Second light with the monster Binos!

[silentrunning]

I managed to get something of a second light through these last night. Once again the sky was very bright even between midnight and 2am when the moon came up or was that the sun? Good thing was the predicted cloud cover didn't materialise so I had all told about 2.5 hour of viewing. 

 

The binos only take about 2 minutes to assemble which is remarkable really for such a big arrangement. I had collimated each scope individually during the day with a Cheshire and during the evening it took me about 5 minutes going back and forth from the eyepiece to the collimation nobs to get the two barrels aligned. I used a 4th mag star for this as anything brighter looks like a lighthouse beacon through these things. Out of interest I played around a bit trying to assess the difference in the final images between alignment achieved by the brain - where the images are not quite coincident - and the best actual alignment I could achieve. Although the brain does seem to do a good job there is no competition to when they are properly aligned and the stars become tiny points of light - also you don't get a headache and don't end up looking like Marty Feldman by the end of the night!

 

First object I went for was M27 the dumbbell nebula. Initially I had the 40mm Meades in and it looked amazing, I could easily see the dumbbell shape and the two arcs at each end of the object were just about visible. When I put the 21mm Hyperions in it just jumped out at me and the arcs where obvious as well as some dark lane structure in one of them. Although the sky was bright I could see a couple of stars within the area of the nebula the fainter one being about mag 11.5. Given the quality of this view I reckon on a dark night some color will be discernible and it will be an objective to try and see the central star.

 

I was attempting a couple of pointing strategies. One used Skeye on my phone attached to the eyepiece storage plate between the barrels. This program shows a lot of promise as it allows you to align with stars no matter what direction the phone is pointing in, in my case 180 degrees away from the target! Sadly the compass accuracy of the phone makes the image jitter over a few degrees so I gave up with that and started to read altitudes out of stellarium and then use Clinometer - another android app - to set the elevation of the binos. Having an idea where these objects are I could point it in there general direction, set the altitude and then just move it around slightly in azimuth. This worked really well even with the Hyperions in. 

 

Using this strategy I went for M13. OMG, What a sight. This looked stunning, completely resolved to the core and filling a 1/3rd of the field of view. The straggly spidery looking arms and asymmetry that are more apparent in sketches than photos just seemed to overlay the object and glimpses of the propeller were also perceived. I just gorped at this for about 5 minutes over which time the view only got better as my eyes adapted and moments of steady air came and went. I kept coming back to this over the course of the evening, what an object.

 

Being close by, although it involved a big azimuth adjustment was M92, another bright globuler. For some reason I have found M92 quite hard to image and the reason may have been apparent in the view I now had. The core was much brighter than I expected, not the uniform brightness of the stars in M13 but a massive differential over the outer stars. About a quarter of the apparent size of M13 but with a brighter core it really had a character all of its own. 

 

Another globuler close by. NGC 6229, somewhat fainter at Mag 9.9 looked lovely, much smaller than the other two but very individual and a beautiful site once again with resolvable stars, and offset beautifully with two close by mag 8 stars appearing very bright.

 

Then to M57. This appeared small but as bright as I've ever seen it in the Hyperions. A 13th mag star next to the nebula gave me an idea of the seeing conditions as it came and went with adverted vision. I may have been getting over excited at this point as I convinced myself that I could see some redness in the bright outer periphery. I think this will look staggering through some shorter focal length EPs given it's amazing surface brightness. I had a quick look at the double double epsilon Lyra and again I may have been deceiving myself that I could see some asymmetry in each star indicative of there binary nature. Again, looking forward to getting a higher power EP on this beautiful star system.

 

Although at there lowest point in the Northern twilit sky I just had to have a peek at M81 and M82. I haven't seen these visually since I was a kid but have imaged them in recent years. Sweeping across the sky M82 drifted into the field looking just wonderful with clearly discernible dark structure in the core and forming a line along the full length of the galaxy. A slight adjustment and M81 joined its companion in the FOV. WOW, again I just gorped at this for about 5 minutes watching more and more detail appear in both objects, a really lovely site.

 

Not far away in the sky is M97 the owl nebula. This is a faintish object and very low down at this time of year but given what had gone before I thought it was worth an attempt. The last time I had seen this was through the clubs 12" reflector when I was kid and I seem to remember missing it on a number of occasions. Well, you know whats coming! There it was, a perfect ball of nebulosity, very symmetrical and easily seen, the eye's just about discernible by adverting the vision. Then a small movement of the scope and a faint image of M82 appeared! This was of course M108, another edge on active galaxy. This appeared fainter than the owl nebula and indeed stellarium puts it as 10.7 and the Owl at 9.9. Low down in the murk they both appeared much fainter than these figures would have it.

 

I kept going back to M13, M57 and M27 over the course of the early morning, the view of these objects being absolutely captivating. All told a very enjoyable evening and only good news to report about the binos. 

 

[Tweedledee]

What an inspirational read John.

 

There are times when some of us struggle to even find the brighter objects, while you're actually resolving structure within them.

 

Your binocular scope is just fantastic.

Edited June 26, 2016 by Tweedledee

[+RonC]

Very interesting read John, will you be at Kelling this Autumn? If so I'd love a look through them!! :-)

 

Cheers

Ron

[silentrunning]

Thanks Pete and Ron.

 

Ron, yes I do hope to get to Kelling.

 

John

[Smithysteve]

A very enjoyable read John,! ?

I love these sort of reports.

We can follow your steps throughout the night and share the joy and wow factors that you are experiencing! ?

It's also great that you are 'seeing' why us visual monkeys get a rush from actually looking at stuff, they may be faint and fuzzy and nothing like the great photos we all love, but it's a real buzz!

 

You have a great instrument there John, you just need a few more EP's and you will find the sky's not the limit! 

[silentrunning]

Thanks Stephen, they do seem to have rekindled my interest in visual observing. I'm still mulling over the options for shorter focal length EPs.