Belper Tannenbaum Mon 20 Jan

[+Bino-viewer]

Having missed Saturdays session, an ad hoc session was rescheduled for Monday with the weather still looking promising.

I Arrived on site at 18:45 with the thermometer showing +3ºC

 

An enjoyable 3 hour session ensued with many of winters treats putting on a good show in the eyepieces.

Joining me were @bryand with his C9.25 / iOptron AZ Pro combo, and @DaveJW with his Skywatcher 12" Flextube Dobsonian.

I was armed with my 5.5" TEC refractor on a maunal alt-az. A good mix of scopes.

Seeing conditions were so-so with only mediocre levels of transparancy. A very average night.

 

During the session i observed the following 

 

Venus, Uranus.   Venus was way too low for meaningful observation. Uranus, finally for the first time in my observing life has reached a decent altitude presenting a very small greenish disc.

M1 M31 M35 M36 M37 M38 M41 M42 M44 M45 M81 M82 M101

Garnet star, Aldeboran and Betelgeuse comparison......yes Betelgeuse has dimmed notably.

Castor, Rigel, Sirius,(no chance)  Polaris, Zeta Cancri doubles

NGC 869, 884 Double cluster, NGC2264 (Christmas tree cluster) NGC2392 (Eskimo) NGC 7662 (Blue Snowball) NGC 6543 (Cat's eye)

and to finish off the evening a new object in Leo : NGC2903 a fairly bright Mag 8.9 galaxy.

 

Plenty of time was spent trying to split Sirius and to tease the E, F components out of the M42 trapezium, but i failed once again. Sky conditions were just not up to it.

Both Rigel and Sirius looked like disco glitterballs for a good while and although things improved later allowing me a fairly easy split of Rigel, the 'Pup' remains elusive as do Trap E & F.

I sometimes worry i've got a dud scope, but i think its all down to poor conditions and my 52yr old eyes alot of the time.

 

Towards the end of the session the wind picked up noticably forcing an end of play, certainly for the big Dob, which was being buffeted about.

It kept the frost and dew away though, and with a refractor the wind is more manageable.

 

We packed up and left at 22:00hrs with a steady temperature of +4ºC which certainly felt alot nicer than -4ºC !!! 

 

Thanks to BryanD for arranging the meet and it was good to see you and Dave for an enjoyable observing session.

Till the next time.....😀