setting up shop

It wasn't too cold, mid 50's, and no moon, clear, so I thought I'd start setting up shop in the backyard observatory at GGG tonight. I set up and leveled my little ETX table but didn't bother setting up the scope. I opted for a chair and 7x50 binocs instead and focused on the Perseus/Cassiopea area just northeast of the house. Limiting mag was about 7. I easily found the double cluster and the major stars of Perseus and all 5 bright stars in Cas. The dc didn't come close to its brilliance in CO this summer but at least it is fairly high. I may try it with the ETX in a few days. There was a lot of smoke in the air and it smelled bad outside so I quit early. I hope every night isn't 'burn trash' night this year.

More moon and Jupiter

The moon is almost full but I decided to setup again tonight in front and see if I could snag a sidewalk visitor or two. I did meet Floyd Smith, a neighbor and first year resident of GGG out walking his dog. It took three tries to marginally align the ETX, not a good night. It wanted to use Vega which was behind a palm tree, and after I started on my second try, the power went off. I finally took the timer of off my outlet and at least stopped that little aggravation. The third time was better: I got Vega ok but missed Fomalhout but found Jupiter ok as well as the Moon. All four moons were on the same side but IO and Europa were overlapped too close and I could not split them. Calisto was barely visible just to the south of a line between Jupiter and the other three moons. Ganymede and the two overlapped moons were plenty bright and easily seen. I was able to make out one cloud band on Jupiter just fine with the yellow filter. Moving on to the Moon, there wasn't much of a terminator but Cardanius and it's companion crater Krafft were obvious, very clear and high contrast. Grimaldi, the dark circular plain, was obvious as were two craters just to the north: Hevelius and Covalarius. The yellow filter kept the brightness down enough so that it wasn't painful to look at the moon but it wasn't as comfortable as first quarter.

Jupiter's Moons and our own

It was exceptionally clear, calm, and warm outside tonight, and my old computers weren't cooperating, so I decided to haul out the scope and see if I could find Jupiter and the moon. I was rewarded with a fine appearance of the ISS and when I turned to Jupiter about 7:00 I was rewarded with a smaller satellite crossing the FOV while I was focusing the ETX. Pretty cool. I found Jupiter after a quick and dirty alignment and experimented with my four filters. The yellow one worked best and at least one cloud band was clearly visible. Ganymede and Callisto were clearly visible but Io and Europa were aligned and very close to the planet's glare so I could only barely make them out. I was using my 10mm ep so things were fairly large. The 10mm and yellow filter seem to make a nice pair with the ETX and Jupiter. I had no problem keeping things in the FOV. I next turned to the moon and it was also nice at 35x and a yellow filter. Not so bright that it hurt and Bullialdus crater and it's companions A, B, and C were clearly visible along the terminator. Bullialdus A is only about 14 mi wide. Copernicus was also a fine sight. I couldn't find my portable map so had to use my laptop's Virtual Moon Atlas.
It may be time to reconsider deep sky stuff and start paying more attention to the moon. I thought I might be able to snag a walkup or two but no such luck. One guy came by as we were watching the ISS go over. Turns out he had worked on it at Houston so wasn't particularly impressed. Ho hum.

Behold, Comet 103P/Hartley 2

The cover of this month's S&T mentioned a visible comet was currently passing through Perseus so I decided to try to see it from our dark MO skies before leaving for the light polluted valley. I went out last night about 11:00 after we got back from Nashville and saw a dim grey blob about 25' in diameter about where S&T's chart said it should be. It was barely visible in my 7x50's but clear in my 8" dob. Tonight I went out about 8:30 with the moon still pretty high and about a quarter moon so the sky was pretty bright but cloudless and still. I was able to see 4th mag Eta Per unaided and most of the brighter stars of Perseus. The blob I saw last night was gone but seemed to be located between a pair of 7th mag stars near NGC 1444. A serpentine asterism of dim stars leading to a pair of stellar points that included 1444 along with Lam Per and 43 per were also in the field of my 7x50's. Current orbital elements for 103P/Hartley 2 placed it right on top of the stellar companion to NGC1444 but I didn't see any fuzzy blob there. The stellar companion was identified by CdC as HD 23800, a 7th mag star. If nothing else, I was able to figure out how to enter the orbital elements for a comet. The main 'trick' was to construct CdC's Perihelion T figure from several values in the orbital elements: 20101028.2598 comes from T 2010 Oct. 28.2598 TT. If all goes well, I'll try to continue to monitor Hartley 2 down in the valley. This one isn't as impressive as some in the past but comets are always cool!

M79 - the last and final

I couldn't sleep and it was nice and clear with no moon at 4:30 so I decided to go for it. Armed with my trusty 7x50's and 'distant suns' iPod app I slipped into my sweats and into the cold. There was Orion and Lupus, big and bright. I could see m79's companion HR1771, a mag 5 star, unaided. With my 7x50's I could make out a dim glow just to the north of it: M79! I quickly grabbed my 8" dob, noticed M79 clearly in the 9x50 raci, and bingo, there it was, a nice bright globular. M79 is only a few 1000 ly's away so it's one of the 3 brightest globulars in the Messier collection. I'm wondering why I never saw it before, particularly as it is so easy to find next to Orion. Maybe it's just dwarfed by all the goodies in Orion. I'll have to try for it again in the valley when it will be out at a much more opportune time of night. 4:30 is for the owls.

Two of the Final Three: M1 and M77

After our square dance Saturday night, the stars were nice and bright and there was no wind (finally) so I decided to try for M77. I've been watching for it during the past several nights as the moon has been waning. Tonight was the night. I decided to move my observatory to the south lawn in order to get around some trees that have been growing and obscuring the view from our deck. It worked out well. I put down our fiber mat that we use with the casita and that made a nice base to work on. Cetus was fairly bright although not as nice as in Colorado or the Mojave. I pointed the 8" red dot finder a little to the left of a line from 84 and Delta Cetus, fine tuned with the 9x50 raci and bingo, right on target. M77 was a faint fuzzy but clearly a galaxy. It's a barred spiral but I couldn't make out any particular structure. It was fairly large in my 27mm ep and the field stars matched CdC just fine. After admiring M77, I decided to go all the way and try for M1 in Taurus. I found Aldeberan and the 'V' of taurus ok but zet tau was behind a tree. I finally decided to move the scope a bit and get a clearer shot. I found Zet Tau which was visible unaided and set my red dot just above Zet Tau and then fine tuned with the raci by centering just to the left of the midpoint of a a line between Zet Tau and HR1831. Once again, I was right on target and the crab nebula presented itself as a nice size fuzzy that looked vaguely like a crab. Both of these were plenty bright for the 8" and I had no trouble viewing them. At times I was able to convince myself that I saw them in my 7x50 binocs but that might be a stretch. I finished off with a peek at the moons of Jupiter and saw three on one side and one on the other. I convinced myself that I was able to see the three in my 9x50 raci by blocking Jupiter's light with the cross hairs. Jupiter was quite bright and I could almost see a shadow cast by it's light. The Pleades was also beautiful as usual. Aldeberan was low and twinkling like crazy but a pretty red nevertheless. The Moon cooperated by staying below the horizon the whole time. I quit about 1:30 am. That leaves only one more Messier: M79, a globular just below Orion and will need to wait until later in the year. I'll see if I can find it with my ETX70.

September Messier Tour

I was surfing through some astronomy sites this afternoon and ran across Tony Cecce's monthly Messier Tour. This looked interesting even though I've logged all eight listed for September. They are all globular clusters which I enjoy observing: M13, M92, M14, M22, M28, M69, M70, M54. M13 and M92 in Hercules were easy in binocs although M92 was a bit harder and looked more like a star. I almost waited too long and M92 was about to disappear behind the house by the time I got to it. M13 is easiest since it is in the Hercules trapezoid and visible unaided. M92 can be found by spotting a little 'arrow' asterism just west of Iot Her, in fact it forms a rather flat isocoles triangle with Iot and Pi Her. The little arrow asterism points right at M92 which looks like a fairly bright star in my 7x50's. It was just 'below' a small square of 7th mag stars, one corner of which was a pair of stars. M22 is nice in my 7x50's and easy to find at the top of the Sgr teapot. M14 was visible in Ophiuchus but just barely, small and bright. M28, 69, 70, and 54 were all no-shows in binocs but easy enough in my 8" dob. I should probably try again and just look for a dim star where they ought to be. While I was near M22 I decided to try for some of the other globulars in Sagitarius and snagged IC6638 and IC6642, both small and dim even in my 8", definitely no-shows in binocs. I finished off the night with a peek at Jupiter's moons, three of which were visible, all on the same side. A single band could be readily seen. Just before shutting down I glanced over at the Andromeda Galaxy which was big and bright as usual, and the double cluster in Perseus which also was visible unaided, just not quite as bright as it was in Colorado.
Seeing was great, sky was steady, a little breeze, 70 degrees, 45% humidty, no dew, no moon, just a great night for observing.