Daz Type-R Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Weather for once looked very good across all weather apps so I set up about 18:30 pm to give 2 hours or so for the scope to get to the ambient temperature. With astro dark not starting until 23:31 and lasting until 03:07, I decided to spend most of my time from 22:00 looking at Jupiter. For me, the seeing was very good, even in my scope I could make out all 4 cloud bands with some detail on them, shame the GRS was round the other side. All 4 of the largest moons were visible, making a pleasant line in the sky. My primary targets for tonight was some elusive galaxies in the Markarians Chain region and if I could stay up until 01:00 Mars and Saturn, no matter how hard I have tried in the past, I have just never been able to bag these galaxies, I knew it would be difficult from my back garden, only being 7 miles north of Nottingham city center but I thought they may be possible, how wrong I was. While waiting for proper astro dark, I set about trying to bag a lot of open and globular clusters, nebula and some of the brighter galaxies, so spent a pleasant 40 minutes or so bagging the following list (in no apparent order, there was no planning to this lot)..... M3, M13, M81, M82, M44, M57, M92, M97, M29, there were about another 8-9 Messier's but I cant remember what they were, I was not making a list as I have seen these all before. Unfortunately I sold my low power EP the other week (Tele Vue Panoptic 35mm) to fund another EP, so I struggled with some of the open clusters having to pan around to take them all in, my 13mm Ethos gives 92x magnification and a true FOV of 1 degree, so I was struggling on open clusters. By this time it was 23:50 and we were into proper astro darkness, so I set about hunting down my main objectives for the night. M100, M98, M91, M90, M86, M84, M61 and M59 all proved to be too elusive and too faint for me to see from my back garden, I obviously need a very dark site in order to view these, still, I had fun trying to track the little beggers down. I knew it would be tough at mag 9.1 to 10.1, I could easily see M81 and M82 (Bodes) but at mag 6.9 and 8.3, it became apparent to me that the extra faintness of these Markarians Chain galaxies, it was just too much from my back garden. They still remain elusive!!!! By now, it was 01:20 am and Mars and Saturn had cleared the tree line but they were still very low, about 13 degrees above the horizon, unfortunately even though I could make out the redness of Mars, I could not even resolve it into a sharp circle, the seeing that low down and so close to the Nottingham LP dome, just made it impossible to resolve any detail, Saturn was much the same, a shimmery blob with 2 ears. Still, I managed to view them, for the first time this year, so it was nice. So in total, 3 planets, approximately 20 Messier objects and one tired but happy chappy, I called it quits at 01:30am as I had to be up for work at 6:00 am. Tweedledee, +Ibbo, BAZ and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Great report Darren I have had a job to get a good view of Mars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Lovely report Daz. You just need darker skies and those elusive objects will pop out. Good haul of objects though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuckstar Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Nice one Daz, I tried for the chain from ww last Saturday, I didn't mention them in my write up as they weren't worth mentioning! I def saw something/s but no way I could identify which was which. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAZ Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 A good night there Daz. Ibbo made me laugh the other week when he said "Saturn was up at about the height of a Yorkshire Terrier". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithysteve Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Great report Darren, - in fact, so enjoyable, I read it twice! ? You had a very successful session - some great objects in that list of Messiers etc! No wonder you were on a high! Mars and Saturn will be higher in a month or so hopefully will be better... I have not attempted them myself this year yet... But looking forward to them. As for the somewhat elusive 'chain' galaxies - I am sure that buzz is just around the corner! ? Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Pity you missed out on Markarians chain, but the rest of your report shows you had a great session. Pleasant observing temperatures as well according to my forecast, about 10 degrees C. Glad you enjoyed it This light pollution does make me angry I read some other astro forums from around the world, and from some dark sites, they see Markarians chain in an 8x50 finder!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted May 6, 2016 Share Posted May 6, 2016 Dark skies are everything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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