Night Photos (by Tim Harpur)

The Lyrid meteor shower is due to reach its peak around 4:00am Sunday. The CSC is predicting very favourable viewing conditions.

I didn’t have a lot of time to observe, last night, but the beautiful crescent Moon / Venus combination drew me under the clear skies above my backyard observatory.
The air was calm and the humidity about 55%, enough to soften the edges of Saturn and its rings, and give a bright beam to my laser pointer (my new test for transparency 😉
Still, Leo and Ursa Major were well-placed for a little galaxy hunting so I got busy and managed to bag the following 10:
M65, M66 (couldn’t pull in the NGC companion), M105, NGC 2903, M81, M82, M101 (you really have to know what you’re looking for to get that one), NGC 5194 & NGC 5195 (M51), and M94 which has a surprisingly bright core – almost looks like a tiny globular.
Overall, not bad for an hour’s observing 🙂

WOW! After a long unsettled first half of April it looks like the current forecast models are suggesting pretty nice weather just in time for Astronomy Day.

Since it is quite a few days away conditions may change but for the past two days the trend has been consistent with showing a ridge of high pressure that will build across much of the province. Associated with this will be fair skies and warmer temperatures for Saturday. There is a chance that we could be brushed with a few clouds from the tail end of a warm front but it doesn’t look detrimental at this time.

Anyway, I’ll post an update in a couple of days if things change.

KerryLH
Clear Skies to all!

A new image of the side-by-side open clusters M46 and M47 has been posted in my HAA Gallery.

Click here to see a new digital image with the Crab Nebula (M1) in it, taken by Bob Christmas on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 from Mountsberg, ON.

Not having the energy for a trip to the Planetarium, Gail and I invited Kerry over to check out our observatory. Kerry is just a short drive from us and arrived at dusk.
Since we haven?t had many observing opportunities, lately, I?d pulled out all the toys and, while we waited for stars to emerge, we started the evening with a look at the 5 day Moon with the binocular box . At an altitude of ~60°, the Moon was well up in the sky and Kerry was impressed with how comfortable the mirror design of the binocular box was to use on objects approaching the zenith.
While Venus was favourably positioned I put a green filter on a Pentax 21mm ep and after looking at the planet ?boil? in the atmosphere for a minute, we pushed our 6? reflector up to the Moon. Seeing was quite steady and the green filter was a nice change to the mundane gray of a regular ?Moon filter?. We upped the power, and spent a moment examining a low dark ridge bordering the terminator on the edge of Mare Nectaris.
The stars were out by then so I removed the filter and let Kerry practice aiming the dob using the bulls-eye sight of the Rigel Quikfinder. In Quikfinder succession we looked at Mintaka and Alnitak in Orion?s Belt, and multiple system Sigma Orionis just below it.
After the obligatory stop at M42 we went in search of some clusters.
The Pleiades were an obvious choice and provided a chance to compare views between our 6? f8 scope and the Starblast which is a 4.5? f4. The smaller, faster ratio scope enabled us to get the entire star field in view, and I showed Kerry how to see the warhorse asterism in M45. We then compared views of M44, the Beehive Cluster, and decided that small scopes with wide field of views are ideal for these kind of targets.
While hunting open clusters, we bagged M35 and its small companion NGC 2158, M67, and the popular NGC 457 or ET cluster. By then, Saturn had cleared the walnut tree and we had nice views of its attractions including 3 of the larger moons.
Disregarding the moonglow, we decided to hunt some galaxies and managed to pull in NGC 2903, M81 & 82, M108, and planetary nebula M97. Not bad!
We finished the night as we had begun, with the binocular box. A last, low-power, look at the Beehive Cluster then a final challenge of picking up M81 & 82. With the aid of my laser pointer Kerry brought them into view and added the laser pen to her must have list.
It was the best kind of informal astronomy night of which, I?m sure, there?ll be many more.

KerryAnn invited a few members of the HAA over to observe from her driveway – unfortunately for most they had prior obligations to attend an HAA council meeting and missed out on the opportunity 🙁

Although KerryAnn’s place is very close to the bright Grimsby city lights – it’s high up on the escarpment and well above the majority of the light pollution – it’s not Binbrook, but it is a very nice alternative site. The viewing wasn’t the best last night – with high humidity/haze and the occasional cloud floating over – but even so, we were able to make out some very faint objects – and Saturn presented excellent views in both Kerry’s 6″ SCT and my 80mm APO. When I setup my equipment I could see my breath and gave KerryAnn’s 6″ corrector about 45 minutes before dew would hit (she doesn’t have a dew shield yet) – I was wrong – it wasn’t until near the end of a 3 hour observing session that dew struck.

I had originally planned on imaging the Pleiades, but with the moon only a few degrees away I decided to go for the Rosetta (or Rosette) Nebula instead. KerryAnn tried her hand at imaging M1, the Crab Nebula, but due to lack of a guide scope she was limited to very short exposures.

After about 3 hours the temperature dropped and the clouds rolled in – so we decided to pack up.

The Rosetta Nebula (click on Title link for larger image)
imaged by Tim Harpur March 22, 2007

Canon Digital Rebel XTi mounted prime focus with UHC/LPR filter on
Celestron Onyx 80mm EDF refractor
manually guided
3 x 10 minutes @ ISO1600 stacked

Armed with certain knowledge of clear skies, and tentative clues that others would be there, i set out for the alternate site at about 8PM.
I was keen to test my binoculars under different conditions and see if they work better under ‘darker’ skies.

After driving by a few times, i noticed the turnoff and approached with headlights off. Turns out the dome light in my car wants to turn on when the key gets turned off. I will get that right next time.

M45 was high in the sky above a thin crescent moon, which was setting.
I had already completed my MM for this year… Jim was there, with his scope set up. He was picking up Messiers with his 8 inch scope
that i could only drool over with binoculars.

It was very cold though. As Jim was busy doing a telescope-only object, i would jump ahead and try my new red flashlight and star charts on the binocular objects. It did not take him long to catch up. I would have to say that the sky at the alternate location was not much darker than at the farm, and the trees are certainly a lot more troublesome. I think a 2 hour drive up north is in the cards for next month.

There was a lot of play in my tripod. I need one that can rotate without releasing the tilt control. The wind was very light, which helped a lot. The hand warmers got good use. With my star charts i tried hopping to m81, instead of using the interpolation technique i had used before. It is still pretty hard to get there with the charts, although there’s enough detail on them to establish you are there when you get there. The binoculars just don’t show enough of the field of view to move in the charts from object to object. This calls for ‘zoom’ binoculars, i think. I am also considering attaching a smaller lower-magnification pair on the same axis as the big ones.

At about midnight, we established that all the remaining Messier objects were still below the horizon, and packed up. 43 Messiers for Jim. Not bad.

We warmed up at Tim Horton’s in Dundas and phoned Jackie to see what happened to her plans. Turned out she got sidetracked to a warmer observing location. (!)

By Kerry

I had a great short night out last night with the C6 SCT. I had a hard day at work and was really tired and not in the mood to set up…. but I am glad that I changed my mind. My observations will be old news to many of you more experienced types but I just wanted to share.

Last night my site conditions were mag 5.5 (LVM) with some thin cirrus towards the east and it was also a bit breezy. I was set up on my front/side porch with the lights of Grimsby seen below (I’m on the escarpment).

Anyway, I used Mike’s 32mm the most, then the 25mm that came with the scope.

M1- I was so surprised with how bright and big it appeared. For years
I couldn’t even find it in my 4.5 in newt. GOTO is awesome!

M42- so much detail. Almost like a photograph but without the colour.
the 4 stars in the trapezium were sharp and easily seen but a few times
appeared to have lost focus. Not sure what was up with that. Maybe it
is the SCT focuser???

M82- bright elongation with a dark patch/slant almost half way across
it’s length. The dark area was easily visible with slightly averted vision

M81- nice bright core with oval shaped fuzziness around it. I was
expecting that an increase in power (10mm sirius plossl) would cause
it to be very faded but it was still nice and bright.

M96 and M95 could see the shapes but could not make out any detail… Anyway, my toes were really freezing so I didn’t spend much more time trying.

My favorite open cluster for the night was M38. I could not get over the
number of stars that I could see in the 35mm EP. It just filled the
field and was very beautiful.

Saturn – I finally saw a hint of the Cassini Division with the shadow
from the rings. I could make out 2 bands on the planet… it was
pretty breezy so Saturn was not crisp most of the time. I used the
10mm plossl.

Anyway I guess that’s it. I have to say I’m not dissapointed in this 6in. I can’t wait to go to a darker site (Binbrook). I wonder how much more detail I’d be able to see in the galaxies. As for Astrophotography… well of course I can’t wait to get more into that. I’m still waiting for a piggy back bracket and I will need an illuminated Reticle to try my hand at manual guiding. Oh ya someone has to show me how to collimate.

Take care for now and clear skies to all,

KerryLH