Author Archives: FJA

Comet, etc

England v Algeria in the World Cup is on ITV1 and the match is so good, I am typing this. Yes, it is terrible and England are embarrassingly woeful. It’s a pity that assistant coach David Beckham can’t go on, even in his nicely cut suit he’d play better than this lot. In fact my grandmother would do better than Rooney et al, and she’s been dead for nine years.

I did manage to get out and observe Comet C/2009 R1 McNaught the other night, I set my alarm for 0200 and was actually able to get out of bed to do so. I can’t usually get up early to go observing, but as this comet is only around for a short while, I made myself get up. I had to walk up the footpath in front of the house to get clear of the trees blocking the view of Perseus (which is why I used my 8×42 binoculars and not a telescope) which the comet is currently passing through. It took me a while to see it as the sky was not that dark (it is June at 50 degrees north, after all), there was a lot of murk in the sky and, hence, a lot of skyglow. The comet was faint and round and I could not see the tail.

My car passed its MOT with no problems today, although yesterday I noticed a judder in the clutch. However this type of electronically-controlled manual gearbox called a ‘Sensodrive’ is known for clutch judder, so I am hoping it is not a problem. Anyway, the car not needing anything done to it means I can begin saving for the 18″ Dob I want to get. I have two months worth of work starting on the 24th, although it won’t be anywhere near enough to save up all the nearly £3000 needed, it’ll be a start. Providing work keeps coming I should be able to save the money in 6-7 months.
I had been doing a separate blog for the Herschel 400 project, but I have decided to bin it and just put the posts here, after all I am duplicating 99% of the stuff and that’s pretty pointless, so I am just going to keep it all on this one.

Where’s summer gone?

It’s mid June. We know this because it says so on the calendar, there are baby birds everywhere, there’s too much daylight, the Isle of Wight Festival has just happened – and it is cloudy, wet and chilly. I have tried – and failed – to get out to see comet C/2009 R1 McNaught, every time I have planned to observe it, clouds have interfered. Hopefully, the weather will improve soon; the weather forecast is looking a bit better from tomorrow.

New ‘observatory’ coming soon!

My aunt is letting me use the top section of the garden for a small observatory. This ‘observatory’ is actually going to be a shed, in which I’ll store my scopes, a small table for charts, a folding chair, a basket for my dog to curl up in as she always accompanies me when I observe, and a few other bits and pieces. Whenever I want to observe, I can then just wheel my 12″ scope out, rather than do what I do now which is carry the scope from my room, though the house and up the garden, which takes at least ten minutes and, given the weight and sheer bloody awkwardness of both the tube and the base, is a bit of a pain to do every time. I just put up with it as I want to observe, so I have to do the lifting and carrying but it really was a nuisance and as I am now getting knee pain a lot I needed to find an alternative way of doing things. I had bought a sack truck (hand trolley to my US friends) from B&Q to move the OTA with, but the tyres have gone flat, due to no inner tube and the inevitable punctures, so it’s now no use as it causes too much jolting.

This is where the observatory is going to be put. The bricks at the back of the picture are going to form the base.

I plan to fit wheels, such as appliance wheels (of the sort used to move fridges and washing machines, etc), or buy a garden trolley and convert it into a scope dolly, to the base which will definitely make life easier. But I have to ensure I buy wheels, or a trolley, with some sort of brakes on or it’ll be moving all over the place when I am observing – no use whatsoever!
I am also going to need some sort of dew control, such as a lightbulb or low watt heater, which I can run off a car battery charged by a solar panel. I have had one mirror’s coatings wrecked by condensation and mould, which will cost me around £135 to get resilvered and I don’t want a repeat of that!
The top of the garden is a bit too close to the neighbours for my liking (a couple of houses; we live across a footpath from them) and one house has a couple of kids who climb the trees and can overlook the garden, and I don’t like that, but the observatory won’t be directly beneath that tree. However, the hedge, and fence beyond that, plus the oak trees in the neighbours’ gardens, are high enough that there’ll be no significant light tresspass from any houses, even in winter because the hedge is a mixture of evergreen and native plants. The top of the garden also has good views of the south and south east, plus I can catch stuff rising in the east (over the house but you can’t have everything – and the garden’s huge, so the house is actually not much of a hindrance and the light trespass from it won’t be as significant as it is now, when I observe from the patio). There is a large tree obscuring part of the south east sky but the harsh winter this year killed it and it is due to be cut down at some point, when we can find an alternative place to hang the bird feeders and fix one end of the washing line.
Potential theft is a concern but I will make the shed as thief-proof as humanly possible and I am not going to keep anything of any value in there, beyond the telescopes – eyepieces, etc, will be stored in the house. I currently use a cheap scope and, frankly, it and the others are not worth the effort of pinching them. Besides, any would-be thieves will have to carry an insanely heavy instrument a long way down a large garden and get past three dogs who do not tolerate strangers or intruders.
The shed is ordered and should turn up early next month and we can get it put together while the weather is good.

TSP – The Objects: Part 5

This is the final instalment of the objects I saw at this year’s Texas Star Party – and you might be pleased to know it’s a very short one as the weather did not co-operate! I’d got invited back to the 48″ by Jimi and Alvin for some more huge scope observing.

Friday 14th May.
Conditions: Started out clear and dry but the humidity rose sharply after dark to a very high 78%
Seeing: II
Transparency: II
NELM: 6.5-6.7
Instrument: 48″ f4 Dob

IC 1182, galaxy in Serpens – Faint, oval, with optical jet (MAC 1605+1747B).
Possible new gravitational lens in Lynx?? – At first, this looks similar to the Double QSO in UMa, with two fat ‘stars’ on show, but at high magnification each component looks elongated while at very high magnification (1200x) there is a tiny companion located at “5o’clock'” from the larger object.
We also looked at some eye candy before shutting down.

By 0100 it was obvious that this was not going to be an all-night session, we could see fog over the Prude Ranch four miles away and the humidity, which had been rising all evening, was now 78%. The transparency had dropped right off and clouds were rolling in, so we packed up and headed back down to the house for chat and a beer.
And that was it for the observing at the 2010 Texas Star Party, as the following night, Saturday, was a complete write-off due to clouds. It had been a good star party, observing-wise and we all had enough observing to make us all happy.

TSP – The Objects: Part 4

Thursday 13th May. This was an attempt at another of Larry’s Lists, this time the ‘Rings Over Texas’ list from 2000. Again, it was Alvin Huey, Dennis Beckley and myself observing with Dennis’ 18 inch. The notes are quite very sparse as I was observing with the others and we were trying to get the list done against interference by clouds and – for ten minutes – by a skunk.

Conditions: Partially clear with some drifting cloud interfering, lightning to the north east.
Location: Prude Ranch, Fort Davis, TX.
NELM: 6.9
Seeing: II-III
Transparency: IV (when the drifting clouds were not in the way)
Instrument: 18 inch f4.5 Obsession dob. 17mm Ethos (121x), 13mm Ethos (158x), 11mm Plossl (187x), 6mm Ethos (343x)

NGC 2685, polar ring galaxy in UMa – Bright, with a elongated centre and an oval outer halo. Nice. 343x

NGC 5122, polar ring galaxy in Virgo – Faint, oval with a brighter centre. 187x.

NGC 2793, ring galaxy in Lynx – Faint and oval. Even brightness. 158x.

AM 1358-221, ring galaxy in Virgo – Quite faint at mag 15.8, oval.

MCG -4-33-27, ring galaxy in Virgo – Brighter than AM 1358-221. Small and oval. Next to a bright star.

Arp 87, NGC 3808, polar ring galaxy in Leo – Double galaxy next to a bright star: one, 3808A is larger than the other (3808B). Quite dim.

NGC 3861, polar ring galaxy in Abell 1367 (Leo) – bright, round, with a brighter centre. This was interrupted by a skunk wandering around; we abandoned the scope for a few minutes until he passed. I’ll get the pun in before anyone else does – we were skunked!

Minkowski 1-64 (PK64+15.1), planetary nebula in Lyra – Round, well defined. Star just off northern edge. 343x.

II Hz 4, ring galaxy in Lynx – Adjacent to a star this is very faint and pops in and out of vision (more out than in!). Round.

NGC 4650A, polar ring galaxy in Centaurus – Elongated. Not very bright.

Mayall’s Object (Arp 148), polar ring galaxy in UMa – Faint, elongated dim glow.

M57, central star – Nearly forgot this one! M57’s central star was on the Rings Over Texas list and we got it without too much difficulty. It popped into view, looking very stellar, during moments of good seeing.

By this time, clouds were beginning to be a real nuisance so we packed up around 3am without observing all 25 objects needed for the pin; we observed around 14 of them although I only wrote down 12. As Alvin and I were going to be back at the 48″ the following night we wouldn’t get a chance to finish the list this TSP.

Alvin and I also managed to knock off the 2010 TSP Binocular Pin. Sat in adjacent chairs with our pairs of binoculars it was a case of ‘yep’ [write down the time]…’yep’ [write down the time]…’yep’ [write down the time]…and so on. Easy and just as much fun as the faint, esoteric stuff in its own way. A bit of light, hit-and-run astronomy.

TSP – The Objects: Part 3

The third night I was at TSP, Wednesday 12th May, I observed on the Ranch. Larry Mitchell invited me to observe with him and the 36”. He was putting together the Advanced List for TSP 2011, which was to be faint objects near Messier Objects.

Conditions: Clear, cool.
Location: Prude Ranch, Fort Davis, TX
NELM: 6.9
Seeing: II
Transparency:  III
Instrument: 36” Obsession; Eyepieces: 13mm Ethos

First up, we looked for a faint galaxy next to M108 in Ursa Major. This was one of Larry’s own MAC galaxies, MAC 1110+5538 but this was incredibly faint. I was not sure I saw anything in that area, maybe a slightest of brightening of the background sky but no more than that. Several people looked, including Larry, but none of us could say for sure that we saw it. As Larry said, if you can’t see it in a 36” scope, people with smaller scopes are not definitely going to see it so it was pointless putting it on the list.

M108 itself was huge in the eyepiece, stretching almost the width of the field. Evenly bright right across, apart from some mottling in the eastern part of the galaxy.

MAC 1111+5536, galaxy in UMa – this was also in the vicinity of M108, located just south of it. This was a faint, nondescript smudge in the eyepiece, elongated NE-SW. It is slightly brighter than MAC 1110+5538 at mag 17.0 instead of 17.5.

NGC 5907, galaxy in Draco – Very large and bright. Stretches across field of view. Dust lane visible. Edge on.

IC 4617, galaxy in Hercules  – Very small and quite faint. Not well defined. There’s some brightening towards the centre. Elongated.

Hickson 82 in Hercules– Nice little group, with nine galaxies visible. I sketched it but omitted a description.

NGC 4038/38, galaxies in Corvus – Huge in the eyepiece, bright and full of detail. HII regions are bright and the tidal tails are seen with relative ease. I made a sketch which I’ll scan and upload at some point, but I have a few to do so it might be some time before they appear!

It was at then that the effects of only ten hours’ sleep since Sunday were making themselves felt and things were becoming decidedly ‘not fun’. I could hardly keep my eyes open, I was cold and my feet were killing me so I reluctantly told Larry that I had to give up for the night. I hated wasting half the night, as it was only 0230 but, as Larry pointed out, only ten hours’ sleep in three days is overdoing things a bit!

TSP – The Objects: Part 2

Tuesday 11th May was my second day at TSP, but I didn’t do any observing at the ranch that night as I got invites from Jimi Lowrey and Alvin Huey (who was staying at Jimi’s) to go and observe with them at the 48″. This was far too good an opportunity to pass up and we had an awesome observing session with good transparency and periods of good seeing.
Obviously, using such a vast scope means that faint stuff becomes fair game and we wanted to view some esoteric objects but, of course we couldn’t resist looking at some eye candy as well as the dim and distant.

Conditions: Clear, cool but not cold
NELM: 7.0+
Seeing: around II-IV
Transparency: Excellent, great detail and iridescence in Milky Way when it rose.
Instrument: 48 inch f4 Dobsonian. Eyepieces: Televue Ethos 17mm (287x), Zeiss ZAO-II 10mm (488x), Zeiss ZAO-II 6mm (814x), Zeiss ZAO-II 4mm (1220x).

NGC 3242, planetary nebula in Hydra – We started off with this lovely piece of eye candy. This is, like all eye candies, pretty nice in more modest apertures but is absolutely sensational in the eyepiece of ‘Barbarella’. There are two green rings, the inner ring is more oval than the outer one and is thickened at each end while the outer one has a furry appearance. The central star is bright. Between the rings is ‘gauzy’ looking nebulosity which has a tinge of pink to it and the whole p.n. looks three-dimensional. I try not to write ‘wow’ in observing descriptions but…like, um…wow. As they say. Fabulous! 814x

IC 4277 and IC 4278, galaxies next to NGC 5195 – no description written down.

UGC 9242, galaxy in Bootes – Very flat, edge on. Mottled, with knots visible. Core not bright and the whole thing is fairly evenly bright across. 814x

Arp 84 in Canes Venatici – this is an interacting pair, NGC 5395 and NGC 5394 (the smaller of the two). Nicknamed the ‘Heron’ and it does look like that big water bird, this is very bright and detailed. NGC 5395 is huge in the eyepiece, elongated north-south, with a bright core and spiral arms which are somewhat distorted because of the interaction with 5394.
NGC 5394 is much smaller and is bright, with a slightly brighter centre. A tail of material is trailing from NGC 5394 and a bridge of stars can be seen linking the two galaxies. 814x

Arp 105 and Ambartsumian’s Knot, galaxies in Ursa Major – This is a busy area, with several galaxies and other ‘bits ‘n’ pieces. NGCs 3561 and 3561A are the brightest galaxies in the field, with quite bright MCG+5-27-12 and an anonymous galaxy nearby. A long very, very faint tidal tail stretches off to the north with a very faint knot, VV237f, at the end of it; I could see this some of the time with averted vision and had to look for a long time to be 100% certain it was there (this is on the famous AINTNO list but when we mentioned this to Barbara and Larry the following day at the ranch they were, to say the least, skeptical. Ok, they plain didn’t believe us, which was a shame. 🙁  ).
Ambarsumian’s Knot, VV237b, lies immediately to the south of NGC 3561 and is visible as a faint, slightly elongated smudge of light.

VII Zwicky 466, galaxy in Draco – A ring galaxy, this is small and fairly faint but the ring structure is easily visible. Elongated. Inside the ring, it is evenly bright. The ring is slightly thicker on one side. There are three other galaxies nearby, one of which is edge on. 814x

QSO0957+561 A/B, quasar in Ursa Major – The Double Quasar, visually, isn’t much to look at but knowing what it is, is what makes it exciting to observe. It is a gravitationally-lensed quasar, located 8.7 billion light years away, while the lensing galaxy itself is much closer at 3.7 billion light years.
Both components easily seen, looking like a fuzzy double star, and easily split during moments of good seeing with an obvious gap between them. I could see a hint of fuzziness around the quasar(s) which may, or may not, be the lensing galaxy (this is also on the AINTNO list but, again, we were met with disbelief. 🙁 ) 814x

The three quasars surrounding NGC 3842 in Leo – These are also on the (in)famous AINTNO List and we saw them. Not easily, but they were there. Looking for each in turn they each popped into view during moments of good seeing. Each was a tiny, stellar-looking pinprick of light.

The Jet in M87, in Virgo – Easily seen as a faint ‘pencil’ of light coming from the centre of the galaxy. The orientation of the field of view meant that the jet was located at ‘8 o’clock’ from the nucleus. Another observing ambition realised. 814x

DHW 1-2, planetary nebula in Ophiuchus – Located between two bright stars. Oval, with brightening on one side. Unfiltered, the central star pops into view during moments of good seeing. 488x

NGC 6309, planetary nebula in Ophiuchus – Very bright and blue. Elongated and rectangular. Filaments seen at sides.

Rose 13 (Shakhbazian 19), galaxy group in Coma Berenices – A tight, faint group. Three components seen, one of which was very elongated. A difficult group. 814x.

As well as all the faint stuff, we got blown off the ladder with stunning views of M51, NGC 6543 (the Cat’s Eye Nebula) and M17.

What a fantastic observing session with the giant scope. It’s always a treat to be able to observe with scopes such as this and Larry’s 36 inch, opportunities like this don’t come along often and, when they do, they have to be made the most of and I think we did just that. As much as I love viewing ‘lollipops’ (don’t we all?) I also love looking at faint, difficult objects that few people have ever heard of and even fewer have actually seen visually – that tidal tail from NGC 3561A down to VV237f is a case in point; it would seem that only three people in the whole world have ever visually seen it and that’s myself, Alvin Huey and Jimi Lowrey!

We packed up at dawn and, due to tiredness plus the prospect of walking into the ranch (not a great distance but distinctly unappealing after an all-night sesh), we slept at Jimi’s before returning to the ranch later that morning – and I have to say that Jimi’s sofa is far more comfortable than the Prude bunks!

Finally, a quick note of caution – you have got to be careful when observing at the top of very tall ladders. It is not an experience for those of a nervous disposition and those scared of heights. I am not keen on heights, but I feel it is absolutely worth it for the views you get. However, I am very careful, as it would be easy to drop an eyepiece and hit someone or smash the eyepiece or, worse, to forget where you’re putting your feet and take a tumble. I very nearly did that, when I overbalanced and nearly went ‘a over t’ from the very top of the ladder before just as quickly regaining my balance. A fall would have certainly resulted in broken bones and I very much doubt if my travel insurance would pay out for falling off a ladder while standing at the top of it, on tiptoes, in the dark, looking at a very faint object through a giant telescope.

TSP – The Objects: Part 1

I have finally got round to writing out the observations from this year’s TSP and, as promised (or threatened, depending on your point of view) here are some of them. I’ll begin with Monday, 10th May and the objects from Larry Mitchell’s Advanced Observing List which, for 2010, was Super-Thin Galaxies. The observers were Alvin Huey, me and Dennis Beckley and we were using Dennis’ 18 inch f4.5 Obsession.
We also observed stuff not on the List, if it was near something we were observing – there’s no point ignoring lots of ‘cool stuff’ lying nearby. I did make a few sketches but I mostly restricted myself to brief notes.

Conditions: Clear, cool but not cold
NELM: 6.9
Seeing: around II
Transparency: very good
Instrument: 18 inch f4.5 Dobsonian. Eyepieces: 17mm (121x), 13mm (158x), 11mm (187x), 8mm (258x), 6mm (343x). These were a mix of Dennis’ Ethoses and Alvin’s Zeisses.

UGC 5267 in Leo – Edge on, easy to see, bright.
UGC 5270 in Leo – Smaller, fainter, more oval. Not on List.
MCG+2-25-42 in Leo – Very faint and small. Round. Not on List.
UGC 5341 in Leo – Very faint, edge on. Stellar nucleus.
UGC 5164 in Leo – Larger than U5341 and brighter. Edge on.
CGCG 63-37 in Leo – Lies near UGC 5164. Very faint and small. Edge on. Close to double star. Not on List.
UGC 5495 in Leo – Large, quite bright, edge on.
NGC 3279 in Leo – Bright, very thin, elongated.
NGC 3501 in Leo – Easily visible. Edge on, bright. At 258x it almost stretches across the field of view. Slight brightening towards centre.

NGC 3501. From Digitized Sky Survey

NGC 2820 in UMa – Faint but easy to find in a recognisable field. Edge on, very thin. Loc. near the face on galaxy NGC 2805.
NGC 2814 in UMa – Thin edge on. Small and quite faint. Not on List.

NGC 2820 (large edge on) and NGC 2814 (small gx at right). From Digitized Sky Survey

NGC 2805 in UMa – Faint face on spiral. Roundish fuzzy patch. Not on List.
UGC 6378 in UMa – Located in nice field of four stars in an arc. High surface brightness, edge on.
UGC 6667 in UMa – Edge on. Quite faint. Even brightness, doesn’t brighten towards middle.
UGC 8040 in UMa – Edge on, fairly dim, forms nice box pattern with UGC 8046, MCG +10-19-1 and MCG +10-18-88. The others are all oval and all are equally bright, except UGC 8046 which is fainter.
UGC 8146 in UMa – Faint, thin galaxy. Almost even brightness but with very slight brightening towards centre. Very nice.
UGC 7321 in Coma Berenices – Faint, very thin. Low surface brightness. Well defined edges.
NGC 4183 in CVn – Beautiful. Edge on. Detailed with mottling.

NGC 4183. From Digitized Sky Survey

NGC 4244 in CVn – ‘Silver Needle’. Very big and bright and stretches across the field of view at 258x. Thin with hardly any brightening towards centre.
NGC 5907 in Draco – Large, bright, edge on. Stretches across field of view at 258x. Brightens considerably towards large nucleus.
UGC 10043 in Serpens – Edge on with pronounced bulge. Pretty faint.
NGC 3245A in LMi – Very thin and very faint. Pops into view with averted vision. Evenly bright throughout.
UGC 4719 in UMa – Faint, edge on.

Also observed NGC 3432 in LMi, and UGC 5509 in Leo, plus two or three more which I have descriptions for, but whose names I wrote down incorrectly, which is easy to do in the dark at 3 am. I’ll have to pick Alvin’s brains on those!

By this time it was approaching 0430 and with more than the required 20 objects in the bag, plus a few not on the list, we called it a night and approached Larry for our pins. Mine now sits on a ball cap which I got at TSP 2006, and joins several other observing pins. Before going to bed, however, we all looked though the 36″ which was aimed at M17, the Swan Nebula in Sagittarius. This was very detailed and busy, with filaments and streamers everywhere, probably the best view I have ever had of it – until I looked at it with Jimi’s 48″ later that week!

As I write this, it’s just on a week since I left the US and I have a bad case of the post vacation blues. I seriously don’t want to be back in the UK! I wish I was back in West Texas with great people under those super skies…

The Observing Vest

While at TSP, I came across a product that is so good that I can’t believe that no one has invented it before – the Hooded Observing Vest. This is a large vest, so it fits over outer clothing and has pockets for eyepieces, torch, pens, pencils, filters and other bits ‘n’ pieces necessary for an observing session. Best of all, it has an oversized monk’s hood that can be used in the same way as a black-out cloth to put over your head to block out stray light when observing faint galaxies or nebulae. This can gain you a full magnitude and beats a towel or t-shirt as it’s attached to you so you don’t have to keep searching for it in the dark. The product only has one down side and that is, if you take it off to put another layer on, it can be awkward to put back on again, but that’s a minor detail.

Alvin Huey was wearing one of these on the Monday evening and I was like ‘what on earth’s that?’ and he invited me to try it. I was impressed at the convenience of it and, as soon as one became available, via Jimi Lowrey, I bought it for the bargain sum of $60 and used it for the rest of my time at TSP.

These vests are made by Dragan and Anja Nikin and for more about them, here’s the blurb on Dragan’s website, where you can order one. I am not one for hype or overt advertising, but these vests really are pretty brilliant.

Some TSP photos

I have got round to editing some of my TSP photos and here they are. Click on them for larger view.
Larry Mitchell collimating his 36 inch
The Upper Field

People getting ready to observe as dusk falls; looking west

This is one of the Texas clubs’ hang outs, one of Texas Astronomical Society, Fort Bend Astronomy Club, or Houston Astronomical Society. These clubs congregate in the north-west corner of the Upper Field and here is where you’ll find the likes of Barbara Wilson, Larry Mitchell, Jim Chandler, and others.

Me ‘observing’ at eyepiece of 48 inch. The only way to get a picture at the eyepiece without ruining night vision.

Jimi and Alvin collimating the 48 inch. The only way to see the position of the laser is to use binoculars, because of the size of the scope.

Jimi (left) and Alvin (right) with the 48 inch.