Belper 6th Oct.

[Tweedledee]

Had the most exciting night so far with the 10" Schmidt Newtonian and some great company at Belper.

Here's a pic of the setup indoors as I forgot to take any at Belper...

/>https://dl.dropbox.com/u/104047272/584.jpg

Hopefully I haven't missed anyone out, but the following were there - Sheila, JohnC, Kheldar, Eddie, Perkil8r, Ryall, ANGIE and 8472.

I needed to suss out my visual kit, which is still a bit of a work in progress. The weight of its components is at the limit of what I would consider portable, but at least it is a pretty quick job to set up the pier, mount and scope and start looking. I can see that I will have to watch my back when lugging this lot around, the 10" OTA and the pier being particularly heavy and unwieldy lumps. Putting the 10" OTA on the clamp needs some practice, since while trying to hold the heavy scope cradled in one arm while locating it on the saddle without being able to properly see the saddle or dovetail is tricky. Once set up, it was rock steady, and felt like it was concreted into the cricket pitch. JohnC kindly brought me a counterweight for my Skytee 2 which nicely balanced the ST120 mounted opposite the 10". Dusk came and I soon had everything accurately aligned on Capella a few degrees above the horizon, the 10", the 8x50 finder, the ST120, and its RDF. I was rather pleased to have all four items pointing in exactly the same place. It soon got dark and the milky way stood out nicely, though the site is not quite as dark as I saw on my weekend in the Cotswolds several weeks ago, but then I only had binoculars.

The first realisation was that my Meade 8x50 finder just has to go. If I am going to make good use of this deep sky rich field setup without a goto mount, then I need to to be able to find things easily. So I shall now be investing in a finder that is really on top of the job, like an 80mm right angle correct image with a wide angle illuminated ep. The 10" OTA is so large that I have difficulty reaching the slo mos while looking through the eyepiece, so I need to experiment with some slo mo extensions. The Skytee 2 is a super smooth robust piece of kit and has no problem coping with the heavy load that I have put on it, and really is a real pleasure to use. My big picnic table proved to be most useful to keep my eps, bino's and other bits and pieces easily accessible. Next time, I may bring my laptop with a red screen and my big BAZ battery to help locating the more difficult and unusual DSOs I like to find. Even though the 10" SNT has a BC&F dew shield, which is not nearly long enough, the corrector plate dewed up twice during the night, although the first time was only after about 3 and a half hours. So I will probably try making it longer using Decathlon insulating mat before I resort to having proper dew heaters and wires everywhere. At least nothing else dewed. After 10 minutes in back seat of the car with the air con on hot, the OTA was dry and ready for use again, but it is a bit of a pain having to remove the OTA like that when you are just getting engrossed in a nice observing session.

The 10" F4 with my big wide angle eps, Celestron Axiom LX 23mm 82 degree and Explore Scientific 14mm 100 degree just seem to show everything so easily, providing breathtaking bright rich field views. This scope is everything I had hoped for to see the deep sky with. In smaller scopes a lot of objects are just barely there, but this set up on a clear night just shows everything really well. Just a casual scan of the the milky way and you are panning through a massive star cluster. In fact everywhere it is pointed there seem to be far more stars than expected. With a 100 degree eyepiece you are seeing four times as much sky as with the average 50 degree eyepiece and the wow factor is everywhere. It seems like the telescope just gets out of the way and leaves you with that spacewalk experience. Mike (Perkil8r) kept coming over and looking at clusters or nebulae and swearing into my eyepiece. I think he liked the views .

Saw a lot of stuff but here are some highlights. M31 (central part half filling the ep) along with 32 and 110 looked big and bright and were also well visible with the naked eye. M110 looked a nice sight on its own when M31 was pushed out of the field, and looked like M31 does through a smaller scope. NGC404 is a circular looking galaxy at mag 10.1 about 7 minutes of arc north of 2nd mag Mirach (Beta And), this showed as a featureless disc with brightness falling off a little to the edge, and is so easy to find right next to Mirach. NGC752 in Andromeda put on a rich show nearly filling the 1.9 degree field in the Axiom at 44x. M34 was more condensed but with brighter stars. The double cluster was crammed into the 1.4 degree field of the ES 14mm at 73x with an uncountable number of stars. Between the two clusters was a lovely orange star which is well worth finding. Its colour is less intense at lower power. NGC957 cluster nearby was fairly sparse by comparison. Also nearby, Stock 2 is a superb sight and is so big it needed panning around to see its entirety, it contains a mass of bright and faint stars. Trumpler 2 in the same region is a large sparse cluster containing an interesting arrangement of about 10 bright 9th mag stars and a few fainter ones. Over towards Scutum and Ophiuchus, clusters M11 (Wild Duck), M26, IC 4756, IC 4665 made superb sights. M13 and M57 put on a good show. I failed to find M51 low down in the north, but Mike (Perkil8r) managed to put the Whirlpool straight into the eyepiece in seconds. Galaxies M81 and 82 looked bright and big together in the same field of the ES 100 degree ep and some interesting stucture was visble in both with prolonged inspection. A couple of oddballs next, Markov 1 is a little asterism of about ten 9th and 10th mag stars within one third of a degree of Xi Herculis. It looks reminiscent of the teapot in Sagitarius but on a much smaller scale, very nice. Napoleons Hat is another interesting asterism of ten tenth mag stars in a very obvious shape, and so easy to find less than a degree south of Arcturus. M15 is a big easy to find globular in Pegasus almost rivaling M13 and both looked great but with only a few stars resolved in the low power eps. Just had to have a look at M45 Pleiades when it came above the horizon. It best fits in the Axiom at 44x but still just all fits in the ES at 73x, a beautiful sight. Jupiter was very low just above some trees through a lot of atmosphere. Although I could see no cloud belts at that time, the moons made a lovely sight all strung out on one side, with Io and Ganymede very close to each other and closest in at about 3 Jovian diameters from the planet. A few bright meteors were seen by several of us and artificial satellites were everywhere and sometimes passing through the eyepiece field. The highlight of the observations for me, was seeing the western part of the Veil Nebula stretching out on both sides of 52 Cygni. This was the first time for me. It was enhanced very nicely and was plainly visible with a 2" UHC filter on the Axiom, where it showed a lot of shape and structure for over half the field of view. Can't wait to get an OIII on it and hunt down some planetary nebulae. M27 the Dumbell showed really large in the ES with UHC filter at 73x, consisting of the bright apple core and the fainter circular surrounding envelope.

The whole evening was made even more enjoyable with several cups of Johns tea and coffee and Sheilas delicious cakes, especially the malteser ones.

Everyone has been telling me that the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas is damp proofed, and I didn't believe them. I remember my old Nortons Star Atlas which almost doubled in thickness due to damp crinkles. Well, when I packed away the atlas was open on the picnic table and soaking with dew. I left it open on the passenger seat and by the time I got home it was dry and good as new without the slightest crinkle!

A very nice and memorable evening that got me buzzing, as you can probably tell .

[Guest JohnC]

Nice Pete,

Great set up, great skies, great company, great report......just as it should be.

Brilliant night, bring on the winter wonders.

[Perkil8r]

A very nice report Pete.

Who needs Hubble when you have the next step up?! That Meade is an astounding scope. Some of the sights I was fortunate to see through it have left me with mind altering memories. And as for the EP's you have...... yee gods man, they are like a porthole on the bloomin' ISS I swear! and I did swear, more than once! The Skytee is a very good mount aswell, I am very impressed indeed, silky smooth and sturdy as I don't know what. All in all you have an amazing set up for visual there, all we need to do now is talk you into popping a cam on the end of that Meade you know you want to

Thanks again for sharing the report with us, and thank you very much for taking me on a visual feast.

[Brantuk]

Wish I'd been there for this one Pete - fabulous report - sounds like an amazing session what with your gear and Shiela's fsq present.

[Doc]

Sounds like a fantastic night, a wide range of objects viewed Pete.

[Daz Type-R]

Glad it was a good un!

[Guest Ely Ellis]

Brilliant report Pete.

That scope look the part.

Some very interesting things you found.

[catman161]

What a thorough & detailed report. Really enjoyable read. So wish I had come along as the conditions sounded great.

Your setup sounds like its working well and producing the goods.

Lets hope Saturday night at EMS1 is even half as good. I can only make the Saturday.

Great report