A couple of hours on 19/03/2013

[catman161]

This has been one of the most enjoyable sessions I have had this year, although saying that there have not been many opportunities so no surprise really!

 

Anyway during the day the weather forecast was saying that it would be cloudy all night, but with the sun out and blue sky I remained optimistic. I decided to make a red screen cover for my laptop. I still had a length of the scotia plastic moulding left from when I made the DIY rotator/slip ring before Sheila/Ibbo very kindly passed on the spare tube ring I currently use. So I measured up and cut the plastic into lengths and and then simply took some Lee Primary Red 106 Filter and cut that to size and then used gaffa tape of all things as I did not really care about it looking pretty as long as it functioned well. Below is a pic of it and also one of it from last night o the laptop. To those more eagle eyed people, yes there is an object called "Superman!" showing on the stellarium screen. The reason being that I thought it was funny that once stellarium is connected to the mount when you slew to an object the name of your scope flies across the screen (and virtual sky) until it reaches the object that you have asked it to go to and I just found it amusing to call the scope Superman and watch it whizz across the sky

 

 

 

So when it started to get dark I checked outside I saw that it was still crystal clear so put the OTA outside and setup the mount, levelled it and then went and got on with dinner. I ate quickly as I was eager to get outside. I set up the scope, balanced it and put my new 2 inch, low profile nosepiece on the SPC900NC. I bought the 2 inch adapter as I was having trouble achieving focus whe using the standard 1.25 inch nosepiece adapter with the 2x powermate. When using the 1.25 inch nospiece with the powermates 1.25 inch adapter I found that I had to have the barrel of the powermate only half way instered into the focuser in order to have enough travel to achieve focus on jupiter and the moon. With the 2 inch version being low profile and allowing me to remove the 1.25 inch adapter from the powermate I found that I had plenty of travel to achieve focus with the barrel of the powermate fully inserted which gave a much more solid feel to the setup. All in all I am very pleased with the 2 inch adapter from Bern at modern astronomy. It's cheap (£14.99), solidly built and effective for my needs. Some pics below.

 

 

 

 

So I initially just setup as normal to image juoiter and I set the avis running and went inside. The seeing was the best I (personally) have seen this year. I used sharpcap to capture the jupiter images which can be seen here:

 

 

http://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/topic/4360-jupiter-and-grs-transit-19032013/

 

After I finished with the avi's it was still lovely and clear so I removed the webcam and connected the mount to my laptop to see if I could get Stellarium to control the mount and it worked Admittedly I didn't use EQascom/Stellarium Scope I just connected the RS232 cable to the handset and the other end to the laptop and did a direct connect. I was happy that it was actually working and with good accuracy. So I set about what I was going to look at and started with Jupiter and inserted the 13mm Ethos into the 2x powermate. The seeing was still very stable and I noted some good detail in the banding in the SEB and two moons (1 either side of the disc) which were showing as bright pinpricks of light. The GRS had transited by this point but I spent a good 10-15 minutes watching jupiter-never fails me Jupiter, one of my favourite objects.

 

Next I selected the moon on stellarium and pressed Ctrl + 1 and it slewed right over to it. This looked fantastic in the eyepiece with the powermate. The seeng was so stable and I spent a long time looking at the Alpine valley and the Rille running through it (well at least I think that is where I was looking!) The shadows being cast by the mountains were exquisite. I spent about 20 minutes looking just at this area. My only regret is not getting the webcam back out. Fortunately for anyone who wants to see Pat (todd8137) got some cracking shots of the Rille in the Alpine Valley which can be seen here:

 

http://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/topic/4363-terminator-19-march/

 

After the moon I scrolled around the screen on stellarium and slewed over to the Eskimo Nebula. This I couldn't see at first looking directly at the EP however with averted vision it just jumped out very clearly. It appeared as a smal blue-ish, almost circular patch and was very clearly defined in the Ethos. I spent a couple of minutes on this testng different ways of looking into the EP. After that I attempted M51 and I could see the smallest of hazy, fuzzyness with averted vision and gave up fairly quickly as the LP where I live is just too much .  Then I attempted the Leo Triplet but to no avail, again the LP was just too much with Leo being fairly low in the sky still, the orange glow was just too much for it. Then I moved on to some old favorites M36,37,38 in Auriag which looked great. After this  went to M48 (a new one for me) which was a pleasing view but fewer stars than I expected perhaps will see more from a dark sky site? Next I moved over to the Double Cluster which looked fabtastic and fitted perfectly in the FOV of the 13mm Ethos without the powermate. I then went to the Pleides (M45) and obviously this did not all fit into the FOV of the Ethos, although I swear with averted vision I could see some haziness in the stars that were in the FOV-probably just my enthusiasm coupled wit imagination though

 

For my final object I stumbled across it on screen in Stellarium and hit Ctrl +1 and the mount slewed over to the Satellite Cluster (NGC2244). I had not seen this before and when I  stepped up to the eyepiece I immediately liked what I saw. Fitting nicely inside the FOV of the 13mm Ethos was a pleasing cluster which was a mixture of bright and faint stars in an obvious satellite pattern-it's a very fitting name. As I could not stop staring at it, I went inside and grabbed my sketch pad and had a go at sketching the cluster.  I spent about 20 mins at the EP sketching under red head torch light. It took me a while as I kept geting the scale wrong and reaching for the eraser. Eventually though I came up with the sketch below.

 

 

All in all, considering that I was not expecting to do any gazing last night I had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours

 

According to forecast it is going to be clear again tonight, if so I shall be out in the yard again perhaps having a go at some lunar pictures with the webcam.

Edited March 20, 2013 by catman161

[T A WOW]

Nice report Felix. I particularly like your description of the double cluster being "fabtastic".

Don't know where you're getting all this clear skies from, send me some please.

[catman161]

Cheers Toby, was lovely for about just under three hours last night here in leicester then the cloud came.

[Guest Ely Ellis]

Excellent Felix, made some interesting reading. Bit disappointed in myself for not making the effort last night.

Well done.

 

Martin

[PaulG]

Hi Felix

 

Nice report and a good read.

I had around 3 hours of clear sky last night.

I was also drawn to the Alpine Valley region too taking in Trouvelot & Trouvelot H craters.

 

Paul