Home Forums RAC Main Forum General Discussion Observing tonight? Re: Observing tonight?

#11654
Jeff Newland
Participant

    Thanks Dean, not sure, but I may have seen it.. Maybe.  πŸ™‚  Heaven's Above wasn't working last night, so I didn't print off their chart, but I printed off Calsky and a couple of the photos.  The photos didn't help much, but the Calsky chart showed it a little down from Eta Leonis and just off the corner of a triangle of stars below Eta.  I guess on a line something like halfway between Mars and Eta.  There was an arc of stars to the right that it appears ISON probably went through.  I found a dim line of 3 stars and something faint and fuzzy off the end of those 3 stars.  I looked at that for quite awhile.  Wasn't sure if it was a 'fuzzy' or some dim star that I just couldn't bring into focus.  I tried a few different eyepieces, but still didn't get much from it.  I had my 12 inch and used 8.8, 11, 14, 19 mm eyepieces.  Still wasn't sure if that was ISON or not.  After I got home, I became more sure that it may have been ISON.  Heaven's Above was up and looking at the ISON chart there, it looked like what I was seeing.  I could see the arc of stars and then see the 3 dim stars and off the end them, there was ISON and that is where I was seeing that fuzzy object. So…  maybe..  πŸ™‚

    Otherwise, also a great night out there.  Jupiter and Orion nice and high.  Quite dark, less cars on the road.  Mars and Regulus were very low to start, so I was looking at other things.  Messiers for the morning:  1, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 35, 36, 37, 38, 78, 31, 32, 33, 110, 81, 82, 103.  Definitely AGNFA!

    However…  some bad news.  It looks like they may have messed up Keller as an observing site.  They have been in there and trimmed all of the trees around the parking lot and trimmed them good!  Wow!  Couldn't believe it when I got there.  It is all opened up.  Since the trees are trimmed, there is nowhere to hide from the yard light that is across the road.  After setting up, I moved my vehicle between the scope and light so I could get some protection from the light.  Sadly doesn't look too good.  πŸ™