25th, 26th and 27th March 2012 - Report

After a disappointing weekend of thick cloud it turned into stunning week with no clouds to be seem and summer like temperatures.
I've never been out so many nights in a row in all my astronomical time and I am enjoying every moment of it.
Since it was looking like nothing but sunny days and clear nights from the 25th onwards I thought I'd only observe to a minimum and try to improve my skills at imaging with the webcams.
Sunday night was nothing more than a learning curve, as it turned out. The skies were nice and clear at Bragan but the horizon was choked in a thick curtain of - high pressure caused - mist.
I used the colour SPC900 camera with the 14" Skywatcher and most of the images are too embarrassing for me to share but I learned a few things and with the laptop battery running low I turned to observing. I never made any notes so I cannot rely on my memory as to what I looked at.

Monday night was a much better night with less of the haze, giving more of the nice scenic look that Bragan has. I had the EQ6 and my 4" Refractor out with me this time. I started imaging the moon with my monochrome SPC900 and finally started to get some good results. My attempts at Mars and Venus were both somewhat embarrassing, even though the views at the eyepiece being nice.

Tuesday night I stayed at home and got the 14" Skywatcher set up in the back garden. Most of my time was getting to learn and know the imaging software a bit better and also to practise focusing techniques as I find it very difficult to know when you are getting it just right.
I started off spending time trying to image double stars - with the idea that I could use some of them for my talk in May - but I probably wasted too much time on this as they were all rather poor.
I then gave Mars another try and was able to find good focus using the 3x barlow that I borrowed of the Chairman. I took a lot of captures and I am rather proud at how the final result turned out.
Satisfied with my efforts I was in the mood to get back to observing and there is nothing I like to do more from my back yard than observe double stars so out came the maps and of I went.

Equipment = 25th 14" Skywatcher, Colour SPC900 cam and laptop
                    26th EQ6 Pro, 4" Refractor, Monochrome and Colour SPC900 and laptop
                    27th 14" Skywatcher, Colour SPC900 cam and laptop

Location = 25th Bragan
                  26th Bragan
                  27th Home

Start Time for 27th = 20:23

I begun the evening imaging various stars and ending with Mars and moved onto observing by 22:30

Mars - A decent view. The visual view with the 3x barlow wasn't as good as on the laptop screen through the camera but the north polar cap was plain to see and two large surface features were obvious.

54 Leo - A nice double, with both stars of similar colour and the companion being noticeably smaller.

90 Leo - 54 Leo's miniature twin and looking very pretty.

88 Leo - A beautiful par, with a stunning golden yellow main sequence star and smallish pristine secondary star of a brownish colour. A really pleasing sight.

65 Ursa Major - This appeared uninteresting at first, as two white stars of similar size and we seperated but something caught my eye so I increased the power by changing to the 8mm and then saw a very small white star holding tight to 65. A memorable double for me now.

Finish = 11:17

Below are the best results of my imaging. Not much to show for three nights of trying. I am rather pleased of how Mars came out considering that the seeing conditions were terrible. As in my usual fashion I miss a chunk of the moon but still rather happy with the outcome. I hope you enjoy them too.

18th/19th March 2012 - Report

The skies were beautiful upon arriving at Bragan. Some cloud was visible in the distance but the air was clear. Sadly there was a steady cold breeze which proved difficult to cope with as the night went on.
Some cloud did pass over and gave me a scare when it started to rain lightly but it had stopped before I even got the water proof sheet over the scope.
There were two new faces and five of us in total. It was a pleasure to meet the two new guys and their scopes were lovely setups and gave fine views of all the objects I looked at.
I started to feel a bit under the weather just after starting to observing. My headache was helped by one of the guys giving me a pain killer but stomach issues eventually made it too much to endure and with the the razor sharp chill of the wind all I could think about was being at home, warm and in my bed, so I packed up earlier than I had hoped.
Apart from that the night sky was actually fairly good. It didn't stand up to the brilliance of Friday night but some of my observations were above average.

Equipment = Skywatcher 14"

Location = Bragan

Seeing = 2
Trans = 3

Start Time = 21:27

NGC 188 - I couldn't see this on my star maps for a while so I decided to use my GO TO and glad I did, had I not I probably would never have found it as this has to been the faintest and most widely dispersed open cluster I've observed and as for it being Caldwell 1 it was a disappointing start.

NGC 40 - Much better. Caldwell 2 and some time since I observed this PN. It was looking really nice with great nebulosity and a well seen central star.

NGC 4236 - Appeared to be a faint edge on galaxy in the eyepiece but after looking at images it has a large disk but I was clearly observing the bright core region. I was surprised to find that it was filling almost all of the FOV in the 17mm.

NGC 2403 - Bright in appearance but not much detail, structure was strong giving it a easy to pick out disk shape.

NGC 4800 - Quite small and not much in the way of detail.

M106 - A fine view with NGC 4217 appearing nicely in the FOV.

NGC 4242 - This was a tricky one. Quite faint but appeared to have irregular shape.

NGC 4096 - Quite nice, looked almost edge on.

NGC 4157 - This was really nice. Lovely edge on galaxy with a thin delicate appearance with slight details. One of the better NGC objects I've observed in Ursa Major.

NGC 4088 - Strong structure with a pleasing shape and another galaxy, which wasn't listed on my maps, shared the FOV.

NGC 4026 - A beautiful sight. A really bright core with a pretty looking and well detailed disk.

NGC 3953 - Larger than I remember with a bright core and large disk.

NGC 4102 - Small with only a bright core and small disk.

Finish Time = 00:21

16th/17th March 2012 - Report

My first night out of the year and my first proper night out since November last year!! With that passage of time I was amazed that I could remember anything of the night sky.
What a night though... I arrived at Bragan, on my own, to beautiful skies with a light to strong breeze - thankfully that broke and calmed as the night went on.
My brother and a friend of his arrived just as I was getting the scope set up so once I did I gave a little night sky tour with the laser pointer and showed a few jewels of the sky in the scope. Before too long the chairman arrived. After some good conversation and hot drink it wasn't long until we were stuck in and making the most of this rare kind of night. Neither of us really knew how good the night actually was until we started looking at some of the rare or exotic objects, that's when the "WOW's" started to become a regular sound.
We finished the night both very happy and ecstatic to have bagged a few rare treats and to see the astonishing sights we did.
If we get a night like this for Sunday's first Messier Marathon attempt we are all in for another special night.

Equipment = Skywatcher 14"

Location = Bragan

Seeing = 3
Trans = 4

Start Time = 21:45

NGC 4565 - A very fine view of - possibly - the most impressive edge on galaxy in the whole northern sky. Really strong structure and great contrast between the dust lanes and galactic bulge. A cracking good start.

NGC 4244 - Really nice. Not as bight as I may have seen it in past observations but still good brightness on this occasion . Details were about average but still a great feeling to see this again.

M104 - One of the few galaxies that makes my heart race with excitement upon knowing that I can observe it again. I remember my best ever view of this at Carren Rock a few years ago through my 10" Orion and how photographic it looked. It didn't live up to that night but it was still really good. I observed it for a good ten minutes, at least, and all those details really came out. The dust lane so obvious and breathtaking in details and the way it contrasted against the delicate hue of the galactic bulge was really a beautiful sight.

NGC 4038/39 - Corvus was so prominent in the south sky, so I stood still to take the whole constellation in and then it dawned on me that I've never spend any time observing anything there so I went to the star maps only to see that it was home to the Antennae galaxies. It didn't take me long to get the scope onto them.
They were very faint at first but averted vision revealed what looked like two fried eggs that had touched when cracked onto a hot pan and merged to be cooked as one big irregular looking one. There was next to no detail but I could pick out some variations of light an dark. Now that I look at some images of them, online, I can tell that I had a very good observation of them indeed, especially when they are so low down in our sky.
There was also another galaxy lurking at the edge of the FOV which I believe to be NGC 4027.

NGC 4261 - Never knew of this PN at all so once I saw it on the map curiosity got the better of me. I was really surprised by how impressive it looked. The nebula itself reminded me of a miniature version of the Rosetta. The central star is so bright with AV. I highly recommend this PN observers.

M68 - An excellent view considering how low down it is. Stars were resolving quite well.

Algorab - A new double to add to my list and quite a nice one. Bight and a large companion, easy to split.

Upsilon Virgo - A really lovely double with a small companion, making for a pleasing contrast of size.

M101 - I wasn't expecting to see what I did when slewing the scope to this joker. Normally I just look at it for a joke to see how disappointing it is but I couldn't believe my eyes for a moment. The detail and brightness was as crisp and sharp as when observing this through the 20" Obsession at the Burren Star Party last September - so I could see the supernova.
I could see three spiral arms very well but the largest of the three stood out the best. There was fantastic detail in and around the core and I could even make out dark dust lanes between and around the bright regions of the spiral arms. Having some of the Milky Way stars appear to shine from with in M101 really added to the delight of it all. I won't forget this one, or make a joke of this galaxy again.

M51 - Sensational!! Not the greatest amount of detail I've seen but the brightness of it and the impressive structure of the core and spiral arms was almost photographic. So good...

NGC 4631 -  I was so happy to see this again. One of my favourite galaxies and the shape was really strong, with its satellite galaxy very easily seen.

NGC 4656 - This really impressed. The striking 'J' shape - giving the look of the hockey stick - was so obvious and the detail in the irregular galaxy was really good. I could see the star forming regions as brighter areas and also notice the gaps around the edges.

M64 - Very impressive, probably the best I've ever seen this I dare say. The dark feature in the core was really prominent. I spent some time with this and enjoyed it a lot.

M10 - Fantastic, stunning mass of stars.

M12 - Every bit as good as M10

M14 - Shockingly good view when it's such a low object. Stars resolved so nicely

Delta Serpentis - Another new double star for me and it is very nice indeed.

M5 - One of the true treasures of the night sky. I am still lost for words to try and say how incredible this globular is. Not only is this, with out a doubt, the most stunning, breathtaking, mind blowing globular cluster to look at but easily one my favourites of the entire sky now. The view I was getting, the incredible amount of detail, the fact that I could have counted every single star they were that well resolved. No photographic image of any telescope could come close to the real view at the eye piece. Not only was this the biggest "WOW" object of the night it's one of the best observations in all of my observing life.

NGC 6543 - The best I've ever seen the cats eye. The brightness was dazzling and the strong green colour was wonderful. Spending some time with this and some AV some knotted features were revealed to me as well as some hints to the arcing loops of gas you so famously see in the Hubble images.

M4 - What a way to end a night. I've seen this twice before but nothing more than an undefined smudge. Not this time though. It was really nicely resolved with noticeable differences of star meningitides. Such a memorable cluster and my best view of it yet, and to see it so early in the year too!!

I know I forgot to make not of a few objects, a lot of them double stars and a few other M objects but with so many memorable observations in one night my head is still spinning with all the amazing objects that I allowed to be burned into the retina of my eye, so I have no regrets in missing to write down a few things.

Finish Time = 04:14