It was a day of mixed weather, heavy showers of rain and spells of stunning along with strong gusty winds but as the day progressed the weather improved with skies clearing as the night drew nearer.
I got invited up to observe with some of the members at the Killylane site. I've been looking forward to getting back to observing at the site as the last night I was there wasn't a good night to get a proper feel of the place.
I left early to meet up with Stevie and get a bite to eat so I was fueled up for the night ahead.
There was quite a little party of members observing, seven in total, giving the night an atmosphere of fun.
It took me a while to setup, mostly because I just took my time, but I did have some problems at the start. The EQ6 kept refusing to do a 3 star alignment, failing every time. Eventually I got it sorted out but after trying to slew to Jupiter the mount refused to slew anywhere else after settling on Jupiter so I had to turn all of and reset the "Parke Mode" data and do everything from scratch. It took a while but it paid of and everything was working well again.
There was a lot of objects observed from everyone there and I had some great views through Neil's Mak Newt and Stevie's 12" Light Bridge. I was also captivated and really enjoying the gorgeous wide field views through Jonathan's 100mm Binoculars, a really fantastic instrument.
Towards the end of the night a fantastic fireball was seen by myself and Mark. It's brightness grew wonderfully and then broke up, leaving a smouldering smoke trail behind it.
Location = Killylane
Equipment = EQ6 Pro and Orion 10" Newt
Seeing = 4
Trans = 2
Start Time = 22:04
My observations for the night are as follows:
Albireo = After the nonsense my mount gave me I thought something nice, simple and beautiful to look at was a fine way to make sure that tracking and slewing was working fine. As always, looking lovely with rich colours.
M13 = A great view at 155x and thanks to the good seeing stars were resolving very nicely indeed.
M57 = A great view with nice detail and the UHC-S really made the nebula look brighter but no sign of the centeral star tonight.
M51 = Very poor, barely visible even when filtered only the necleus could be seen. Not a night for galaxies due to the poor transparency no doubt.
M27 = Very bright with UHC-S filter but little detail showing through. Fine structer though.
Jupiter = Good view with great cloud detail showing and the positions of the moons was quite beautiful. I also reobserved later in the night to take a look at the GRS
M97 = Not much to see here, even when filtered it is an undiscernable blur with no signs or hints of the gaps that make the eyes.
NGC 6826 = A lovely view with a very bright image filtered or unfiltered. Displaying a large airy disk and the centeral star showing well.
M15 - A stunning view. This richness of this globular is striking at anytime but, again, the seeing was allowing so many stars to resolve. This was a view to capture the imagination and get lost in daydreams. One of my best views on this globular cluster and the night in a whole was excellent for globular observing.
M76 = A decent view. Pleasing structure and even better under UHC-S.
Epsilon Lyra = A fair view and splitting well at 155x, proving that the seeing was better than usual.
M74 = Faint but lovely to see for the fist time, it's a Messier object that I've over looked but thanks to Stevie for challenging me to observe it I can now mark it off the list. The nucleus was clear with AV.
NGC 404 = Very obvious and detail was fairly good. It's been a year or so since I observed this again it's thanks to Stevie for bringing it up. A fine sight to observe.
M33 = Surprisingly good views considering it was a poor night for galaxies all round. Observing with UHC-S really changed the view to something great but what struck me the most was a faint fussy object about half a degree from the galaxy in the 3 O'Clock position on the eye piece. I let Stevie take a look but do not know what it is.
I have taken a look through my star maps, starry night and widefield images searches on google and can find nothing that fitted.
Looking a Starry Night shows that it could have been NGC 614 I was seeing but the distances look too far apart to fit in the FOV of view at 155x.
I will most certainly be taking another look on the next clear night and write down the RA and DEC of this object.
Finish Time = 02:53
Great write up, i remembered to list objects now I need to work on the extras it seems :)
ReplyDeletelook forward to the next session.
It all adds to the fun of observing I think and it's also fun to look back and see what you were doing last year or even a few years ago. You can also make some shocking discoveries like I did, which is a 3 month gap of no observing at all during the winter months last year. That is my main reason to get myself a thermal body suit, I don't want to be sitting indoors missing observing time becasue I can't hack the cold.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the next session too. They always seem to get better and more fun.