Badger Farm Friday 10th August

[oldfruit]

As well as having our Perseid watch on Saturday night at Badger Farm, i also went along on Friday night to do some observing with Tobias and a couple of guys from SGL.

 

The evening started well with cloud clearing. As dusk was approaching we saw a brilliant fireball in the South West. It was so bright that had it been fully dark it would have probable cast shadows and was comparable in brightness to the full Moon.

 

There were several different scopes ranging from a 100mm Refractor up to a 12 inch dob.

 

As it got dark we began to see the Southern Milky way and were able to follow it almost to the horizon. Needless to say we turned our scopes in that direction and were able to observe the Wild Duck Cluster, the Swan Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, the Triffid Nebula, several Globular Clusters and numerous Open Clusters. Too many to list to be honest but an absolute pleasure to observe as many of us have difficulty observing a lot of these targets from anywhere other than a dark site due to them being too low.

 

We then turned our attention to Cygnus. We were observing the Veil nebula through an 8 inch dob, 10 inch dob and 12 inch dob. All 3 scopes showed the Veil Nebula unfiltered, obviously contrast was improved when we did use an O111 filter but it was nice to see it unfiltered.

We also spent some time around the area of the North American and Pelican Nebula. Though to be honest through the scopes the only way we knew we were looking at them was the lightening of the background sky with the edges bieng sharp in some places and diffuse in others.

Also tried for the Crescent Nebula but could not find it.

 

As the sky was so good i thought i would get a look at M31 through the 12 inch with a 28mm Nirvana. Wow! This was the first time that i can honestly say i have deffinately seen the dust lane in this huge galaxy. It was really quite obvious and makes me wonder why i have not seen it before.

The 2 sattelite galaxies were clearly visible too but showed very little in the way of detail.

 

M33 was very obvious through the eyepiece and a couple of the brighter areas stood out well but as M33 is so diffuse it would be better to observe when it is higher in the sky.

 

I had set myself a goal tonight, and that goal was to see the Super Nova in M74 in Pisces. At about mag 12.4 it should have been visible through our scopes. Early on in the evening we tried but M74 was too low and the galaxy was barely vsible but by about 2am it was a lot better placed and we set about trying to track it down. Looking at the galaxy through the eyepiece we could make out the bright core surrounded by its faint halo hinting at its spiral structure. There were several forground stars in front of the galaxy so which one was the SN? I made a sketch and myself, Tibbz and Colin started to use online pictures as a reference to establish which one it was. After about half an hour of back and forth to the telescopes, sketch and online pictures we think we had identified it and further online checks when i returned home seemed to confirm our observations. So this was a first for me.

 

As the evening/ morning wore on the Pleiades were getting higher and Gemini was laying horizontally accross the North Eastern horizon with Jupiter blazing away. We did have a brief look at Jupiter but it was very poor so was better naked eye. Also Orion had started to rise and showed a hint of the wonderful winter skies to come.

 

A really enjoyable nght was had by all. We eventually packed up at 4am and had seen several good Perseids and a whole bag load of Messiers and other great objects.

I cannot recommend the site at Badger Farm enough. It is a wonderful location and the skies are absolutely superb and all you big dob owners would really enjoy its very dark and beautiful skies. I know i have and i am really looking forward to my next visit.

 

Clear Skies.

 

Mark.

[oldfruit]

This is a shot of the Milky Way through Cygnus taken at Badger Farm on Friday night and give some idea of how good the site is. Forgive the noise but i forgot to take any darks.

[tbird]

Very good report, thanks Mark   

[Tibbz2]

Great report for a great night!

 

It's certainly a nice site, had a very productive evening for me and managed to double my messier count; which I wasn't expecting because I'm terrible with the telrad... I feel this site will help a great deal in my goal to see all the messiers visible from the UK over the next year! Roll on darker nights!

 

Edit: Also just noticed you can make out the North American nebula in that pic!

Edited August 12, 2013 by Tibbz2

[Tweedledee]

That sounds like a brlliant session.

We kept all the clouds inland for you this weekend.

Very nice report.

[+RonC]

Good report, thanks Mark 

Should have remembered what happened at Wainfleet and stayed!! 

[cosmic dave]

Great report mark.

[BAZ]

I enjoyed reading that, thanks Mark. Great pic as well, and shows the potential of the site.

[Guest]

Glad you had a nice night. Where I live I get 12 to 15 of those on average, although much less in the last few years. I've actually seen all Messiers but it took me 4 years.

[Guest foundaplanet]

What a great write up of a very enjoyable night out. 

I still can't believe the brightness of that twilight meteor.

[Astro Muppet]

Great write up and really glad you got clear skies.

 

Pity we was away on holidays but on the plus side did get some observing in sunny Sussex with good views of the Perseids..

 

Dave