16/17th October 2009 - Report

This was a day were emotions were running high because I was looking forward to having a really long observing session with a list of objects the length of my arm to try an observe and also because there were so many members of the club coming down as well.

The day started of very dull and great but by afternoon the conditions improved to mostly clear skies, with only a few small patches of white cloud drifting past. By evening time the sky looked fantastic with only some haze to be seen in the horizon, it was the kind of haze that told me it was going to be a cold night and a possibility of fog - which sadly turned out to be accurate.

It was a great start to the night with everyone having some of the best views they've had in a long time and Jupiter was outstanding in Eamonn's 16" Lightbridge but as midnight arrived the conditions started to deteriorate, and fast too. From that point on most of the night was completely fogged out and it was by far the worst night I've ever had with moisture and dew. I could understand Eamonn and Stevie's Lightbridge's primary mirrors misting up as they are trusses but even my own Newtonian was covered in a thick layer of mist.
In the end it was just Stevie and myself, we hung on waiting patiently, hoping for a break in the clouds - while my scope was drying off in the car with heating blowing on full into the OTA - but it never came so we called it quits near or just after 4am.

My night ended off in a real emotional low. I guess I let my expectations and excitement for some great observing get too much. Still though, when I look back we all got to observe some great objecst, including myself. Also it is that time of year where fog and hard to predict weather is a-plenty and it certainly. Well until next time and may it be soon.

Thanks to Darren for giving me fist offer on a 17mm Hyperion. That give me a lovely new eyepiece and focal length to add to my eyepiece box. I look forward to trying it out.

Location - Bragan

Equipment - EQ6 Pro and Orion 10"

Seeing = 4
Trans = 2/3

Start Time = 21:00

The observations for the night are as follows:

NGC 676 - Not much to look at here, nothing more than a fuzzy looking star. There was no hint of a disk at all.

NGC 488 - This was a better sight. Strong looking nucleus and averted vision showed a reasonable looking disk.

NGC 7626/7619 - A really lovely pair of galaxies fitting nicely into the FOV of my 8mm Hyperion. I managed to see good structure, in the already hazy sky. A great fist observation and the object of the night for me in my scope.

NGC 604 - This looked great tonight and with no filter, it was very prominent and easy to see with some detail and also with M33 looking bright to the edge of the FOV.

NGC 891 - This looked decent but couldn't compare to my previous observations over the last month or so but it was still looking lovely with its long disk, just no sign of the central dust lane.

Finish Time = 02:54

Credits go to Eamonn for the photographs taken of the night, which are below.

11th October 2009 Report

I had been looking forward to a night like this ever since I cleaned the mirrors in my 10". The weather in the morning was dull, mainly overcast and with some light showers but as the day moved along things started to brighten up by mid afternoon but a lot of breaks in the cloud. Could started to rapidly disperse around the same time as sunset and as darkness fell the sky was crystal clear.
I from looking out of my window I could tell that the seeing and transparency was very good so I felt excited about getting out and doing some galaxy hunting.
I headed to Bragan so I could make the most of the good conditions and when I got there I was not disapointed. Transparency was very good and seeing was on par. The only let down was the breeze. Most of the time is was calm enough to not cause any shake in the scope but it made the air icy and the cold went straight to the bone, even while wearing all my thermal clothing.

Location = Bragan

Equipment = EQ6 Pro, 10" Orion, 15x70 Binoculars

Seeing = 3/4
Trans = 4

Start Time = 21:55

The observations for the night are as follows:

M33 = A great sight tonight, with NGC604 easy to see (unfiltered) but the binoculars showed this objected at it's best.

M31 =The best view I've ever had and it was through the binoculars. A gorgeous disk almost filling all of the FOV that was very rich and M110 was very easy to see with great contrast against M31

NGC 7331 = A good view with really strong structure. The disk extended out into faint wisps along it's edges. Not much detail and no spiral arm structure but still a fine sight and certainly the observation that has shown me the most.

Stephen's Quintet = An absolute mind blowing view! I need to use A LOT of averted vision (to the point where my eyes were hurting) but it allowed four galaxies to be revealed to me and during moments where the transparency improved more they would become brighter in the eyepiece and some small amounts of structure, shape and detail could be seen.

NGC 6946 = My best view of this galaxy. At medium power a faint milky patch fills the FOV with some star forming regions visible throughout as small blurry patches. Sadly there was no sign of spiral arm structure.

NGC 404 = I wanted to look at this for fun but it turned out to be the best observation I've ever had of this great sight. The contrast between NGC 404 and Mirach was startling at 150x and the beautiful goldish orange colour of Mirach itself was the icing on the cake for this view. The detail in NGC 404 was quite decent too.

M82 = Remarkable detail and very bright with the disk filling the FOV perfectly at 150x. I also looked at M81 and then started slewing the scope around when I stumbled upon another, small, galaxy about a degree or so away from M81 that turned out to be NGC 3077 after looking at my star maps. That was a lovely surprise find and it looked well too.

Finish Time = 23:20

In the end the terribly cold wind got the better of me and had to call it a night. Just at that time some light cloud started to develop so it made me feel ok about packing up but sods law would have it, it was brilliantly clear by the time I had all away and ready to leave.

It was a very short but a very sweat night, I can't wait until the next and get a proper full nights work done.

6th October 2009 - Report - A date with the Moon

It was the first clear night in what felt like ages so I was excited at the thought of getting out again. I really want to get trying out my reflector with its clean mirrors but with the moon out and in the mood for imaging I decided I would get the refractor out and challenge myself to my first mosaic image of the moon.

Location = Parents back garden

Equipment = EQ6 Pro, 4" Refractor, Laptop and Toucam II Pro

Seeing = 2/3
Trans = 1/2

Start time = 22:00

It was a bitter cold night but I dressed warmly so I felt comfortable and after a 15 minute cool down time and some visual observations of the Moon and Jupiter I was ready to image at 22:15.
The seeing conditions for the moon were decent but Jupiter was terrible looking, probably because of heat dissipation from the forest, so I focused on the moon and got to work.

I took a total of 20 AVI exposures but only needed to use 18 and thought I had captured every bit of the lunar surface but after processing all my images this morning I saw that I miss two small parts of the moons disk, what a shame but otherwise I thought I did pretty well. I had some trouble blending together the lines created by images aligned and also some brightness trouble with some of the images but I am sure this is something I will get better at as I go along.
Each AVI is composed of 500 frames, all stacked and processed in Registax 5 with the mosaic being compiled in Photoshop CS4 with some brightness adjustment and unsharp masking.

For a first attempt I am very pleased with this but I shall try again during another lunar phase and try to capture the entire surface for a complete image.

It has been a long time since I spent time with the moon and I enjoyed it but I am really looking forward to clear moonless nights so I can get DSO hunting with my 10" again.

Finish Time = 23:55