Virgo cluster with the ETX70

Another clear night after getting back from Paducah and my Legion meeting so I decided to try the Virgo cluster with my ETX. My new leveling table worked great to level the ETX and get it aligned nicely. I was able to spot the xmas tree asterism easily and could barely make out M59 and M60. M68 showed pretty well but not 89 or 90. I sketched the field around M49 and verified it as a dim patch using averted vision. I was also able to verify M84 and M86 but had them reversed for some reason or other. Both were dim in the ETX and I had to use averted vision to see them. After deciding that galaxies aren't so great in the little ETX I went hunting with unaided eye. There is a nice open cluster about 2/3 of the way along a line between the tail of the big bear and the tail of the lion. This unaided eye visible group turned out to be part of Coma Berenices (12 and 13 Com). There was a cute 'snail' asterism looking at me when I examined the area in binocs.
At 11:18 pm it was 63 deg and falling fast. R Lyra was 4.5 using 44 and 47 at 11:28. Beta Lyr was 3.2 using 32 and 38 at 11:38 pm.
Next I fired up the 'guided tour' on the ETX to see what it could do. M4 is a nice globular cluster in Scorpio near a twinkly Jewel (Antares). I could also see M4 in binocs easily. M13 is bright but small with the ETX. It looked like a fuzzy star. M6 was behind a tree at this time but I thought I could see it in binocs. This turned out to be M7 and another above it was M6. I was not able to see the ring nebula in the ETX. It might have been out of the field though.
All in all this was a great night. It was fairly warm right up to the end at midnight, clear, and NO DEW.

Virgo cluster again

Tonight was very clear and cool so I decided to take the 8" out and see what I could find in Virgo again. I had tried previously without a lot of luck. There is a lot here but it's rather dim. I went out armed with my overall chart of 11 galaxies in Virgo (M49, 58, 59, 60, 84 86 87, 88, 89, 90, 91) to see what I could see. I found M59 and M60 right off the bat at the right angle of a triangle formed from the two most eastern stars of the Virgo 'V' or 'cup' (del and eps vir). They are near a small 'xmas tree' asterism composed of Rho and 27 Vir and a couple of other 7th magnitude stars. Both M59 and 60 were easily visible is my 25mm ep. It had been awhile since I used it so it took some time to get used to the orientation of my dob and I had the usual assortment of problems standing on my head to see through the red dot finder, tripping over the battery wire, etc. I found M58 near a diamond shaped asterism of mag 8-10 stars (SAO 100178 etc) to the west. M89 was another small fuzzy just west of a chain of six dim 10th mag stars in a W pattern. All four objects were easy to see but not a lot of detail without study. M90 whould have been on the other side of the 'W' but I didn't notice it. I need to revisit these when I'm not as tired. My Tycho 2 catalog is a good one to use for star fields in this area.
I continued my observation of Lyrae doubles Beta and R. Bet Lyr was brighter than R Lyra tonight. I estimated Beta at mag 4 using 32 and 43. R Lyr was 4.7 using 44 and 47 at 11:30 PM.

Clear skies at last

Finally, a clear night with no clouds, t-storms, rain, etc. I went out after the Daily Show and stayed until 11:45pm or so. Seeing was pretty good but there seemed to be some haze that was reflecting more light than usual. I was still able to see seven stars in the little dipper, 7 in Corona Borealis, Bootes, 7 in Lyra including R Lyra. I intended to try my hand at the 10 star tutorial from AAVSO and was able to find both Beta Lyra and R Lyra. I estimated Beta Lyr at 3.2 using 32 and 38 and R Lyra at 5 using 44 and 54. The log site mentioned in the tutorial did not seem to be active so I left my email and will wait to see what happens. In the meantime, perhaps there will be some more clear nights to practice. I had a good view of Lyra over a tree about 11:00 or so. The moon wasn't up yet. I used my 7x50 binos but mainly just did some naked eye viewing. Just before quitting I switched my view to the south to see Scorpio rising, Corvus, Virgo, etc. It was quite difficult to estimate the brightness of the two variables. It took awhile just to find them and then I had to identify the appropriate comparison stars. It was probably easier to just use my eyes without binos! Most everything was visible with at least averted vision. Binos made it easier to see the dimmer stars like 54 though. I really needed my red light though. I was using a regular flashlight and my night vision was totally ruined after even a brief look at the charts. All in all it was a great night even if it was short and I was glad to get in a little observing, finally. Oh, and to cap it all off, just as I was getting ready to quit for the night, a gorgeous meteor flew from SW to NE just west of Lyra.

Bino Doubles

I cheated a bit and used my ETX-70 instead of binoculars but had fun anyway. I intended to seek out bino doubles in Camelopardalus but it had already sunk below my limited horizon (it was behind the house) and so I had to settle for UMa and UMi instead. I was able to snag 4 of the 5 in UMa, all except Wnc aka M40, and the only one in UMi. I had the devil of a time trying to get the ETX to track right for some reason or other. I finally got it to align ok using a one star alignment on Mizar/Alcor and figured out how to set RA/Dec (again). S 598 was nearly overhead and hard to focus but I was just barely able to split with the 27mm ep. 65 UMa was the first and it split right away with 27mm. Limiting magnitude was about 8 with the ETX, probably 3 or 4 unaided. It was a nice night, cool, humidity about 10%, no wind, clear. Lots of light polution as usual in our backyard observatory. Zeta UMa was nice as usual. Struve1831 showed up nicely in a nearly dark field. Pil in UMi was in a nice little 4 star asterism that kind of looked like a dish antenna pointed at a 4th star. At first I thought the 4th was the double but closer examination with a 10mm ep revealed the double as the top star of the 3 star 'dish' (SAO 2556). It was hard to split even with averted vision. 30" seems to be about as good as the ETX will do.

Seriously Ceres

First clear night after a wet week in the LRGV so I decided to see what I could see. Ceres has been hanging out in Leo so I took a look. First problem: it wasn't in the list of asteroids in CdC. I used ephemeris elements from the skychart user's group and added it to the data file. Bingo, right on target. I found it by slewing to one of the stars in Leo that was in the catalog. Next I held 'mode' down for a few seconds to put the controller in RA/DEC display mode and just slewed manually until I got it to the position shown in CdC. There it was, right in the center of the FOV. The star field matched CdC to a 'T'. 40 Lmi was the brightest star in the field, with a small triangular grouping of three 8th magnitude stars just below Ceres. Three other 7th magnitude stars were 'above', 'below', and to the right of Ceres near the edge of my 27mm EP. Ceres seemed to be about 7th mag. NGC3344 was in the FOV but way too dim for my ETX-70. I was just able to make out M81 in UMa later on.
It was warm and a bit muggy at 61. Ceres was high in the east near zenith and unfortunately I set my scope up where a street light shone right into my eyes. Not a very good position!

Comet Lulin

I saw this visitor last night but the sky was a bit dusty and the comet was very dim. Tonight there was little wind and the sky was much clearer. I could see Regulus and 3 or 4 stars of Leo's mane plus 3 stars of his tail. Last night I could only make out one other star besides Regulus. Tonight Lulin was about a half degree from SAO 98931 at a PA of 290 degrees. Both nights it was a bit off from the position predicted by CdC. The comet was very easy to spot tonight. I did a one star alignment on Regulus and the comet was in the field of view of my 26mm ep. I could not make out any tail but the core was about a half degree in diameter. The Beehive cluster was also much clearer tonight. Saturn was a nice view with my 10mm and 2x barlow. The rings were just a razor thin line through Saturn's globe. The night was almost a disaster though. Just after glimpsing Lulin, a line of clouds moved in over the top of Regulus and Saturn both! I amused myself with Saturn as it was peeking in and out of the clouds until they moved on past Regulus and I was able to watch the comet some more. I said goodbye to Lulin about 11:00. If it's still around in a month or so I may try again with my 8" in Missouri.

M42 Great Orion Nebula

It's been awhile but the weather was nice and clear, not too cold, and I decided to check out the occultation of M45 by the first quarter moon. I set up my ETX-70 and aligned on Capella and Castor with no problem but when I selected 'Great Orion Nebula' it slewed to Orion but no nebula. I think it was pointed somewhere near Orion's belt. I then tried several of Orion's bright stars and tried M42 again. No luck. Finally I aligned on Betelguese again and selected M42 from Messier objects. Bingo, right on target. I'm wondering if the named object (orion nebula) is entered wrong in the database. I was able to see Theta 1 and 2 easily but couldn't split the trapezium even with a 10 mm ep. The nebula showed up nicely though. Nair al Saif and NGC 1980 nebula were pretty too. I found the moon and M45 and a dim star near the dark limb of the moon but decided not to wait for an occultation. M45 wasn't nearly as nice with the moon nearby and I didn't want to fool with the moon after my last painfull experience!