Observing at the Observatory!

Friday 27th
Borg 101ED

A range of observers saw a mixed bag of objects in a clear sky and blinding nearly full moon.

Coathanger Cr 399 3.6 asterism - Vulpecula
Dumbell M27 7.4 planetary nebula - Vulpecula
Albireo 3 colourful double - Cygnus
Owl cluster NGC 457 6.4 open cluster - Cassiopeia
M39 4.6 open cluster - Cygnus
M103 7.4 open cluster - Cassiopeia
Mizar & Alcor 2 double/triple - Ursa Major
NGC 6633 4.6 open cluster - Ophiuchus
M15 6.3 globular cluster - Pegasus

Makes a change!

Paul

Marlheath Fm Siddington

Geoff (6" Dob) NickD (8" ADAS Meade) Chris (Miyauchi 20x77 binoculars) and myself spent a lovely three hours stargazing from one of our local dark sky sites. The sky was slightly hazy with a limiting magnitude of +4. I could easily make out Cr 399 and the Scutum Star cloud with the naked eye. The seeing was excellent ANTII but unfortunately it was breezy. I spent most of the time hunting down faint globular's and planetary nebulae through my 12" and 24 Pan. Whilst the others just had a look around the sky. I particularly like Geoff's 6" dob. It is a very neat well made telescope with excellent optics.

Below is a brief account of what I saw.

Globular Clusters
M13 in Hercules. It was very nice to compare the view of M13 through Nick and Geoff's telescopes. I think that Geoff's image of M13 was probably one of the best views I have seen in a telescope of this aperture. It appeared small, round and granular. Through my 12" M13 was a glowing ball of star light.

Visible through my 12" were the globular's M14 M10 M12 Ophiuchus NGC 6760 Aquila NGC 6934 Delphinus and M15 Pegasus. M14 M10 and M12 were resolved and appeared as grainy balls of star light. M15, because it is brighter and bigger was clear and bright with many stars visible almost to its core.

NGC 6760 and 6934 were difficult globular's to resolve because of there size and magnitude. Both appeared as tiny and slightly granular balls of star light. You need high power to see resolve them into individual stars.

Planetary Nebulae
I also had a look at some small planetary nebulae. I had a look at the show piece objects M57 and M27. But also some of the lesser known ones.

NGC 6572 Ophiuchus NGC6803 Aquila NGC 7009 Aquarius and the Cats eye nebula in Draco.

We all had a look at Neptune and Uranus. They appeared as tiny round fuzz balls in my 12" and the ADAS Meade.

Towards midnight we started to see a number of Persid meteors. Which were bright and slow. Lets hope it is clear next Wednesday for the peak.

Paul A Brierley.

Terrific Tenerife

From Friday 16th to Monday 19th July it was perfectly clear all night for 4 nights. Saturday 17th was even clearer? A sunset green flash was seen over La Palma. NELM ~7. My observing location was at 2000m on Mt. Tiede.

I used a Borg 101ED f6.4 refractor with 31 and 13 mm Naglers and x2 Televue Barlow. Mounted on a heavy duty Manfrotto photographic tripod I steered using a red dot unit power finder and photocopies of the Milky Way areas from Sky Atlas 2000.

Words cannot express the majesty of the naked eye Milky Way from a dark southern location.

The wide field views possible with the scope provided a porthole into the darkest depths of our galaxy. Dusty, dark nebulae abound. A true sense of the structure and nature of our galactic home became apparent.

Globular clusters provide good targets for small telescopes owing to their high surface brightness. I observed about 45 down to mag 11 scattered around our galactic centre.

Open clusters are ‘stars’ in this scope. Pinpoints of light scattered against velvety black backgrounds.

Normally elusive bright nebulae could be picked up against the contrasting dark (!) background sky.

Galaxies, not the best for small apertures, were detailed! The Whirlpool and M83 both exhibited spiral structure. Amazing in a 4” scope!

The finale at 01:00 on the Monday was an epic journey along and across the southern galactic border of the dark rift splitting the Milky Way. Starting at M7, I travelled past and through the Sagittarius star cloud, around the Lagoon, over M24, through the Scutum star cloud and on and on to the North American in Cygnus. A stupendous voyage!

Paul