Author Archives: FJA

No observing last night!

Because of a hefty amount of some unfamiliar white stuff landing on the UK. Usually the Isle of Wight escapes and we get murk and rain. Not this time. We got some unforecast (as far as the island was concerned) snow. It is 5 inches deep this evening and it looks like tomorrow will be another unscheduled day off work as it is due to freeze, making driving even more treacherous than just the snow by itself.

Life – and observing – in the freezer

Or ‘Christ, it’s cold!’ could be a subtitle. The UK, unusually, has been in the grip of subzero temperatures for a couple of weeks now, with daytime temperatures barely getting above zero and night-time ones plummeting down to minus ten or colder. A lot of the country has got snow – except us on the South Coast, fortunately (or is that ‘unfortunately’? If you have to have precipitation of some form, at least let it be of the picturesque-but-not-a-chance-of-getting-to-work-today type), instead we have had sleet, freezing rain and black ice making lethal driving conditions…and a few clear nights. In fact, 2010 is off to a flying start and out of four nights I have had three observing sessions, two binocular and one telescopic.
Tonight was the telescopic night. The Moon, which is 77% of Full, wasn’t to rise until 2131 GMT so when I arrived home from work, via a doctor’s appointment, I set my scope up and left it to cool for an hour.
Conditions:
Very cold -6C, No wind, icy underfoot (frozen dog pee!)
No Moon (rose at 2131 GMT)
Seeing Ant III-IV, transparency II
NELM 6.2
Instrument: 12 inch (30 cm) f5 Dobsonian
I will update this post when I get home from work tomorrow, with the objects I observed, except for Abell 12 which I’ll mention now. I reobserved it this evening and this time it DID pop out with the OIII filter, as described by numerous people. I know, such a doubting Thomas…
Other objects I did observe were NGC 1514, a planetary nebula in Taurus, NGC 1980, NGC 1981 and NGC 2024 (a poorer view than the one I had a couple of weeks ago – if the Flame’s crap, don’t even bother looking for the Horsehead). I also looked for Abell 4 in Perseus and didn’t find it, although it is fairly near the bright open cluster M34, but I really need to download some charts with that in, as it wasn’t on my Sky Atlas 2000.0 (didn’t try Uranometria, though). Not a hefty return from an evening’s observing, admittedly, but I wasn’t out there that long, too bloody cold.

NGC 1514, planetary nebula in Taurus. This was a piece of cake to find. At low power, and at first glance it looks like a bright, if fuzzy, star – indeed this is the 9th magnitude central star – but with averted vision a halo of fuzz pops out at you. Popping in the OIII filter really brings it out. At a higher power (190x), I could see darker areas between the outer halo and the central star and there are brighter areas in the halo itself. Slightly elliptical. As well as the central star, there is a much fainter, smaller, star next to it probably a foreground star. 61x, 190x + OIII

NGC 1980, open cluster in Orion. North of M42 this is a nice open cluster which is richer than nearby NGC 1981. I counted around 31 stars of which 10 are fairly bright, All the stars are white. 38x

NGC 1981, open cluster in Orion. Beautiful but sparse. Dominated by very bright white star plus a slightly fainter double which is also white, plus 17 other, much fainter, stars. 61x

I couldn’t track down Jonckheere 320 again, but as I was having problems with the icing up of my finders I will give that another go before the end of the winter. I have read reports of it being seen in a 10 inch under comparable sky so there’s no reason I shouldn’t see it.
It was ‘one of those’ sessions again – my OIII filter fell to bits, a retaining ring-type object dropped out of it and the thing just fell apart. Fortunately I screwed it back together again, only to drop it onto the concrete of the patio five minutes later with, luckily, no harm done. I also dropped eyepieces, charts and gloves, but that’s because, despite gloves, my hands were a bit cold. I was definitely fortunate in that nothing actually broke; fell apart yes, but actually broke as in completely destroyed, no.

I packed up just after 9pm, and after bending over the eyepiece (my final objects of this short session were in southern Orion) I couldn’t straighten up properly, a combination of lower back pain and stiffness due to cold and bad posture from being hunched over the eyepiece meant that I shuffled indoors to warm up looking like the Missing Link between humans and apes – that almost-knuckle-dragging stance of something that can’t quite walk upright… Once the Missing Link phase had passed I carted everything back in, pleased I had done some observing, but not too pleased that I didn’t do as much as I had intended.

I’ll chuck in the descriptions tomorrow and maybe a drawing or two, if I get them tarted up and scanned in, which is a tad unlikely as I don’t get in from work until nearly 6pm and if it is clear again I’ll be observing.

Binocular observing session 3rd January 2010

Another nice clear night, 2010 is off to a decent start, may it continue, but again I decided to use the binoculars for a short session instead of the scope.
Cold -3C, very hard frost already on ground adding to that left over from previous night
No wind
Moon not yet risen at start of session (87% full, rises at 2005GMT)
Seeing II-III, transparency II
NELM 6.0 to 6.3
Instrument: 8×42 binoculars (handheld)
Markarian 6, open cluster in Cassiopeia. Six or seven bright stars in a line, surrounded by fainter ones. 1910 GMT
Melotte 15, open cluster in Cassiopeia. Just to the north west of Mark. 6, this is smaller and fainter. Not resolved. Star in foreground. 1915 GMT
Stock 23 (Pazmino’s Cluster), open cluster in Camelopardalis. Small clump of stars. At least three are visible with direct vision but hazy look hints at quite a few more. 1925 GMT
NGC 1342, open cluster in Perseus. Another look at this, without moon in the sky. Much better view. Large triangular patch with at least 4 stars resolved and many more unresolved. 1930 GMT.
NGC 253, galaxy in Sculptor. A large, faint, elongated glow south of Deneb Kaitos. The observation of the evening, given the low altitude and murk at that level. 1935 GMT.
NGC 1807, open cluster in Taurus. easy to find, at the top tip of Orion’s bow. Oval, dominated by line of 4 bright stars plus fainter ones in background. 1945 GMT.
NGC 1817, open cluster in Taurus. Right next to 1807. Same size, but rounder and not as bright. No bright stars. 1947 GMT.
NGC 1907, open cluster in Auriga. Dominated by its bright neighbour the huge cluster M38, this is a small, round patch immediately next to, and south west of, M38. No stars resolved with direct vision but it looks speckly with averted vision. 1951 GMT.
At 1953 GMT there was a nice fireball which went through south Monoceros and burned out just south of Orion’s feet. It was bright orange/yellow and broke up.
NGC 2232, open cluster in Monoceros. Large, sparse-looking cluster. One bright star and five or six others. Slightly interfered with by Moon, which is about to rise. 2000 GMT.
NGC 2244, open cluster in Monoceros. Large, bright open cluster elongated north-south, with nine or ten bright stars visible with direct vision and more with averted vision. Nebula not visible, due to rising Moon. 2005 GMT.
NGC 2251, open cluster in Monoceros. Small, fairly round knot of stars. Patch looks granular but I can’t see any individuals in that lot. 2012 GMT.
NGC 2264, open cluster in Monoceros. Much larger than 2251, twice its size. Counted 11 stars, hard to do with the handheld binoculars. 2015 GMT.
NGC 2281, open cluster in Auriga. Elongated hazy patch. Line of four stars surrounded by haze (fainter ones). 2020 GMT.
NGC 2301, open cluster in Monoceros. Faint fuzzy patch. Not well seen as quite low and moonlight washing it out. 2025 GMT.
NGC 2343, open cluster in Monoceros. Not seen. Too low and too much crap in atmosphere to allow me to see it, not to mention the moonlight. Will have to do this one again another night when it’s higher and there’s no Moon.
NGC 2403, galaxy in Camelopardalis. Faint elongated glow. 2037 GMT.
Packed in at 2040 GMT. I now have only ten more objects left to do on the AL Deep Sky Binocular list. I should get this finished in the spring.

Herschel 400 blog

I have finally got round to updating my Herschel 400 observations on the separate blog created specially for this project. I last updated it in September, so I had a few things to add into it. I was considering deleting that blog, but have decided to keep it going as it helps me keep track of what I have seen and when. I’ll eventually do what I do with all my observations, type them out and print them off to put into a ring binder.

Herschel 400 blog

First session of 2010, 2nd Jan

As the Moon is still very much in the way (2 days past full and 94% illuminated) I decided that, as I wanted to observe but couldn’t be bothered to take the 12 inch out as the conditions weren’t good, I’d have a little binocular session and knock some more objects off the AL Deep Sky Binocular list – assuming, of course, I could see this stuff in the light of a gibbous moon.
Conditions:
Very cold -4° Celsius
No wind
Waning gibbous Moon (94% illuminated)
Instrument: handheld 8×42 Leica binoculars with 7.4 degree field of view
Time: 2025 GMT to 2100 GMT
This short session began nicely with a lovely bright orange/yellow fireball which had a nice train, then split in two and vanished just north west of Auriga. Cool. Sadly no more followed it. As with all these things, this was very much a case of looking in the right place at the right time.
NGC 1981, open cluster in Orion. Large hazy patch just north of M42. Direct vision shows 12 stars, with 3 bright ones in a curved line, and with averted vision I can see all these plus a hazy backround which means unresolved stars or nebulosity.
Melotte 25, The Hyades in Taurus. Huge V shaped cluster which fits neatly into my binoculars’ 7.4 degree field of view. Dominated by bright orange Aldebaran. I can count 60+ brighter stars, some a magnitude fainter than others and many more fainter stars within the V. All the stars, apart from Aldebaran, are bluish-white.
NGC 752, open cluster in Andromeda. Visible as big faint misty patch. The moon’s interfereing with this one.
NGC 2169, open cluster in Orion. Surprisingly easy despite Moon. Small bright knot, with 4 stars seen with averted vision.
NGC 1662, open cluster in Orion. Large, faint, irregular patch. No stars seen with direct vision but with averted vision the cluster looks ‘grainier’.
NGC 1582, open cluster in Perseus. Faint misty patch with a couple of stars resolved.
NGC 1342, open cluster in Perseus. Large irregular misty patch. No stars resolved.

Packed up at 2105 GMT as Moon was becoming a real nuisance. 2010’s observing is now underway!

Abell 12 (PK 198-6.1)

Cold: -2°C, no breeze, icy (treacherous underfoot).

Seeing Ant I (excellent seeing), transparency around II-III (mediocre). 
NELM 6.0 to 6.2, waxing crescent Moon (33% of full) just setting
Scope: 12 inch Dobsonian.

As it was a clear evening, I decided to take the scope out in slightly unfavourable conditions (ice underfoot, freezing fog forming) to have another go at Abell 12 (PK 198-6.1). While I saw it briefly the other evening, I didn’t get a good enough view and I used a lower power. This evening I wanted to use a high power on it.

I eventually saw it after a LOT of averted vision staring (I think it would be easier on a better night) at 304x, located just west of Mu Orionis. It is almost right next to the star so a filter is needed to cut down the glare, I used my usual filter for PNs, an OIII. It is round, even, largish and faint. It is utterly invisible without the OIII filter. 304x + OIII

After coming back in I checked it out on the net, via Google, and people talk of it popping into view with an OIII, in various scopes, from 8 inch upwards. This was not my experience. I had to use a hood, high power and an OIII filter plus a fair bit of averted vision looking to see this, and I think the conditions were the reason I didn’t get a good view – this is not a hard object, by all accounts. I definitely want to return to this on a better night.
I also had a crack at the planetary nebula Jonckheere 320, also in Orion, but no joy there. With the icing up of my Telrad and finder, things ‘out in the boondocks’ were not going to be easy to locate!

I did, however, take a high powered trip into the heart of M42, with my 5mm Radian (304x) and OIII filter. To say that this is an awesome sight is not doing it enough justice. It is bright and incredibly detailed, with mottling, dark areas, bright areas, the Trapezium all hitting the back of the eyes in spectacular fashion. I will do a sketch of this before the spring comes. I suppose one could ask ‘why aren’t all deep sky objects as easy to see as this’ – but then, what would be the fun in that, if all DSOs were a piece of cake to find and see?

Now the infernal Moon – as a deep sky observer, it is hard not to loathe and detest the bloody thing – is on the way back up again (currently 33% of Full), there’ll be no more deep sky observing until next month – weather permitting, of course.

Sketching or electronic imaging?

Often in astronomy the question of visual astronomy (Mark One Eyeball) vs electronic imaging (CCDs) crops up. Being very firmly in the first camp I get a tad annoyed when people assume that imaging is the only way to go about getting lasting souvenirs of a nights observing. All too often I encounter beginners who are itching to go straight past visual observing and dive right into imaging and, often, they know nothing about the sky and how to find their way around it. They don’t want to know about the joy that is visual deep sky or planetary observing! They’re missing the best bits!
I guess that most of the reason for this is because astrophotos are eye-catching and pretty and imagers garner a lot of praise – and rightfully so because imaging is not easy – for their work in getting the pictures. It’s also been mentioned elsewhere that imagers are quicker and more keen to blow their own trumpets than visual observers and I believe there’s a lot of truth in this. I love a good astrophoto as much as the next person, indeed I have astrophotos on my walls at home, but while I am grateful for the dedicated souls practicising this art I would like to discredit the notion there seems to be that it is the only way to practise amateur astronomy.
While the magazines are full of ads for wonderful electronic gizmoes and feature lovely photos of colourful swirling nebulae and mysterious galaxies and legions of ‘how to’ articles on imaging, there isn’t a huge amount aimed at the purely visual observer, bar the usual “Such and such is in the sky and you can see it with the unaided eye/binoculars/scope”. The UK’s Astronomy Now and BBC Sky At Night magazines now feature regular sketching articles by Jeremy Perez and Carol Lakomiak – and this is excellent to inspire others to take up astronomical sketching, although AN is better in this regard because Jeremy gets a couple of pages while Carol, in S@N, gets a mere half page although this is better than nothing as S@N resisted featuring sketching for a long while (I wrote to the editor a few years ago about featuring sketches and got a dismissive reply, I stopped buying the magazine for a long while because of this).

People tend to think of astronomy as an expensive hobby but it isn’t and, once you have a scope, you need nothing else except pencil and paper. Give visual observing and sketching a go, it is not hard and a lot easier – and more fun – that you think. Don’t let the imagers have all the fun and grab all the plaudits!

Winter clusters and nebulae, 20 December 2009

The first nearly cloudless evening for ages prompted me to carry out the big scope for an evening’s chasing of winter nebulae. I set up the scope and left it to cool while it got dark and I gathered my stuff together. The weather has been very cold of late, with snow last Friday and subsequent days being below zero, with plenty of ice on the ground. Because of the ice, and not wanting to slip over, I didn’t set up in my usual place on the patio, but further up the garden, on a concrete patch I often use as it does afford a better view of the sky (the patio is closer to the house and is more convenient for going in and out of the kitchen extension, which I use as a kind of ‘observatory’, with my eyepieces, charts and other stuff spread out over the work surfaces and the top of the freezer).
20th December 2009
Cold: -2

°

C, stiff breeze, 78% humidity.

Some cloud on southern horizon and a waxing crescent Moon, 17% of full. NELM 6.0 TO 6.5 later. Some intermittent interference from neighbours’ indoor lights (why do some people not have curtains?).
Seeing Ant II, transparency II-III
Instruments used: 12 inch f5 Dobsonian and 8×42 binoculars
After satisfying myself that the clouds were not about to spread out, they were hugging the southern horizon (‘Don’t even think about it, you sods!’ I found myself saying out loud), I began with an attempt on IC59 and IC63 which are located close to Gamma Cassiopeiae. These are very faint nebulae and, after searching around the area with a medium power eyepiece and UHC filter I can’t say in all honesty that I saw these. I saw a slight brightening in the area but that was it.The waxing 17% of full crescent Moon was a sod, surprisingly bright, and it seemed to take an age to set, if I hadn’t known better I’d have sworn that the damned thing was stuck where it was!
Next was the planetary nebula IC 2003 in Perseus. This was easy to find, being located exactly halfway between Menkib (Xi Persei) and Atik (Zeta Persei) – put the Telrad finder between those two stars and you will find the nebula. It is stellar at low powers and needs an OIII filter to make it stand out and confirm the sighting. At high power it takes on a slightly fuzzy appearance. There is a slight bluish tinge to this (without the filter) and it has a definitely brighter middle to it. 101x + Lumicon UHC
IC 351 in Perseus. Slightly more difficult to find than IC 2003, it took me a search of around ten minutes to locate it, to the east of IC 2003. This is a tiny, very stellar-looking PN which is pretty bright. Definitely needs the OIII filter ‘blinked’ in front of the eyepiece to be certain of sighting. Does not look as fuzzy as IC 2003. 190x + Lumicon UHC
While waiting for Orion to clear the house roof (I wanted a crack at PK 198-6.1, located right next to Mu Orionis as well as to look at NGC 2024 and the other stuff in that area) I got the 8×42 binoculars out and looked at a couple of large open clusters in Taurus:
NGC 1647 in Taurus. Huge open cluster. Irregular, not quite round shape. Quite a lot of stars resolved, although hand-holding the binoculars meant it was almost impossible to count them properly. Impression of some brighter foreground stars and a lot of fainter backgrounds ones. I also looked at this with the scope but the overall impression with the scope was of a large, but not rich cluster. Nice. 8×42 binoculars
NGC 1746 in Taurus. This is even larger than N1647, almost twice its size. Contains brighter stars than N1647 but even less rich. 8×42 binoculars

NGC 1952 (M1) in Taurus. While in the area, I decided to take a look at M1, the famous Crab Nebula, as it is a number of years since I last looked at it. It can safely be said that this thing is not famous for being spectacular, as it is a rather nondescript elongated smudge of light. It is, however, famous for being the first item on Charles Messier’s list of objects to avoid (for the purposes of not getting them confused with comets, which was what CM was really after) and for being observed by the Earl of Rosse at Birr Castle in Ireland, and it got the ‘Crab’ nickname from Lord Rosse, his sketch shows tendrils like a crab’s appendages – but he had a much bigger scope than me! 190x
NGC 1907 in Auriga. Completely overshadowed by its neighbour, the vast open cluster M38, this open cluster is a nice small, rich cluster. Oval, with a number of brighter stars and a hazy background of much fainter ones. 190x.

PK198-6.1 (Abell 12) in Orion. Easy to find, being located right next to Mu Orionis, but easy to see? Not particularly due to the star’s proximity. It is right in the glare from the star and it took high magnification, an OIII filter and a cover over my head to block out stray light for me to see something round, largish and faint next to the star, but I want to have another go at this when Orion is higher and the conditions are better. 190x + Lumicon OIII
NGC 2024 in Orion. Right next to Alnitak (Zeta Orionis, the eastern most belt star), this is slightly overwhelmed by the star’s glare but is not hard to spot. The big dark rift  which cuts it in two is the most obvious feature with averted vision bringing out the faint nebulosity either side of it. A UHC filter works quite well on this, while OIII and H-beta kill it. The western half of the nebula, nearest the star, is brighter than the easten half. 60x + Lumicon UHC

By this time it was 2135 GMT (UT) and the clouds were moving in so I finished the session with the obligatory look at M42, the Great Orion Nebula and the detached portion M43. This, in the 40mm Plossl (38x) with the UHC filter attached, was spectacular with tendrils and nebulosity everywhere. The dark indent next to the Trapezium was very obvious as were other dark areas, giving the brightest portion of it a mottled appearance. 38x + UHC 

Packed up as the clouds began to fill the sky.

Geminids

Just because I am into deep sky observing doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a good bit of shallow sky action when it’s happening and 13th, 14th and 15th December happen to be when you can see the annual Geminid meteor shower in 2009. It promised to be a good one, with predicted rates of 100-120 meteors an hour. The shower was due to start around 2130 UT although the best time would be after midnight UT when the radiant had risen high enough.
Still having the effects of the bad cold I had caught the previous week I went to bed early and got up at 2330 UT, dressed and carried my folding chair (a useful souvenir of the IW Festival a couple of years ago – a relative of one of my aunt’s work colleagues was one of the clean up crew and there were a lot of discarded items, as-new-only-used-once items at that, afterwards, all free to a good home) outside.
In the course of half an hour I saw many meteors, at least three or four a minute, maybe more. Most of them were quite small ones, but there were also large, spectacular ones too. Something I noticed was that you’d get a short lull of a couple of minutes, then a flurry of several meteors before another short lull of a couple of minutes. It was quite a show and, with the Moon out of the way (waning crescent which rose just before 0700 UT), a big improvement over the much more famous Perseids in August which were washed out by a quarter Moon this year.

After half an hour I was getting cold and having to get up at 0600 meant that I couldn’t stay outside much longer. A pity as it was shaping up to be a nice night, after cloud earlier in the evening, and I would have loved to have brought the 12 inch out for its first proper winter observing run. I got out of the chair – and my knees were so cold I thought they’d snap! – and headed in after a pleasant half an hour gazing at the sky with nothing but my unaided eyes.
Unfortunately, with a grim forecast and a cloudy sky, tonight does not look as if it will follow suit.

A few more sketches

Here are a few more sketches from the summer/early autumn. These, too, have been scanned straight from the original sketch and processed a bit in PS Elements 6. I have tried to make the stars rounder but without making them appear bloated. By the way, the light patches in the corners and sides are the result of the scanning process: my sketchbook is spiral bound and so the scanner lid does not shut properly, causing light to leak in.

Click images for larger versions.

NGC 7662 ^

M33 with HII regions NGCs 595 and 604^
NGC 604 is the elongated patch just below centre, 595 is labelled at bottom left
NGC 205^