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[quote author=Randy H link=topic=233.msg3778#msg3778 date=1268399990]
John, you should image it's twin M38/ngc1907 in Auriga with the same settings. (When the fog clears). It would be interesting seeing the images side by side.Randy
[/quote]I'll put that on my wish list of clear skies and not on the road for weeks at a time 😉
I do expect to setup my autoguiding on this telescope also so I may work on 3-5 minute images or longer if the telescope gods allow.
I've found that if I can get a good focus on NGC2158 I know the atmosphere is quite steady and clear. It was fun to discover that open cluster while viewing M35. I agree that you should try M38 too.
Good luck.Rick
Hello everybody! I know this might sound like an exercise in futility, BUT…
Eagle Bluff is open for us this weekend if we get clear skies. Sheila told me they have a small group there this weekend, but they will not interfere with us having the parking lot lights off if we can observe. We'll hope for the best.
On a more positive note, I just received some literature on the Nebraska Star Party that I'll bring with to the next meeting and share. I'd like to go this year. It's never too early to start planning for the Solar Eclipse of August 2017!
Hello folks, I got out for two hours tonight. Not the best conditions, breezy, damp, but warmer thank God.
I got naked eye, binocular and telescopic observations on Mars which now shows a gibbous phase as the Earth pulls ahead of the Red Planet. I saw the most surface markings on the planet in both the northern and southern hemispheres than at any other time this opposition.
I got an observation on Asteroid 4 Vesta, now about halfway between Gamma and Epsilon Leonis.
I even got a Herschel 400, NGC 3992 (also known as M109). That galaxy, normally very noticable, was barely visible tonight.
Better luck Wednesday. Hope for the best this weekend, but I think a Messier Marathon will probably have to wait until next year unless Rick stays up all Wednesday night to beat last years RAC record of 75!
I think I'll head out to Keller for a bit tonight, check for Leprechauns. 🙂
Head on out if you want.Well what do you know? There's a big bright yellow thing in the sky and the snow and clouds that were supposed to be shutting us out are not in sight.
Which brings us to the possibility of a Messier Marathon…
I had already committed to tending bar tonight because two other bartenders are sick and it was supposed to be cloudy. We have a live band tonigh and I know I'll get killer tips which would pad my cash flow for NCRAL.
Mike Rowlands of the LaCrosse group wants to know if we are going to try a Messier Marathon. They might have some participants.
How about the rest of you stalwarts of the RAC? Anyone interested? Luka?
I have to remove a stump for a friend of mine this afternoon, so I'll check back in about 3 or 4 p.m.
Sorry, I won't be able to make it tonight. Not to complain because skies look clear, but does it have to be the coldest night of the past two weeks??…
Honestly, the CSC looks better for Rochester than the Bluff and even that doesn't look that great for the first couple of hours of the night. I plan to sleep early and set the alarm to get up early (like 1AM) and try to finish off the Double Star and nab a few of the Messiers I need (specifically 100 and 83) before working on Herschel 400s from the back deck. Who knows? If conditions are poor, I may just see how many I can get in the second half of the night, with a rather obstructed eastern and southeastern view…
Yeah, I've got high thin haze right now, that stump turned out to be four feet tall, and six feet wide at the base. We had to get Dugan's skidder that he logs with to get it out of the ground.
I'm tending bar and putting up with high decibels, short attention spans and deteriorating I.Q.'s for the night. ::)
Good luck to those of you that get some telescope time in.
I see to the west a clearing…it's been that way most of the day. It looks good in Owtonna, but not here. I'm not loading up my 12" Dob only to find hazy skies at the Bluff.
Happy Trails
Rick
The clouds are still pretty iffy. I'll try to make it out to Keller if it clears up, but Eagle bluff seems to be cloudier, and of course, much further.
Well folks, I woke up without an alarm at 12:30 and after a futile wait to try to get back to sleep, I was set up out on the deck by 1:15am. Transparency was, at best, average. Seeing was a 7/10. Not being much of a marathoner, I did a few things. I first hunted N Hydrae, one of two doubles left on my list. However, skyglow south of Spica eliminated most everything, even with 11×56 binoculars. Corvus did make an appearance, but nothing below it. So scratch that (and M83.) At 1:31, I checked on M51/NGC5195 to verify my editor's note in the latest newsletter. Both cores were easily visible at 40X, but even at 100X there was just no detail to be seen. I hopped down to M104, which was very sharp and bright, but I could not see the fabled dark lane. From there, I jumped to Leo and found M65/66 easily. How could these have ever seemed difficult to me? Both were very obvious, and the pair just fit in the FOV of my 12mm Orthoscopic. No hint of the third galaxy in the trio, though, which I have never spotted from my house.
At that point, I decided I couldn't very well do deep sky observing all night and neglect my ALPO training, so I observed Saturn. Rings are very thin right now, about 3 degrees. Seeing was fantastic, about a 7/10. I bumped magnification up to 266X and it was mostly steady. The SEB was thin, and the NEB just a hint darker but much thicker. I thought I could maybe tease out a bit of detail on the SEB, but not sure enough that my imagination wasn't involved. A yellow #12 filter did not improve things much. 4 moons were easily visible.
Back to Virgo… I found NGC 4762/4754, which made a striking pair of galaxies at 100X. Stumbled on M60 and M59 – both were visible in my finder. Too bad I already finished the Binocular Messier list or I could have logged them. Moved on to NGC4660. Then, it was time to fail. Neither NGC 4689 nor 4654 would show up, in spite of detailed maps and careful hunting. To get a quick success hit, I jumped to M3, which is my personal favorite. Then I logged NGC 5557 and 5676, both of which were quite easy at the zenith. About this time (3:55) I noticed that transparency was not as good as it had been. Still, I managed to find NGC5689 as a nice patch of cotton. In spite of being in the right place, I couldn't see M101. Hit M13 at 4:27, but the core would not resolve at 200X, showing that transparency was really declining. I could just split Epsilon Lyrae at 200X, so seeing was going downhill, too. I found M57 and it was obviously a smoke ring at 40X. M4 just barely showed up in the eyepiece, nearly washed out in the skyglow. I finished up at 4:52 with M80, which was much easier to find than M4 and really punched through the glow well, but wouldn't resolve at 200X.
Chilled, I came inside to run the results…
11 Messiers, and 6 new Herschel 400s. A glorious morning for astronomy!
An out standing observing session, Sott! It inspired me to get out there last night for six hours.
Even though we're still two days shy of 1st Quarter, the Moon didn't set until 1:52 a.m. I did manage 3 Lunar II targets; Rima Ariadaeus, craters Ritter and Sabine, and crater Sacrobosco. Rima Ariadaeus was the coolest. It is a deep long crack in the Moon just south of Julius Caesar. I caught it right at the perfect sun angle. Ritter and Sabine are part of a nice complex of craters that lie on the SE floor of Mare Tranquilitatus just east of the Apollo 11 landing site. Sacrobosco is a distinctive crater in the lunar highlands that is identifiable by three craterlets inside its walls that make a right angle.
With the Moon not completely down yet, I got naked eye and binocular observations on Mars. Mars is heading back toward the Beehive in Cancer, but I still can't get them together in the bino FOV.
Asteroid 4 Vesta keeps moving and it is so easy to follow now that we are getting some clear nights to keep track of it. Vesta was moving toward Epsilon Leonis, but now it is just beginning to make the turn into its retrograde motion. A very fun thing to watch.
Saturn was next up and on this night of opposition it did not disappoint. Four Moons, with Titan off to the west, the rings still very flat, but the atmosphereic detail was extremely good. (Excellent seeing and transparency last night.)
Now the Moon had set and I went Herschel hunting. All galaxies this night, NGC's 2787, 3640, 3726, 3729, 3810, 3813, 3877, and 3893. NGC's3726, 3729 and 3877 were the best of the lot. AGNFA!!
Yes, Scott, It looks like you carried the flag for the club on Messier weekend. I did go out last night – hadn't used the scope for awhile and spent much time getting up to speed. Looked at Orion and could see the trapezium with 32mm lens. Finder scope problems led me to
look at the Moon – a wonderful terminator line for some wild looking craters. I think I was looking at Maurolycus (a deep crater??) and Barocius with some little Mickey Mouse ears by it. Also saw Theophilus/Cyrillus/Catharina and the Rupes Altai along side. Wondered if I was seeing tiny Bessel in Mare Serenitatis. It was great to do the whole evening in flip flops! Welcome the Equinox. SB
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