SAC observing report Friday 15TH Sept

Hi All,
We had another observing session up on the hill last night, Conan brought his 8" skywatcher and Frank brought along the clubs 12 " Dob and I brought along the 20". Conn and Dave N were also there, thanks to all who came along and made it another great night, we finished up at about 1am as light clouds was starting to come in.
That's 2 weekends in a row of observing, we just have to make the most of the clear weather given it could rain for the next 6 months.
We had a look at the usual suspects but this time we were able to pick out the central star of the ring nebula, we used 500x (5mm t6 nagler, next time I'm bringing the barlow with me!), it was very difficult at first but with averted vision is it was clearly there. I thought for a few seconds I could see the second star in the nebula (mag 16.25). Starry night shows a mag15.30 star in the area of M57, there were alot more fainter stars visible in the eyepiece not in the starry night database.
Here is a detailed magnitude map of the ring area, the majority of these stars were visible.
www.astropix.com/HTML/E_SUM_N/M57.HTM


We just had to look at the veil and found that the O3 was definitely better then the UHC filter. With the UHC, some sections were simply not there, put on the O3 and it was like a different nebula.
With the Dumbbell, the UHC was superior as the O3 over dimmed the image. With the filter is looked like a rugby ball more then a dumbbell.
Neither significantly improved the ring nebula,
While centering the telrad+laser, I was using Mirach in Andromeda and I saw a hazzy patch next to the star, I thought it was some sort of internal reflection at first but on close inspection it looked like a galaxy, turns out it was ngc404, a nice little 10th magnitude fuzzy ball.

Now thats real astronomy Dave nice one and thanks for sharing.

Great to hear you finally nailed the central star in M57 Dave!
Good report too re the filters. Glad you got a chance to test them out.

Another great night is right!
The biggest thrill of the night was to actually see that pesky central star!
Cheers again Dave for allowing us all to have a look through the 20''!

I brought up the clubs 20'' dob on the night.
The mirror unfortunately was in a pathetic state after being left in neglect for a few years
but with a bit of quick surgery by Dave it was some way usable.
The collimation was a mile out and the bird crap on the primary didnt help either so it was really a 12'' acting like an 8 / 10 ''

Here are a few sketches (from memory)
I'm hoping that with a new design and a re-coated mirror I can breathe
some new life back into it as its a grand scope and has the potential to be great.


M13 which in my ETX-125 looks like a smudge of chawk on a black card
jumps to life through the 12''.
With Daves nagler wide field eyepiece it is literally like looking through another scope!
So I learned instantly, the Eyepieces are as if not more important than the socpe you use!!






M57 was much brighter and more defined.
(No central star in this one though :lol: )




M27 definatly showed more than just an 'apple core' shape in the 12''.
Using averted vision I could easily make out the fainter areas.
(the seeing on the night was a huge help also)
This sketch is a bit big...it was in reality about a third smaller in the eyepiece.



Finally

M31 filled the eyepiece. The companions M32 & M110 were obvious as were the main and fainter dust lanes.



I had a look at the Veil Nebula also but it was a bit dissapointing.
Still it was there all the same.
I had a quick scan down through the Milky Way before packing up to just take in some of the dense star fields there...well worth it.


I'm itching to overhaul this scope and see what it can do!

Did you draw these yourself Frank ? :shock: :shock: they're excellent !

Fantastic sketches Frank!
I bet Dee will be trilled to see them - someone else with an interest in sketching!