Category Archives: Observing

Observing, early morning 17th September 2010

This was taken tonight, not last night, but is otherwise identical. Lovely pink sunset with the promise of things to come.

The forecast looked good but, unfortunately, a waxing gibbous Moon was in the way, not setting until 0020 BST (one of life’s mysteries is this – why does a waning Moon seem to take forever getting out of the way, yet the waxing stage seems really quick, only slowing down as it approaches Full Moon?). Because of this I decided not to go outside until it was out of the way, although I can never take a nap in these situations!

Date: 17th September 2010; 0130-0300 BST (0030-0200 GMT/UT)
Conditions: Cool, totally cloudless, no wind, slightly dewy
Seeing: Ant II-III
Transparency: I (excellent) – II (very good) later (M33 visible with unaided eye)
NELM: 6.5+
Equipment: 12″ f/5 Dob, 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), 11mm Televue Plossl (138x)

NGC 1857, open cluster in Auriga – Faint, fairly rich, irregular. 69x, 101x

NGC 1175, galaxy in Perseus – Faint, not quite round. Diffuse elongated core. 69x, 138x

NGC 1177, galaxy in Perseus – NE of 1175. Very faint indeed. Barely seen. Possibly elongated. 138x

NGC 1245, open cluster in Perseus – Very nice large irregular cluster. Faint, fairly rich. Many faint stars. 69x, 138x.

I packed up at 0300 BST after a less successful session than I hoped for; I couldn’t seem to track down most of the Herschel IIs I went for, yet there was nothing wrong with the sky conditions, however I put that down to being tired. An example of tiredness-related cock-ups was when I made some soup and attempted to defrost some bread in the microwave – I ended up nuking it because I pressed the wrong button! Still, an observing session with four objects is better than no observing session at all and a lot better than my sorry effort the other evening (9th September 2010).

However, observing in the early a.m. is a nice way to spend the time, maybe better than evening sessions. There is no-one around at all and it is very quiet, although when I dropped an eyepiece on the shed floor – fortunately without damage – it sounded like an explosion! Likewise when I went back to the kitchen to make the soup, the kettle sounded as loud as a volcano.

Apart from the sound of the horses in the next field, the snoring of my darling dog in her basket, the rustle and squeaks of rats and mice in the hedge and the snuffling of a badger in the lane, there were no other noises. That’s how I like my observing sounds to be. No machines, no loud TVs from the neighbours across the way, no music, just animals and the other sounds of the night.

Observing 12/13th September 2010

‘I got the poison, I got the remedy, I got the pulsating rhythmical remedy‘

…so goes the lyric of Prodigy’s song Poison, and fairly appropriate as they were coming down the valley loud and clear from the ‘Bestival’ last night – also appropriate as I found a Death Cap toadstool in the garden yesterday, which I promptly threw in the bin out of reach of the dogs (DCs are the most poisonous toadstools known). I like the Prodigy, but I don’t like the light pollution from the festival that was wiping out the north western, and most of the western, sky or Rob da Bank’s DJ set of bad music that went on to almost 4am this morning (1am’s fine, but later than that is not. I bet they’ve pissed off the entire Arreton valley). At least that’s over for another year.

The weather forecast called for it to clear at sunset, the BBC (Met Office) said it would be clear all night but the others (Accuweather, Metcheck and The Weather Outlook) disagreed, forecasting it to be partly clear, and, in the end, they were right and the BBC were wrong.

Would this clear? Btw, the tree is dead but the birds like it so it stays

Conditions: Cool, but not cold, some drifting clouds at first, becoming murkier later. Slight dew.
Seeing: Ant II, very good
Transparency: III to IV later (III. Clear, some haze visible. Milky Way still visible but not detailed; IV. Milky skies, moderately hazy but observing of brighter NGCs doable/drifting cloud).
Equipment: 12″ f/5 dob, 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), 8mm Televue Radian (190x), OIII filter. MegaStar 5 chart printouts, Sky Atlas 2000.0, Pocket Sky Atlas and NSOG Vols I and II

NGC 6996, open cluster in Cygnus – Located within NGC 7000 (the North America Nebula). Spiral shaped cluster of 30+ fairly faint stars. Spiral is anti-clockwise. Fainter stars among the brighter ones. Chain loops off to north before turning west. Quite large. Moderately rich. Observation interfered with by drifting clouds. 69x.

NGC 6824, galaxy in Cygnus – People think of Cygnus as a realm of open clusters, PNes and nebulae, but galaxies lurk here too. Fairly bright and easy to find as it stands out against the background sky. Almost round. Brightens gradually towards the core. Core diffuse, not bright. 69x, 190x.

NGC 6894, planetary nebula in Cygnus – A bit of a sod to find, faint and quite small. Not helped by milky sky. At low power, there is a hint of something fuzzy and oval. An OIII filter brings it out as a filled-in oval. At high power, and with the OIII,  it has a darker middle and looks annular. 69x, 190x, OIII filter.

The latter observation was being affected by the fireworks from the festival, I could see the flashes in the eyepiece while looking at NGC 6894, which was hard enough to see as it was. So I abandoned Cygnus and moved over to Triangulum and Aries, which were just clearing next door’s oak trees from my position.

NGC 772, galaxy in Aries – Round, quite faint (low), condenses to non-stellar, but obvious, core. 69x, 101x.

NGC 672, galaxy in Triangulum – Quite faint, elongated west-east. No brightening in centre. Faint halo around bar. IC 1727 nearby but very faint that I want another look at it on a better night. 69x, 101x, 190x.

NGC 925, galaxy in Triangulum – Elongated, faint. Evenly bright with halo. Some foreground stars. 69x, 190x

NGC 890, galaxy in Triangulum – Round, bright. Bright non-stellar core. 69x, 190x.

By now, just before 0100 BST (midnight GMT/UT), the sky was getting progressively worse, with a lot of murk scattering light about so I packed in. There were a few other objects I hunted for, among them NGC 1156 and NGC 1012, both in Aries, as well as NGC 6857 in Cygnus and the infamous NGC 6772 in Aquila but these were all wiped out by murk and will have to wait until a better night.

And the award for…

… ‘Fewest Objects Observed in One Session’ goes to me for last night’s pathetic effort. The forecast wasn’t promising although it was predicted to cloud over around midnight, which would have left me with best part of three hours observing time. Unfortunately things didn’t work out as intended. Firstly, for some reason, my collimation was way out, probably as a result of wheeling the scope across a rough part of the lawn, so it took me a few minutes to sort that out and secondly, I wasted ages – again – looking for the planetary nebula NGC 6772 in Aquila which, for some reason, I failed to find.
By the time I’d given up on NGC 6772, clouds were moving in, earlier than the forecasters predicted so there was nothing for it other than to wheel the scope back in and shut up shop. The upshot of all this was that I observed precisely zero objects in one hour, with the sole exception of a glance at Jupiter while aligning my finders. And a creepy-crawly fell on me! I hate creepy-crawlies, especially spiders, of which there are a lot around this autumn. All, with the backdrop of sounds coming down the valley from the 2010 Bestival. A cry of “Rock and f*cking roll!!” was heard at one point! At least, I think that’s what he said!

So, why have I failed, on two seperate occasions, to find NGC 6772? It’s in the Herschel II list so it’s not terribly easy but it shouldn’t be that hard either and, as someone who has plenty of experience, I would *expect* to be able to find it! NGC 6772 is not marked on Sky Atlas 2000.0 so I printed off a chart from Megastar 5, complete with Telrad circles, and used that. Despite this, I came up empty-handed. The Night Sky Observer’s Guide Vol II has descriptions of this from 8/10″ scopes so why was I failing to find the little bugger with a 12″ with decent, clean optics under dark skies?
I think the problem is that Aquila is getting low and its altitude isn’t favourable by the time its dark enough for observing at this time of the year and, as 6772 has quite a low surface brightness any little bit of murk would wipe it out and the past two observing sessions haven’t been the most transparent. I will have to wait until next year when Aquila is higher during darkness, or catch it during the early hours in spring.

———————————————————————————————

My mum and stepfather moved house from Wootton to Niton last week, so my aunt and me went over to help mum with the last of the packing and the cleaning (steppy had already cleared off!) and it was the end of an era in some ways. We – myself, mum, my sister and stepfather – moved in during November 1984 (I was 14 at the time) and, in the early 1990s, the garden was my first ever observing site where I’d set up my tiny birding scope, my 10×50 binoculars sellotaped(!) to a tripod and, then, my first proper astronomical telescope which was a 6 inch reflector made from a gas pipe, some plywood and a mirror set purchased from David Hinds.
I took my compact camera with me and grabbed a few shots in between packing up and washing floors and walls.

My first ever observing site, looking east. My scope would go where the veg patch is (it was all lawn then)
Looking south (the trees have grown a lot since then)
Many a happy hour was spent in here (the conservatory) planning observing sessions and reading Sky and Telescope, Webb Society journals and astronomy books!

When we drove off, following the removal truck to their new place in Niton, I had mixed feelings. While my teenage years living there weren’t the best (an understatement as they absolutely sucked!), it was my first observing site and brought back memories of the excitement of my early years in astronomy. I also lived back there for a few months immediately prior to my 1997 observing trip to Australia and clearly remember the exciting times then when planning that trip. I love the memories of those times and it was nice to revisit them, albeit briefly.

Observing 3rd/4th September 2010

Another clear night, another observing session. That’s four in a week! I missed a couple of nights over the course of the week as they were murky and foggy and therefore no good for deep sky observing. Last night started off a little murky but gradually improved as the night went on.

Date: 3rd/4th September 2010
Conditions: Cool but not that chilly, a bit murky at first but improving later. No Moon. Started off clear, clouding over later.
Seeing: A I, superb.
Transparency: III, improving to II later (until clouds came)
NELM: 6.1 to 6.5 later on
Instrument: 12″ f/5 dobsonian, 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), 8mm Televue Radian (190x), 5mm Radian (304x), OIII filter

NGC 6804, galaxy in Aquila – Faint, slightly oval, stellar core. 69x, 190x

NGC 6772, planetary nebula in Aquila – I wasted more than 30 minutes looking for this (not plotted on atlases) and eventually gave up. Annoying. Will have another go at this with a MegaStar chart I’ve just printed out.

NGC 7448, galaxy in Pegasus – Bright, elongated NW-SE. Brightens gradually towards the centre. 69x, 190x

NGC 7814, galaxy in Pegasus – Bright and easy to find, located near ϒ Peg. Elongated NW-SE. Brightens towards the core which is bright but not stellar. 69x, 190x

NGC 7217, galaxy in Pegasus – Bright, round, condenses to bright but non-stellar core. 69x, 190x

Pegasus is now complete as far as the H400 is concerned, as I’d already observed some objects in it last autumn.

NGC 7686, open cluster in Andromeda – Irregular. Dominated by two bright yellow-orange stars. Loose. Fainter stars in background and around the two bright ones. Not particularly rich. 69x.

NGC 884 and 869 – the Double Cluster in Perseus – These are lovely things in a wide field eyepiece. Both clusters fit neatly into the field of view of my 22mm Panoptic (69x). If each one was isolated it would be a pretty object in its own right but, both together make one of the finest DSOs in the Northern Hemisphere – in fact the DC is (are) the best open cluster(s) in the sky and I genuinely think that we outdo the Southern Hemisphere with this one.
NGC 869 is smaller and more compact that its neighbour, 884. There are 2 bright stars in the centre, plus a compact triangular pattern of stars in the centre. 69x
NGC 884 is larger and looser. No central group of stars, unlike 869; there’s empty space at the centre. The stars of 884 are more concentrated to the western side. 69x.
All stars in both clusters are white.

NGC 650-1 (M76), planetary nebula in Perseus – Very bright indeed, looking like a miniature M27 (in fact, it is called ‘Little Dumbell’). It has a bi-lobed appearance with an outer shell extending off to the south west and north east; the south western one is slightly brighter. The south eastern lobe is slightly brighter but smaller, than the north western one.  An OIII filter brings it out nicely. 69x, 101x, OIII filter.

NGC 1023, galaxy in Perseus – Bright, elongated east-west. Condenses to very bright core. 69x, 101x

By this time, it was beginning to get very cloudy, so much so they were interfering with observing. In fact it took me several attempts to see NGC 1023 as cloud kept drifting across the field of view.
I finished the session with a look at Jupiter, which was shining incredibly brightly, like a searchlight, high in the south east. While I am not a planet observer, preferring deep sky, I was glad I had decided to look at the giant planet because the seeing was so good, in fact it was perfect, that I had incredible views and could put the magnification up to 304x without too much degradation of the image.
The North Equatorial Belt was detailed, while the STB was a bit fainter and there were festoons in some of the other bands on the planet; the North Temperate Belt showed a lot of detail, as did both polar regions. The zones also showed some marbling. The SEB, of course, is still missing or very faint.

Observing 30th August 2010

Only a short session this one, due in part to a bad shoulder. Again, because of the Moon, I stuck to open clusters and went to do an H400 clean up run round Vulpecula.

Conditions: Clear, chilly, waning gibbous moon (around 65% full)
Seeing: Excellent, A1
Transparency: II-III
NELM: Not checked.
Instrument: 12″ f/5 Dobsonian, 35mm Televue Panoptic (43x), 22mm Televue Panoptic (69x), 15mm Televue Plossl (101x), UHC filter.

NGC 6882 and 6885, open clusters in Vulpecula – Two for the price of one, in same field of view. Large, irregular pattern of stars with a conspicuous bright white one (20 Vulpeculae) off towards the edge. This is supposed to be two clusters but it’s not easy to distinguish one from another. 69x, 101x

NGC 6830, open cluster in Vulpecula – Easy to find as it’s fairly near M27. Irregular, compressed group of 20+ stars with many more, fainter, ones in the background. 69x, 101x

NGC 6823, open cluster with nebulosity in Vulpecula – Small, compressed cluster with three stars in a tight diagonal line in centre. Many more fainter stars in cluster. fairly rich.
No nebulosity seen without a filter, but with the UHC filter I can just see some faint nebulosity. One for when the moon’s gone. 69x, 101x, UHC filter.

NGC 6802, open cluster in Vulpecula – Easy to find, located immediately next to Cr399. Quite large, fairly rich but needs moderate power to resolve. Looks misty at 69x, but stars begin to appear at 101x. Irregular, elongated north-south. Faint. 69x, 101x.

That finishes off the H400s in Vulpecula – I’d already seen NGC 6940 a while back. It also takes me past the magical 100-object mark, meaning I am just over a quarter of the way through the H400, as I am on 103 objects as I found out last night after a quick count of the ticks on my list.

Harvard 20, open cluster in Sagitta – A scattered group of 20 to 30 stars just SW of M71. Not much to write home about. 43x.

Packed up at 2330 BST as the moon was rising higher and its light was being scattered around the sky more than the previous evening, despite the phase being less.

Clusters by moonlight

It was the first clear night for a while so I decided to drag the scope out and do some observing, despite the waning gibbous moon. Because of the Moon, I thought that sticking to open clusters in the Herschel 400 was a good plan.
There was definitely an autumnal nip, as well as a ‘smell’ of autumn in the air. I put an extra layer on although, by the end of the session I was wanting to take it off as I was too warm.

Date: 29th – 30th August 2010
Conditions: Clear, slightly chilly, slight breeze
Seeing: Ant II – quite good, looked at Moon after session and there was not too much turbulence
Transparency: III – not too bad. Milky way washed out by rising moon
NELM: I didn’t check, although it would have got a right hammering from the moon and would be no better than 5.5 or 5.8.
Instrument: 12″ f/5 dobsonian with 22mm Televue Panoptic and 15mm Televue Plossl (69x and 101x)
2230 BST – 0015 BST (2130 UT – 2315 UT)

NGC 7044, open cluster in Cygnus – An absolute bugger to find. Small, compressed, not rich, faint. 69x, 101x

NGC 7062, open cluster in Cygnus – Much easier to find than 7044. Nice. rich, moderately faint cluster bordered by four brighter stars. Detached. Small. Stands out nicely. 69x, 101x

NGC 7086, open cluster in Cygnus – Compact, moderately faint. Rich. Detached. Set in a nice area. There are nine foreground stars with many more, resolved, fainter ones in background. Moon beginning to interfere. 69x, 101x

NGC 7128, open cluster in Cygnus – Very small, compact, compressed. There’s a ring of brighter stars on a hazy background. There is a conspicuous reddish star on the SE side, which is the brightest star in the cluster. Very nice. 69x, 101x

That finishes the H400 objects in Cygnus, so I moved on to Cepheus. The Moon was getting higher and about to clear the oak trees that border the north side of the garden, so it was beginning to interfere with finding things.

NGC 6939, open cluster in Cepheus – Compressed, rich. Bordered to east by distinctive pattern of three stars. Quite bright. Nice cluster. 69x, 101x.

NGC 6949, galaxy in Cepheus – The charts showed this was in the same low power field of view as NGC 6939, so I decided to give it a go despite the moonlight washing out the sky. At 69x, ‘something’ was possibly there, at 101x there was a definite faint elongated smudge. I’ll have another look at this when the moon’s out of the way. 69x, 101x

NGC 7160, open cluster in Cepheus – Easily found bright knot of stars, dominated by two bright white stars like eyes, plus 5 fainter ones. Many other fainter stars in background. 69x, 101x

By this time it was past midnight and, although I didn’t particularly want to go in, I packed up as the moon had cleared the tall trees which border the garden on the northern side and was becoming a real nuisance. I did have a quick look at the thing and it was quite spectacular, if horribly bright in the 12″ (felt a headache coming on, how do people observe this thing?? Too bright for me!) before wheeling the scope back inside and putting everything away.

I doubt if I’ll be observing tonight as, following closely on from my ankle injury, I’ve torn the rotator cuff in my left shoulder. Talk about accident prone!

From the notebooks 3 – TSP 2008 galaxies

Some galaxy sketches to brighten up your (and my) day – and mine is in serious need of a brighten up! These were made at the 2008 TSP, while observing with Larry Mitchell’s 36″.

NGC 5907, Draco
Spectacular, cutting right across the field of view in the 36″ at 232x. Prominent dark lane and a bright, elongated nucleus. Very thin, indeed. I am fond of edge on galaxies and this is one of the best.

Hickson 44, Leo.
A nice group of which NGC 3190 is the brightest member. 3190 (below centre) has a prominent dark lane. NGC 3187 (to the left of 3190) is faint and evenly bright. NGC 3185 (top) has a slight brightening towards the centre. NGC 3193 (bottom right) is round with a dense core and a fuzzy halo.
36″ at 232x.

NGC 4206 and 4216, Virgo
A lovely view. 4216, the large galaxy at right is very large, very bright and elongated. It also has a very bright compact core.
NGC 4206 is much smaller and fainter and does not have a bright core.
36″ at 232x.

M52 and NGC 5195, Arp 85, Canes Venatici
This is one of the best views I’ve ever had of this pair. You line up the huge dob, go up the ladder and this dinner plate, with the little saucer NGC 5195 next to it, is in the eyepiece.
It was hard to draw, as I was balancing near the very top of the ladder.
The arms are not uniformly circular as they appear in smaller apertures. They are bent, probably due to the influence of  5195 nearby distorting them. There are bright HII regions in the arms.
The bridge of material connecting them is easily seen and quite bright in the 36″ at 232x.
5195 is oval, distorted. the side nearest M51 is brighter than the side away from it. Fantastic.

‘From the notebooks’ does sound a little pretentious (I was going to say ‘poncey’!) but it’s quite a good title – and this stuff IS from the notebooks! – and posting old sketches is a good way of keeping the blog active while I scratch about for something interesting to post. It’s gone dead observing-wise here, due to the most appalling weather (August has been a total wash-out this year, with torrential rain, flooding and gales. I feel sorry for anyone on holiday here, especially if they’re camping) and the last few nights the Moon’s been in the way. The beginning of the month was okay for observing, with one okayish night, one good night, the Perseid peak, the Milky Way sketching session and that absolutely sensational night we had.
Anyway, some more ‘From the notebook’ type posts will appear over time, depending on what else I can talk about. It depends on how much observing I get in. I’m hoping the weather will improve during September.

Off topic, but still relevant (which I’ll come to in a minute) is my work situation. I’m currently doing a seasonal driving job delivering tourist guides to hotels, attractions, ferries and train stations, etc, which I like very much. It’s part time which suits me nicely as I can start what time I like – very handy after late observing sessions and all-night runs! However, with the tourist season winding down soon and just another couple of weeks to go of the main season, my hours will probably get reduced.
I can’t find anything else at the moment as the employment situation in the UK as a whole, not just where I live, is appalling. I’m getting interviews but then nothing comes of them, usually it’s because there’s always some git with more experience than me (although I am sure it comes down to pulling names out of a hat). Even the temping agencies have nothing – indeed the manager of one described the situation to me as ‘absolute crap’, and when even the agencies use words like ‘crap’ you know it’s bad indeed. The fact that a very real threat of a ‘double-dip’ recession is hanging over the country (although I do get the feeling the Bank of England and the Treasury are talking us into this, aided and abetted by the media) does not help the situation any.
Despite this, I am still planning to get a 20″ dob (I am one of these people who has to have something to aim for – I do NOT believe in just existing, because that’s just depressing and pointless), firstly buying that mirror-less scope I’ve mentioned in previous posts, as I already have most of the money for that. The mirror might take longer to acquire than I previously hoped, though, depending on what happens on the work front.

I am pleased to say the observing shed has held up in the recent bad weather. Some rain got blown in through the vents, as it has been pretty much torrential and blown horizontally for the past few days, but otherwise – touch wood – it seems more or less ok. I did seal up non-vent suspect points with duct tape and also fixed the roof down better, just in case as I don’t trust their flimsy method of attaching the roof. I also stuffed an old t-shirt into the vent where the rain was being blown in, I’ll remove this when the weather improves. Let’s hope it continues to be dry in there. The mirror also looks as if it’s remained condensation-free, so the silica gel cat litter seems to be doing the trick.

I have a long way to go!

I have just been visiting some of the links on my website. One of these is of the homepage of famed visual deep sky observer Barbara Wilson of Houston TX. On there, she has a page about her astronomy exploits and, on it, she tells us how many things she has seen. As you’d expect, an observer like Barbara has seen a lot. In her own words she has:

“…observed thousands of galaxies, hundreds of  galaxy clusters, completed the Herschel 400, the Messier 110, I have observed all but 25 of the Arp Galaxies, all except for 10 of the Milky Way globular clusters, hundreds of open clusters, asteroids, dozens of comets, several great meteor showers, including the Leonids of 1998, and 2001, planetary nebulae, diffuse nebulae, reflection nebulae, asteroid occultations, lunar grazes, (I once got 36 events on a graze of Beta Tauri), solar eclipses (5 total eclipses), dozens of lunar eclipses, iridium flares, earth x crossing asteroids, supernovae, and never have seen anything in the sky that could not be explained in one way or another.“
I hope that by the time I get to Barbara’s age I will have a comparable record, but I have a long way to go (I hasten to add that’s in terms of things seen!)! To date, I have seen a lot of things out there (and, like Barbara, never anything that cannot be totally explained) but not the sheer amount of objects that Barbara has seen. What I’ve seen probably numbers in the high hundreds, not quite the thousands, not that I’ve actually properly counted.

Another visual observer who has seen a tremendous amount is Steve Gottlieb of California, who has notes on the entire NGC catalogue. He is part of the NGC/IC project, which aims to correct discrepancies and errors in the NGC/IC catalogue and, as part of this project Steve (and others) has reobserved the entire NGC/IC and done an excellent job in clearing up the errors. Steve’s NGC notes can be found here, alongside those of Jeffrey Corder and others.

These are but two of those who have seen, if not it all, certainly most of it. These people have been observing a lot longer than I have, but it shows what dedication, a lot of clear nights and a lot of skill can bring. My current observing projects – the Herschel 400, Herschel II, then the rest of the Herschels, making the Herschel 2500, plus Arp galaxies and galaxy groups and clusters – will go a long way towards my goal of achieving this sort of accomplishment for myself. This is especially the case as I have done a lot of observing since 1993 but none of it systematic projects. Having a systematic project helps a lot in keeping your observing structured and thus, keeping track of things.
A larger scope will also help a lot, as will a few more trips south of the Equator.

Now, you might ask, what am I doing posting on here in the evening, when I could be observing and catching up with the likes of Barbara and Steve, et al? I wish I was out there, but unfortunately the Moon, clouds and a wrecked ankle after an accident in the kitchen earlier this week (I slipped on a wet patch on the kitchen floor and have torn the ligaments in my right ankle) all say ‘no’.
I can’t wait to get back into things, once my ankle’s better, the Moon’s gone and – hopefully – the clouds have cleared.

Milky Way sketch

After yesterday’s rather lengthy rant it’s back to the observing!
Last night, it unexpectedly cleared so it was time for some observing. However, the forecast called for it to cloud up so I decided on a short session and to do something a little different.
Back in 2006 I decided that doing a sketch of the Milky Way would be a cool thing to do. At that time, I’d torn a muscle in my back and couldn’t carry my scope in and out, so I began a naked eye sketch of our galaxy through Cygnus and down towards Sagittarius. I never finished that sketch as the weather closed in for a few weeks and my back got better. I dug out that sketch recently and decided to have another go at it. I decided that I’d start again from scratch as the 2006 sketch wasn’t that great.

Last night’s sketch was done while lying prone in a reclining garden lounger and it wasn’t easy, with the sketch book held upright on my chest it made for an awkward process. I decided to just do the part of the Milky Way that runs through Cygnus and slightly south. I included Cygnus, Lyra and Aquila in the sketch but left out the other constellations in that area. I also only added the brightest stars – I’d have been there a week if I’d tried to put all of them in, as it was mag 6.5+ at the zenith!
Unfortunately, by the time I’d got as far as adding the Milky Way glow the sky started to deteriorate with mist moving in.
For the sketch, I used an A4 (11.75×8.5 inches/297x210mm) sketchbook with heavy cartridge paper (my usual book for sketches), a 2B pencil for the stars, a 4B for the Milky Way and a chamois leather for the smudging. I’d never previously used a chamois leather before as it never even occurred to me, but it is ten times more effective for smudging nebulosity than a blending stump (tortillon) or finger tip is; how I’d heard about using a chamois was via Jeremy Perez’s excellent Astronomy Now series Drawn To The Universe. I bought mine from Halfords (for people outside the UK, Halfords are a retail chain who sell car and bike accessories), for around £3.99. It smells disgusting but works a treat!

The sketch isn’t totally complete, I really should have added more stars and the surrounding constellations, such as Delphinus, Lacerta and Sagitta, etc, but I daresay I will repeat this at another time, when conditions are better and I have more time.

Perseids, 12th-13th August

After practically hopping with frustration during the earlier part of the evening, I was pleased to see the skies finally (partially) clear around midnight, so I pulled out the sun lounger, got a blanket to keep my legs warm (my knees don’t like being still and in the cold for very long) and my little dog (who went to sleep under the blanket and acted as a living hot water bottle!) and watched the show.
There wasn’t as much activity as I thought there would be but what there was was quite spectacular as a lot of the meteors were fast moving and left trails behind them. A lot of the trails were green, although there were a couple of yellow/orange ones as well. The meteors were, for the most part, bright although there were a few quite faint ones as well.
As well as watching the show, I also had a look round Cygnus, Cassiopeia and Cepheus with my 8.42 binoculars. NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, was bright and the nebulosity extensive. The fainter Pelican Nebula, IC 5067/5070, lies just to the south of 7000 and is, just, visible through the binoculars without the UHC filter. With the 2″ UHC filter it is much easier to see.
I also found the planet Uranus, which is close to Jupiter. It looked like a small blueish-white star.


We have had a few decent observing nights recently, despite the continuing unsettled weather. The long hot days of late June have long since gone, to be replaced by cool temperatures, showers, more prolonged spells of rain and some fairly strong winds, but, so far, out of 12 nights this month we’ve had three completely clear nights and five partly clear, observationally-usable nights and early mornings so it’s not all bad, although I am also a fan of hot sunshine, something we’re not getting (I know, it’s hard to please some people! 😉 ). I have a feeling that, now it’s mid August, we’ve probably seen the last of any decent hot summer sunshine.
The reason for yet another rubbish summer, for the fourth year in a row is, yet again, the jet stream is too far south. Because of this, Russia and most of Europe are incredibly hot (although I don’t envy the Russians their severe fires, the downside of prolonged hot weather) yet Britain is damp and horrible – again. Sometimes, I get the impression that the British climate is doing this to amateur astronomers and holidaymakers:

Actually, I think I’ll blame the water company who imposed a hose pipe ban in part of England back in July. It’s in the north west of England, so hundreds of miles from here, but as soon as the utility company in question imposed the ban, the weather over the entire country turned bad.

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And finally

RIP Markus Liebherr and thank you for saving Southampton FC