19th/20th February 2010 - Report

The weather forecast from the day before should a promising evening so I decided to make plans for another observing night up at Bragan. I posted an open invitation of the club message board and got to share my night with two fellow observers.
One of the members arrived there before me, as I was running a little late from cooking dinner and being host to a friend of mine, so before setting up we had a good chat, had a few views in his scope and them got cracking on with setting up my scope.
The night sky was fantastic, with crisp air, which was very cold mind you at -5, the wind was low with only a little breeze but the chill factor was not welcome at all.
I was able to get three hours observing done before the second member arrived and to help him get caught up I took a break from observing and helped set up his Lightbridge. By this stage the other member called it a night and made he way home.
The night provided many stunning sights with a few objects entering my favourite list.
Fog did move in on us around 01:00 so we took an hours break in the seats of a car and too the time to warm ourselves up again. Thanks to the little breeze the fog did blow over and observing did resume but the primary mirror of my scope eventually froze over - I should have put the tube cover back on, lesson learned.
So I packed my stuff away and shared views through the Lightbridge.
By the time I started to share views through the Lightbridge the sky condition were perfect for Galaxy observing so we started by looking at M104, one of my favourite galaxies, and it was looking fantastic with a bright halo around the core and the wide disk running through the centre, details was excellent and averted vision really enhanced it. We then returned to M51 for a second view and the sight was nothing short of stunning. All the spiral arms were easy to see and averted vision showed one of the spiral arms slightly overlapping the bright core of the background galaxy.
M101 was also a fine sight with two spiral arms well seen. I moved back for a second view of the Whale and Hockey stick galaxy pair to see how it was looking again and it was slightly better from my observation earlier in the night - no doubt about it, this is my favourite galaxy pair.
It was just after 05:00 in the morning when we decided to call it quits and head back to my house for a few hours sleep and a hot breakfast but what a fun, memorable and highly rewarding night.
Scoprious was visible from 04:00 with Antereas well above the horizon by the time we left, but not night enough to see M4, and I was able to see three new constellations - Libra, Crater and Hyrda.
We also got a beautiful view of Saturn with the four moons - Rhea, Dione, Tethys and Titan easily seen and it was the first time for me to see anything more than Titan so I was very pleased. Starry Night showed that Enceladous and Mimas were also on view just near the rings but I couldn't notice them at the time. Using higher magnification might of helped but after a great view like that I wasn't bothered.

A brilliant night with so much observed and well worth the effort of baring the cold air. All I can say is that the next night won't be soon enough and roll on spring weather, galaxy hunting looms.

Location = Bragan

Seeing = 4
Trans = 3

Equipment = EQ6 Pro and 10" Orion

Start Time = 20:23

The observations for the night are as follows:

Mars = An average view tonight with a turbulent view but when steady detail was good.

M93 = I had to have another look at this gem. The unusual pattern of the stars really attracts me to this open cluster

M46 = A breathtaking view with a vast sea of stunning stars and the planetary nebula within the cluster stood out brightly with strong structure and shape. A brilliant object, a true joy to see.

M47 = Another great sight. A sparse OC but the stars are bright and with two double stars easily seen really adds to the pleasure of the object and a memorable view too.

M64 = A pleasing view with good detail, a nice airy disk with a bright core and using AV reveals the black mark that give this galaxy its common name.

M53 = A faint globular but under the 8mm Hyperion and AV you could make out individual stars.

Leo Triplet = A wonderful sight. All three galaxies of the group sitting nicely in the FOV in the 2" 20mm. Detail was good with nice dusty disk.

M105 = Not much detail could be seen but another trio of galaxies in the FOV showing up brightly making the view pleasing.

NGC 2374 = Very faint and hard to pick out against an already rich background but because of that the view was still lovely regardless.

M50 = A lovely OC that really does bring home the meaning of the word "open cluster". Very pretty and kind of resembled a birds eye view of looking at a half open rose bud.

NGC 2359 = Nebulosity could be seen but there wasn't enough detail to make out any discernible shape. Still though, my best view of this yet as all previous attempts showed nothing, not even with filters.

M35 = A stunning sight, looking more bright and rich that usual tonight with NGC 2155 easily seen to the edge of the FOV so I slewed the mount to centre on this fainter beauty that was really looking a treat with stars resolving really well.

NGC 2331 = A rather obscure OC with not much to look at but new to me so that is good on its own.

NGC 2392 = A stunning view (which is become a rather common word and occurrence tonight) that is very bright and giving great detail.

NGC 2420 = An OC I have overlooked many times and now that I haven't I feel foolish. Using the 8mm Hyperion reveals a delightful cluster with quite a few stars appearing slightly reddish.

M84 = Not much detail but easy to see and M86, NGC 4388 and NGC 4435 all shared the same FOV, which was very nice.

M51 = Quite nice and looking very bright using the 17mm. Spiral arms were easy to see using AV.
I went back to this later in the night using the Lightbridge and the view was stunning with spiral arms and details really easily seen, resulting in the best view I've had in years.

NGC 4651 & 4656 = My favourite pair of galaxies and I was so looking forward to looking at them again and stunning looking they were. The satellite galaxy of 4651 was easy to see with lovely sharp structure and shape and 4651 was the same. 4656 was equally as lovely with strong shape and different regions of brightness throughout the central area.

At this point thick mist moved in so a break in the warmth of the car was in order. After about an hour it cleared up again but the primary scope of my mirror had frozen over which resulted in my packing my equipment and gear up but I got to share the lightbridge which gave me other stunning views of M104 and others which I have already mentioned.

All in all a really brilliant night and a cracking way to start of a new year of observing with the club. I can't wait for more good nights and hopes that this years weather will be better.