Friday and Saturday observing.

[oldfruit]

This weekend I have been fortunate enough to get out observing twice. Friday night at Frampton Marsh near Boston for a Jupiter watch with SOLAGS and a talk by Paul Money. Also Saturday night/morning with Paul (tbird) up at our dark site at Badger Farm.

 

It has been a while since I have been out observing due to the fact that we moved house recently and also that we have just not had the weather for it. When I read about a Jupiter Watch being held locally I jumped at the chance. I arrived at the RSPB Frampton Marsh visitors centre about 5.45 pm, introduced myself to a couple of members from SOLAGS and asked if I could set up my dob. One of their members also had a 12 inch dob plus they had also set up a Meade 14 inch sct hooked up to a monitor in the visitors centre to display a  real time image of Jupiter taken with a DMK camera on the Meade sct.

 

Paul Money was also there early on and it was nice to catch up with him. He spent some time observing with us and members of the public and about 7.30 pm we all went into the visitors centre and Paul gave one of his fascinating talks on the King of planets, Jupiter. I think we all learned something that night.

After the talk was finished we all went outside and showed some very enthusiastic members of the public the views through our scopes. Jupiter obviously, but also the Moon, M42, M81, M82, M51, The Leo Triplet. I love it when the members of the public look through a big dob for the first time and they are just amazed and keep saying "Wow".

By 10pm everyone was packing up but a great evening was had by all and I is always nice to meet new faces and chat about Astronomy in general.

 

 

On Saturday I checked the forecast and it looked good from about 11pm onwards so I set about getting together with anyone that was available to do some observing up at our dark site at Badger Farm. I have missed the last 2 ELAC meetings so was keen to get out under a good dark sky. As it was such short notice only Paul (tbird) was able to go so I arranged to meet him there about 10pm, this was due to cloud being forecast early on and also the Moon would still be high early on. 

 

Upon arrival Paul was already there,  the sky was quite hazy, it was also bright due to the Moon.

Paul wanted to continue with his Messier hunt and I wanted to do some observing and imaging.

I had selected M101 as my target for the evening so I got on with setting all the kit up. Thankfully there is electricity supplied to the field so I was able to connect my camping cable up so I could run my laptop etc. Once all the faffing of getting everything up and running was done I got the rig guiding and set it off.

Now I could relax a bit and start to do some visual as  both myself and Paul had opted to take our dobs.

Due to the Moon being out early on we were a little limited as to what we were able to observe well. The objects were visible but not as well as had the sky been darker.

 

Jupiter was looking ok but not great but it was nice to see the GRS crossing the face of the planet. The Moon looked great as always with some lovely detail visible even though there was some haze.

As the night progressed the haze started to clear and the Moon got lower in the sky. Paul had been patiently waiting for some of the more elusive Messiers to become visible. He did show me one globular cluster, which one I cannot remember but it was really faint and quite a challenge as it was also very low down in the murk. Paul started to work his way methodically through the list of objects that he needed. I in the meantime was observing M51 which was almost overhead and showing some good spiral structure through the dob with averted vision. M101 visuall was there but not much detail could be made out. I also observed the Leo Triplet , Sombrero galaxy and had a wander around the Virgo Galaxy Cluster with the 28mm Nirvana. The galaxies were in every field of view. Whichever way I moved the scope there were more and more.

 

One object which deserves a special mention is NGC 4565 in Coma Berenices. A beautiful edge on galaxy with a bright bulging core, arms that extend way out and a very apparent dust lane going through them. A really lovely site and probably the highlight of the evening for me. I am surprised I have not come across this one before as it seems to have a high surface brightness.

 

Towards the end of the session Cygnus was starting to get higher and the Milky way through it was looking stunning. At about 4 am I was ready for home but Paul was hanging in there to try to get some of the Messiers down in Sagittarius. I have to hand it to you Paul, your dedication to Astronomy is second to none.

 

A very pleasant evening with one or two new objects for me, thanks Paul for your company.

[Tibbz2]

Sounds like you had a good two nights, nice report as usual.

I didn't want to go anyway

[oldfruit]

Sounds like you had a good two nights, nice report as usual.

I didn't want to go anyway

To be honest I totally forgot to ask as I had been at Thetford forest all day sat and it was all a bit last minute. Will send you a message next time.

[+RonC]

Good report Mark and some good targets seen, yes Paul deserves praise for the way he gets those Messiers! He was like that last week, hope the money rolls in for the hut! See you soon and natter about the Polish trip planned for next year!

 

Cheers

Ron

[Tibbz2]

To be honest I totally forgot to ask as I had been at Thetford forest all day sat and it was all a bit last minute. Will send you a message next time.

Np, but I probably won't be making any meets until July time now.

[dawson]

Nice write up; sounds like a good weekend.

Jd