SAC observing report, Sept7th 2007

Hi lads,
We had a trip up to our usual observing site on Friday night,
John brought along his 8" LX10 and Frank his ETX125 and I brought along the 20" "obsessionator". Conn, Dennis and Dave also came along. Thanks to all who came and made it a very memorable and enjoyable night. !!

It was probabily the most transparent night we've ever had up on the hill, the milkyway was was clearly visible from Perseus on the northeastern horizon to Sagittarius in the south, the Cygnus rift was easily visible right down to Ophiuchus.

We set the scopes up at 8.40 and finished up at 5am, although other more wiser people left earlier, the next day I was totally shattered.

By the time I cought Jupiter it was on its way to the western horizon, but banding was still visible all the same.

The views of M13 were just staggering, it was a perfect opportunity to test out the new high power naglers, the 9mm and 7 mm worked very well with M13, the 7mm filled the entire field of view perfectly. You had to pan around the cluster with the 5mm, its size was more then the FOV.
I can distinctly remember what M92 looked like in the 12", it was unrecognisable in the Obsessionator, so many bright stars, its core was tight but easily resolvable.
The ring nebula in Lyra (M57) was easily seen, I tried using UHC and O3 filters and there a glimpse for a second of its central star, but I cant be sure.
The nebula itself was excellent and with the O3 filter displayed some texture detail in the outer oval.

The veil nebula (NGC6992) is just amazing with the 03 filter, with the 9mm t6 nagler, you could trace its length over many fields of view, its appearance changed from knotted rope to ribbons with ovals at its eastern side and at many places had spurs like spikes on it, I was amazed at just how much we could see, ngc6960 (western side) next to 52 cygni was easily visible as a ribbon band of light, very distinct.
The UHC filter also worked well on this nebula, but didn't show as much detail as the O3, without the filter, the nebula significantly faded, more like the background significantly brightened so overwhelming the nebula.
For this nebula alone, I'd hang onto the O3 filter.

The Dumbbell was exceptionally bright and didn't need any filter to show detail, I was able to easily count 9 stars in the brighter 2 lobes of the nebula, the 2 fainter lobes were also easily visible. The O3+UHC filters made most of these star disappear but did reveal more detail.

M15 in Pegasus was easily resolvable and appeared quite bright at high powers, a text book photographic appearance.

The Andromeda galaxy was very bright and spanned beyond the FOV of the 20mm eyepiece, we could very clearly see 1 dark dust lane to the lower west of the galaxy, M32 its satellite galaxy was clearly visible, M110 its second sat galaxy appeared like how M31 would appear in a smaller scope in size and brightness, it looked like a near edge on spiral galaxy in its own right. !

M33 in Triangulum was the big surprise of the night for me, I didn't think it would be visible at all, but using the 20mm T2 nagler eyepiece it was easily visible and practically filled the entire FOV, it has a non pinpoint non centred core, the core appeared as a big general area with dark areas in it, the arms appeared as a massive oval with hints of detail and I am certain I was able to pick out one H-alpha star forming region very clearly in the outer area of one of the arms, it appeared as a faint fuzzy non point like area. I was able to make out 2 spiral arms, this is one I'll be definitely returning to.

NGC891 is a edge on spiral in Andromeda, it took on a photographic appearance in the scope, although a little fainter. The central halo and edge on arms were clearly visible as was the intersecting dust lane that spans the galaxy.

M76 (the little dumbbell) in Perseus distinctly took on the appearance of a miniature M27, it was brighter then I had imagined it to be.

The double cluster in Perseus looked fab, although the 20mm eyepiece is really too high a power to get both cluster properly in the same field of view, each cluster on its own looked great and showed alot of star colour.

M34 in Perseus showed itself to be a nice bright wide open cluster.

Both the lagoon and trifid nebulae in Sagittarius were quite faint due to their horizon skimming locations in the sky, their stars were quite bright and some dark lanes were visible.

M1 the crab nebula was a very definite outline, it had its "Ireland" outline that you'd see in photographs.

We had a look a Mars as it rose in the early morning, I have never seen its disk look so non circular, it had a very definite big gibbious phase, some dark detail was visible on its surface, but not alot.

I had a look at the orion nebula rising, but by this time the secondary mirror had fogged over so we got a view of it similar to what you get though the 12" scope in brightness, but the central bright nebula section showed alot more mottled detail, the sun was on the way up at this stage as the sky was starting to brighten . I'm looking forward to seeing this object high in a dark sky.

I had planned to get alot more objects in but between going back again and again to M13 and trying to give the other objects a good look, I just ran out of time. The only thing I had to try averted vision on was the central star of M57, everything else was clearly seen.

Many thanks to Frank and Dave who gave me a hand getting the scope in and out of the car. It was clear again on Saturday night, but I was just too exhausted to go out again :oops:

Graet report. sounds like a wonderful night, it was incredibily clear for a while too in Cavan! I love to have a look through that 20 inch !!!

Keith..

It certainly was an excellent night, I'll probabily have the scope at Birr so if its clear then, you're welcome to have a look through it.

One thing I forgot, is that I pointed the scope at Altair, it was dazzling bright through the scope, bright stars like this show very visible secondary holder spikes, very photographic like.

That looks like a fabulous night's observing Dave. Sadly the weather hasn't been quite so kind to us here oop North! Friday started out OK but went downhill very rapidly and last night never cleared even slightly despite promises made by the Met Office.

Sorry to hear that Paul, you cant always trust the weatherman.

Just another useless piece of info, I attached a 8x50 finder onto the scope thinking that the telrad would be useless (I was not a fan of 1x finders at the time) when I got the scope first, BUT, I have found that the telrad is just the bees knees, although I'm still getting used to using it from a distance of over 4 feet away. :lol:
I was going to remove the 8x50 finder except it makes for a handy counterweight. :lol:

I might just go to Bir this year ! First timer, are the observing noghts good?

Keith..