (M11, M52), but they were washed out even in the 4" refractor.

Next up were some planetaries (NGC6210, NGC7009, NGC7662). These were bright enough, but the seeing was reasonably poor preventing high magnificaiton, and the moonglow was awful at lower mags.

So I settled in on some colorful double stars, which were quite nice. I had a list of 6 or 8, of which I liked Achird, Albireo and Sarin the best. There were also a couple that were fun to try to split (especially in poor seeing): Zeta Aquarii, which showed contrasting colors at 175x, notches at 390x, and a poorly-defined minima at 670x, but no clean split. I had similar results (and saw similar colors) on Mu Cygni.

Oh, and I finished up on Uranus, which was better than expected, but wouldn't take much over 250x without turning into a fuzzball.

-- Jeff.

Date: Sept 7 and 9, 2006
Transparency: NELM 4.5 (full moon)
Seeing: Pickering 4-ish
Instrumentation: 16" Meade LX200GPS OTA and FC-100 on AP1200GTO

PS: my double star list used constellation notation, which I'm not that used to. So when I took a look at Beta Cygnii, my first thought was: "wow, that looks just like Albireo". Only later, when entering my notes into AstroPlanner, did I realize that it was Albireo.

At least it was clear, it's raining again tonight :roll:

Bummer

Keith..

Keith --

Too true. Looks like I'll be clouded out for the Pleiades occultation tomorrow as well.

-- Jeff.

Hey Jeff

You're not alone with not liking the moon, but I feel that the moon is underrated and if more people took the time to observe it they might be pleasantly surprised with what they see. Unlike deep-sky, which I also observe by the way, the features on the moon change over minutes and hours and it's fascinating to watch shadows move across the plains or the interior of a crater reveal itself.
Next time the moon is in the sky don't struggle to see faint deep-sky objects, give the moon a go and see what so many of us enjoy.

Paul

Paul --

Actually, I intend to give it a bit of a go tonight, weather permitting. The moon will be occulting the Pleiades right at moon-rise (a few minutes after 9), which should be worth a look....

-- Jeff.