Mag7 skies in West Clare

Well Lads,
Frank and I finally got a chance to go to Doonbeg with a cloud free sky, the first quarter moon was up , it set around 2am and the sky turned jet back, the darkness was amazing, you literally couldn't see your hand in front of you, the constellations were lost in the blaze of stars that became visible after the moon set over the Atlantic. We got there at about 21.40 and left at 5am, got home at about 6.20. I'm paying for it today.

Unfortunately M42 set before the moon did, so we didn't see it at its full potential, I found that a UHC filter did a better job then a O3 filter on it, at higher powers there was a wealth of detail visible in the center of the nebula, the trapezium was easily visible as 6 stars at 357x,
Saturn showed alot of moons, I cant remember the count but it was atleast 7. Mars didn't show itself well, there seems to be alot of turbulence in its direction. The moon showed a wealth of detail.

Once the moon was gone, M51 was stunning, I remember seeing Lord Ross's drawings of M51 and thinking he took alot of artistic license, but after seeing the whirlpool through the 20" under the jet black sky, I can see where he was coming from, the spiral arms seemed like they were swirling and were better seen using higher powers, at 278x the galaxy took up 1/4 of the 80 degree FOV, it was massive!, the arms were very easily visible where you could see the gradients and and dark lanes along the arms and where it linked up to M52, numerous spiral spider arms were visible emanating from the core, I counted nine stars in the galaxy, one was so bright I serious thought for a second that it might have been a supernova, how nice would have that been. I never thought the galaxy would be visible through a scope like that.
While doing some looking up as to what stars these are , I found this amazing image of M51
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Messier51.jpg
Make sure you zoom in and scan along the galaxy...
anyone know where I can find a star chart showing magnitudes of stars in M51 ?????

The 2 spiral arms of M81 were just visible, it took on its photographic appearance, the arms in this case were better seen using 26mm T5 nagler and practically disappeared in higher powers, M82 was so bright with so much detail it was almost unrecognizable.
The owl nebula (M97) showed its usual 2 dark eyes, and M108 was a miked bag of dark and bright areas forming an elongated line.
NGC2244 in Monoceros was visible as a fine cluster of bright stars, the Rosette nebula surrounding it was way toooo big to fit into any of my eyepieces but was visible as I panned the scope across it as a noticeable brightening of the background as you entered it and a darkening of the background as you left it behind, certain areas had a very discernible edge.
M50 showed itself as a fine circular cluster of bright stars.

M35 showed itself as a fine wide bright field of stars and the double cluster in Perseus was magnificent, both were just able to fit into the 26mm eyepiece.
The Eskimo nebula ngc2392 took on the appearance of a small circular area surrounded by a bigger halo with faint line detail, just like in its photographs.! I've never seen it like that before.

M53 looked like what M13 looks like in the 12" scope, a fine globular cluster well resolved to the core, M13 itself was stunning and filled the FOV of the 80 degree 7mm eyepiece. It looked like a cluster of mag 1 stars.
M64 the black eye galaxy displayed a dark semi circular dark lane around the core, not much else was visible in the galaxy.

M99s unequal spiral arms were easily discernible, one arm was more detached then the other.
M104 (sombrero) was a steller like core as were its dark dust lane lying over its bright areas.
About 10 more messier objects were seen, not all had visible detail, but the ones described above were the best.
we wanted to see alot more but ran out of time, the ultra dark sky really contributed seeing these objects at their best.

On a side note, the big battery pack that runs the scopes power and dew heaters lasted the night with no problems, thats 2 nights in a row and it looks like it could go for a few more nights before it starts the suffer.

I was surprised at how dramatic a brightening effect the 1st quarter moon had on the sky, this only became apparent after it had set.
The club are considering having observing sessions in the Burren in the Spring, its a bit of a trip but is worth every second if we're guaranteed a clear sky.
Roll on the next trip to west Clare !!!!!

Wow, nice report Dave. Mag 7 skies are a rarity these days, if not due to light pollution, than air pollution. I can't remember the last time I actually saw magnitudes peaking at naked eye visibility (as I remember them from the 90's).

Seanie.

Probably a stupid question but how would you measure the mag of the night sky??

Dave,

After reading your observing report, I really got a sense of the moments in your description of those galaxies. The eye is much better in resolving delicate details than the CCD camera.

In fact going to different targets can be done so quickly with alot more fun than waiting around to process the next image which could take an hour. Ye'll nearly have me obsessed soon!

Eamonn A

MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory.com

I have to say that image of M51 is burned into my brain, we spent so long at it experimenting with different eyepieces to see what more we could make out.

Probably a stupid question but how would you measure the mag of the night sky??

Frank had a laptop with starry night.

While doing some looking up as to what stars these are , I found this amazing image of M51
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Messier51.jpg

Didn't realise that M51 was immersed in such a "sea" of galaxies.

Anyone spot one particular face-on spiral galaxy in the background?
Its the one peeking out cheekily between the two component galaxies of M51.