Tweedledee Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Best turnout of observers that I've seen so far last night at Belper, and lots of nice scopes. I think these are all the members who were there... BigT, Eclipse, Ryall, Baz & Krys, Cazz & Wayne, Craig & Emma, Dirk Dongler, Bryn G, Eddie and Perkil8r drove up about 11am just as I was leaving. Thanks to Baz for keeping us warm with some brews and nibbles. Dew seemed worse than usual last night, so I was pleased I had my Baz battery and hairdrier. Really clear and Milky Way showing nicely. Saw quite a lot of meteors including several fairly bright ones and as usual lots of satelites going by both naked eye and in the eyepiece. The 10" F4 Schmidt Newt was performing well between frequent hairdrier sessions. M81 and M82 were located nicely with my new TS 12 x 80 RACI finder. I had my best ever view of the pair, both nicely framed in the 14mm 100 degree ep at 73x. They were both large and on close inspection M82 showed some small details and irregularities in its cigar shape. M51 the Whirlpool, although low down was easily found with hints of very faint brightenings which were I think were parts of spiral arms. The companion galaxy was nicely seen. Over to Andromeda and NGC 404, right next to Mirach seemed rather bright for 10th magnitude but round and featureless. M31,32 and 110 made a nice sight as usual. M27 the Dumbell made really nice viewing showing good shape and contrasting brightnesses in different parts. M57 was a pretty little smoke ring. Don't know why, but I just could not make the veil nebula appear, with or without the O111 filter. Yet I had seen it as plain as day several weeks ago from Belper. Clusters just show up great in this 10", in fact it just seems like where ever you point it, you are looking at a cluster, it really gives a such rich field. Brocchis Cluster, The Coathanger looked great in the 80mm finder. Even better in the ST120 F5 at 43x with the 14mm 100d, and was even framed very nicely and showing far more stars in the 10" at 44x with the 23mm 82degree Axiom. Cygnus in general is just wonderful to look at in the 10" with the Axiom showing nearly a 1.9 degree field. Slowly panning the 10" around Cygnus using the Skytee slomos is absolute heaven. Anywhere around that area shows a breathtaking view of countless stars and every several field diameters there is an even denser patch of some cluster or other, I was so transfixed I couldn't even be bothered to take my eye from the ep and check the star map to see what I was looking at. One I did come across and instantly recognise was M29, a little jewel in the heart of the swan with a very distinctive pattern of stars. Another beautiful sight was a wide field trip down Kembles Cascade in Camelopardalis, a long winding ribbon of stars on the end of which hangs NGC1502 which is a lovely compact cluster showing bright and faint stars. I'm always amazed at the richness of the double cluster and try to find as many coloured stars as I can, it contains a few lovely orange ones. NGC 1528 also in Perseus looked very rich with many bright and faint stars half filling the field of the big 14mm ep. Nearby, NGC 1513 had a group of bright stars filling the field and small fuzzy mass of faint stars in the centre giving quite a contrasting view. NGC 1545 also nearby was a large sparse group of bright stars interspersed with fainter ones. NGC 1582 just a little south also filled the field with a few bright stars. Before packing away I had a quick look at some large rich old favourites including M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga along with the small NGC 1907. I had been avoiding checking out Jupiter as I didn't want to spoil my night vision for DSO's early on and planned to see it last off, but had such a great time I just forgot all about it. What a wonderful night under the stars . Hope everyone else had a great time, and it would be nice to see some more visual observing reports in this section. I'd love to know what the rest of you were looking at. Cheers, Pete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Great report, thanks Pete. Your setup just looked superb! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tweedledum Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Great report Pete, had the scope out cooling but was quite misty here.... Glad you all hd a good un. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 A really enjoyable read Peter, sounds like an awesome night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAZ Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Nice write up Pete, as Craig said, your set-up is just perfect. I as comparing the performance of my little Vixen Cat, against the 5" Meade refractor, and although it as expected didn't do so well on DSO's, it did pull it out of the bag on Jupiter and double stars. There was greater contrast than the frac, and a sharper image with well defined dark sky between doubles. The colour was better to Albireo seemed a lot richer in the little Cat. The view of Jupiter was simply sharp and crisp, with a nice bright image, clearly showing the moons as pinpoint dots. All in all a very good night. I have now modified the mount so the scope can be removed easily from the EQ3. This had to be bolted to it with packers before this. I now have a good quality capable little grab n' go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perkil8r Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 After the part timers left Bill and myself stayed until just after 4am. Cloud drifted through a couple of times as did some very spooky mist patches, but overall it stayed pretty blooming good. Around 2:30am there was a stunning green fireball shot through from Orion into Leo leaving a hanging trail for around 5 seconds almost the entire distance from Orion to Leo. It lit the field up quite brightly. Bill saw a few shooters, but I saw only one other than the fireball. Although chilly, it was a bit warmer than last week I think, although that may be as a result of my new thermal socks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz Type-R Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 Glad you had another cracking night, this is the 3rd or 4th Belper meet I have missed in the last few months, my wife's shifts are a PITA. Fingers crossed for the next one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 After looking through all the different scopes I learnt that size isn't everything!! Martyn will be pleased! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Eddy Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 Twas a good night, it was good to meet the better half of Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cazz Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 It was a good night, it's fab to talk to people on my level and use the same descriptions. My report:- I looked at pretty things, and my new boots are very warm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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