Hercules, Lyra and Aquila (A)

My list of choice Messier objects coupled with the free monthly star charts from skymaps.com (righteous) are making it easier to determine the best catch of the night for my location / time of year / time of night.



Right now Hercules is high in the sky when I finally get outside (10pm or later), but I don't mind waiting since it's pretty hot until then when some cool breezes start lending me their help. Near the keystone of Hercules we looked at M13 - the Hercules Globular Cluster commonly called "Best Globular in the Northern Skies"... it doesn't suck too much at all. This is where the 250mm beats down on the 70mm since I couldn't really get much closer than the 20mm in the refractor, but w/ the big dob I went all the way to 15mm w/ 3x Barlow (240x magnification) which showed me individual stars :)



Lyra - saw the double double (one is stacked up and one is side to side).




Ring Nebula - while looking at Lyra I noticed this DSO and it's the one you see in the picture books... Here are two pictures of it (one that's almost like it looked for me and one that's a hubble level badass).



Here's the badass...




It's so amazing to actually see a smoke ring floating through space with my own eyes and absolutely no artificial shenanigans at all (electronics, etc.).



Now on to Aquila (the eagle) - At it's tail is M11, the Wild Duck Cluster... named for it's V shape through binoculars. Lots of stars that are easy to differentiate, but the shape is definitely asymmetrical.



Scorpius - Saw the three stars that make up his claws and identified it - that's pretty much it.

Help from Cloudynights.com folks (A)

So I've been a little bit down mainly due to not being able to resolve anything on Mars. I registered on the forums for cloudynights.com a while back (huge astronomy forum website w/ tons of international/professional/amateur folks on it).




So... I figured I'd ask the powers that be if I was just out of line expectation wise. Turns out... noone is seeing much of anything on Mars right now due to it being so far away from Earth. In 2012 it'll be close again and will allow us to see something, but considering it's 1/2 the size of earth and pretty far away (see pic).



Anyway... they were hugely helpful and gave me a ton of tips and DSO's (Deep Sky Objects) that I need to be checking out to get the most out of my telescope. Tonight was more productive than usual because I didn't bother trying to eke out 8mag galaxies and went for the ones they'd mentioned that were in my line of sight.



12:30am 5/29/2010 - 73° with a full moon to make my eyes hurt when I'm not in the shade.



I started with binoculars thinking, "I'll just take a peek for a little while... no harm there", but eventually had to get the big gun out because it's just too clear and nice to not to.



My binoculars are basically like having 2 70mm telescopes on your head with magnification of 15x (Celestron Sky Master) and are bad ass when you can keep them still.



M13 / 5.7 magnitude - in the "keystone" which is part of the constellation Hercules, through the binos was a nice fuzzy ball, but using the Barlow (3x) and 15mm (for a total of 240x magnification) was a beautiful cluster of stars. Had the moon not been out smacking me about the head and neck with a broken bottle it would have been gorgeous.



Draco V - nice double star described as cat's eyes (looks like Derek Riggs handiwork) - very nice at 112x magnification (32mm).




My last constellation was Aquila (which has an alpha of Altair) and the nearby Brocchi's Cluster, called "The Coathanger". I couldn't find the cluster w/ the scope, but with binoculars it totally looked like a coathanger with 5 stars on the bottom and the hook made from another few.

Full Moon Feber (A)

So... it's hot and muggy/buggy and I'm doing my best to tolerate the full moon :(



Seeing wasn't great, but I was looking to the west to get some Mars/Venus action and I've got trees overhead, so you get what you get.



Venus - white and featureless (no big surprise since no one ever sees much when looking at Venus, still... it was nice getting up close and seeing a big white ball rather than a small white ball.



Mars - orange and featureless - the seeing was particular bad for this target and it was very wavy to look at. I'm sure the heat was an issue, but nothing to be done for that... Checked out the Beehive Cluster with my new 32mm Televue and it was very nice. Usually I end up looking at it through binoculars, but this was a pleasant change. For some reason it looked like it had less stars or something. I'm sure it's just my imagination and the single eye vs. both eye effect.



Discovered that collimating with my new laser tool showed me that you probably need to do your alignment with the scope pointed in the right direction (alt wise) since the motion of pointing from down to up can flex the tube and cause the collimation to be off quite severely. A different mount might improve this, but who knows?



During collimation I realized I need some Bobs Knobs to go tool less.


Spent a little time looking for about 5 galaxies in Leo with no luck, but they were 9th mag galaxies and that's pretty faint. Need to study up on my City Astronomy book to see what targets are the least susceptible to light pollution. My new filter is blocking some light, but I can't really tell if it's working the way it's supposed to.



I'll be honest. Reading my astronomy books and reading things like "easy to see details in a small scope" is depressing since I can't seem to pull it off with my largish scope. I'm sure it's a skill deficiency on my part, but I've not been able to pin down the problem yet. Anyway - I'm still learning and having fun, but toting that big mama-jamba isn't easy. I think next time I'll have to drop the cash and get something w/ capability, but lighter and smaller... easy to say when I don't have the cash :)

Strange Luck, but good :) (A)

I received my new Barlow (3x) adapter and various other sundries (light pollution filter, etc.) and tonight I actually got to use them. Most of the time I end up with "new telescope syndrome" whereby the weather conspires to keep me from enjoying my new toys for a week or more. For some reason it ended up clear tonight. Humid and hot, but clear none-the-less.



M13 - located in the keystone (Hercules) this is the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules and per the Interweb... "Globular cluster M13 was selected in 1974 as target for one of the first radio messages addressed to possible extra-terrestrial intelligent races, and sent by the big radio telescope of the Arecibo Observatory." It's very easy to spot and I viewed it at all of my resolutions finding the 15mm w/ Barlow to be the closest without getting blurry or out of focus. I think if it hadn't been so close to the horizon I'd have seen it brighter, but still... a DSO is a DSO sometimes.



The new gear performed well. The Televue eyepiece and barlow perform so well it's hard to believe. :) I'm not so sure about the filter... we'll have to see in a more varied environment.

Televue to the Rescue! (A)

I received my first Televue brand eyepiece today. It's a 32mm plossl with a 50mm apparent field of view. That just means it's got a bigger view than a typical plossl (usually 40 or so). Ultimately it's a space window that lets you get a wide view of things and is 100% clear from edge to edge. My other eyepieces are clear in the middle, but get blurry on the edges, change focus, etc. This makes it particularly nice since moving my dob isn't necessarily smooth and easy. I just get the heavenly body on the opposite side of the scope and let it drift from one side to the other enjoying perfect focus the whole time.



M81 and M82 - FINALLY!!!! I saw them. I saw both galaxies at the same time and was overcome with joy as I've been attempting to see both of them for at least a half dozen outings. It doesn't help to read the words, "M81 is one of the easiest and most rewarding galaxies to observe for the amateur astronomer on the northern hemisphere, because with its total visual brightness of about 6.8 magnitudes it can be found with small instruments."



That statement makes me look like a dumb ass for not being able to see them. It only hit me now, but I should have centered up and went for the high powered look, but I can do that later. For now I'm just satisfied to have finally spotted them.



Corona Borealis - sort of a crown on it's side beneath Bootes... I spotted it and it just looked familiar so I looked in my book and sure enough it was the crown



M3 - Now we're talking! After looking at Bootes (Arcturus in particular) I started looking to the left and up to spot this globular cluster (big knot of stars basically). After going up in magnification (from the 32mm to 9.7mm, so 38x to 124x) I could actually resolve the stars instead of just a blurry patch in the sky. Incidentally... all Messier objects are pretty much "faint fuzzies" so they all look blurry to some degree.



Anyway - my new EP is awesome and takes advantage of the light gathering power of my telescope so now I can actually spot some DSO's (Deep Sky Objects) :)

Moons of Saturn (A)

Not a super night tonight, but I gave Saturn some time and enjoyed it's moons.


From left to right, Titan, Rhea, Tethys, Mimas (which I couldn't see because it's like right on top of the rings), Enceladus, Dione

Astronomy Shed (A)

So... I've successfully craigslisted our mower and trimmer (good idea wife!) to make room in the storage shed. I've swept it out and moved the gardening stuff to the other side. I still need to throw some stuff away, but this is a start. I'm planning on having half the shed for astronomy stuff since my huge telescope eats up as much space as it does. The upsides are more room for stuff and I won't have to wait for cool-down time since the scope will already be at ambient temperature. I'll be moving stuff out there tonight probably so we'll see how comfy it is once I get everything moved in. Now I just need to figure out how to attach wheelbarrow handles so it's easier to move around.