I let three good, warm, clear nights slip by me this weekend. Each night right around sundown, the clouds made a strong appearance, so I occupied myself with other trivial endeavors rather than haul out the astro gear. Later in the evening, each evening, as I took a look outside I found the skies to be clear and inviting, but it was too late to set up. There was also a lot of moon on a couple of those nights, but still. So having missed three good chances to get out under the sky, I was determined for last night. Consequently, I was convinced the clouds would close in. That’s the usual pattern. But I lucked out or was given grace, depending on your theology, and the sky remained clear.
I set up the Celestron Nexstar Evolution 8″ on the pool patio. It’s the first time I’ve had it out since Green Bank in July, so it took some work remembering how to get it all put together right and to attach a few doodads that had been taken off for travel. I got it set up as the stars were coming out, so I was able to get it aligned. Then I got the call in for supper (we eat late around here), so I parked it and went to eat. I got back out at about 8:35, and the sky was still clear! Amazing! Also, it was warm enough that a long sleeve shirt was all I needed for my whole time out. That and my Palomar beanie.
What I saw:
Summary:
My primary targets were the planets, especially Mars. I spent a good bit of time bouncing back and forth between Mars, half way up the SE sky, and Saturn getting low in the SSW. More on them in a minute. From there, a quick circuit of the summer glories near Sagittarius, then on to the ice giants, Neptune and Uranus. After that, Andromeda seemed the logical next target. Then, I employed the “Sky Tour” feature of my telescope, letting it suggest nearby goodies. This was cool, because otherwise I might never have seen a couple of these, and I didn’t have a plan, either. I finished the night with three favorite targets around the Summer Triangle, which was still about half way up in the western sky. As I started packing up the gear, a very bright, green fireball crossed the sky in the SW, lasting a couple seconds! Great way to end the night! I was out from 8:30 – 11:45 p.m. EDT.
Conditions:
Weather: Warm! in the upper 60s, maybe over 70. Humid. No wind to speak of. No moon until after midnight (@20 days old).
Seeing: 4/10 – pretty wobbly, based on [magnification/in. aperture]
Transparency: 5/10 – high humidity, maybe a thin layer of cloud even
Observations:
Mars
I’ve been waiting to see Mars all summer. As it was heading for its nearest approach in July, it was blanketed by a global dust storm that obscured any surface markings. I did get a chance to see it at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, in August, and the dust was starting to settle. Some markings were present to the patient observer at that point. As for this night, the seeing was pretty poor and the transparency didn’t help, but I managed to push the magnification to 222x with the 9mm Plossl eyepiece. That’s well below the minimum to resolve much (312x for 8″ aperture), but I was able to discern some surface markings in the better moments. According to Sky&Telescope (S&T), the disk was 16″ (arcseconds). There was a band of darkness along the northern hemisphere, and it seemed to double back on itself about halfway along the equator. What was more striking was that the disk was only 89% illuminated (according to S&T) and showed as a gibbous section, like the moon a couple days after full. That doesn’t happen very often with the outer planets, but there it was. There was a slight hint of the southern polar ice cap, but I wouldn’t say I really saw it.
I tried a few different filters with varying results. Red definitely made the dark area stand out more, but it overwhelmed anything else. The yellow filter did almost as much to increase the surface contrast without being as overbearing. Blue should have helped bring out the polar cap, but it seemed just to wash everything out. Just not good enough conditions for much detail.
Saturn
I went back and forth several times between Mars and Saturn for comparison and because Saturn was heading for the trees, but I wanted to see if there was any movement on the surface features of Mars. Any way, Saturn looked a great as the conditions would allow, which is to say, “meh.” Saturn’s disk was about the same size as Mars, but that’s not counting the rings. Using the same 222x magnification as on Mars, I couldn’t really make out the Cassini division in the rings, as the outer ring appeared unusually dark. I attribute this to the poor transparency. With patience, I could see some shadow on the rings near the eastern limb in the rear and some darkening around the north pole. The disk is covering much but not all of the rings. Usually I can make out some color differences on the disk, but there wasn’t much to be seen this night.
The red and blue filters didn’t do much for Saturn other than make the outer ring almost completely invisible. The yellow filter helped with the contrast a little bit, making the shadow effects more noticeable but not much more.
I’ve seen Saturn this summer in my scope, the Yerkes 40″ Clark refractor, the Lowell 24″ Clark refractor, and the Griffith Zeiss 12″ refractor. This night ranked somewhere in the lower half, although my scope at Green Bank ranked near the top. Conditions make a huge impact, regardless of how awesome the equipment. Of course, my 8″ is 80 years newer than the newest of the rest in the list.
M20
The Trifid forgot to show up for work tonight. It’s fairly faint to start with and the poor transparency made it essentially invisible. I know I was on it because of the two stars that sit in its midst.
M8
The Lagoon is always a pleasure with its large open cluster and broad nebulosity. I’ve noticed that the Nexstar doesn’t pick up the nebulosity as much as my Newts, and again, with the poor transparency, only the brightest areas were clearly visible. I admit I didn’t study the view for very long, as I had other things in mind. I think a nebula filter might be a worthwhile investment, though.
M22
The great Sagittarius globular cluster is a real showpiece. It stands up to a good bit of magnification. At 222x the stars were resolving in a layer across the surface, although the underlying multitude were less forthcoming. The cluster filled most of the field of view with dozens of brighter stars in that top layer. The whole this is sort of tick-shaped, but apart from that, it’s a beauty.
Neptune
I’ve been tracking Neptune for about 10 years. By tracking, I mean I try to find it every year or two when it’s in a favorable place. Well, now is the season. Back in 2008 it was near the point of Capricornus and easily visible in binoculars. It has made its way into easter Aquarius, between Lambda and Phi, and I had a hard time knowing which object was the planet. Part of the problem is my tracking was off a bit because of parking the scope during dinner, but Neptune is also really small (S&T: 2.4″) and faint now. I finally found it, I think. At 333x magnification it showed itself to be a slightly nonstellar disk, just barely. I’ll have to go back and try it again.
Uranus
Same thing with Uranus. That is, I’ve been following it for as long as Neptune, and it’s harder to find than it was when I started. It has traveled from under the Circlet of Pisces to just east of o Piscium moving into Aries. Uranus is an easier find than Neptune, being 3.7″ (S&T). It was clearly nonstellar and a very small disk at 333x. I might even have seen a little bit of color? A hint of blue maybe? Maybe.
M31, 32, 110
The Great Andromeda Galaxy is always a treat. Enormous and bright, it extends past the field of view in my 40mm e.p. at 50x, so it’s over a degree (twice a full moon). The conditions cut it down some, but it’s still huge. The western edge has a dark dust lane running along it, so it’s more defined than the eastern. (I think I have my directions right). There is a bright, small core surrounded by this extended “nebulosity” that is a 100 million suns. Other than the hard edge I didn’t notice much structure.
M32 is an elliptical galaxy just off the side of the M31. It’s tiny by comparison, but still pretty good size as visible galaxies go. It has a bright core surrounded by an oval of rich haze. It didn’t appear to be over or in M31 but pretty close.
M110 is another elliptical galaxy to the NW of M31. It appears larger than M32 but looks similar with bright core and surrounding oval. It’s edges don’t look as well defined as M32. It is very impressive as compared with other Messier galaxies, just small compared to M31.
M33
The Triangulum or Pinwheel Galaxy is a large, face-on spiral, but tonight it looked like a large, faint fuzz. I’ve found it easily in binoculars many nights and occasionally seen it naked eye (maybe?), but the conditions were not favorable this time, and it didn’t have much to offer. Hey, we all have off days.
Eta Cassiopeiae
This was the first of the items suggested by my telescope’s computer that I looked at. It’s a double star with two yellow white stars, one significantly brighter than the other. I haven’t done much with double stars, but this was pretty to look at.
M103
Scope called this the Triangle Cluster, I think. It’s an open cluster with several brighter stars that make up an isosceles or maybe right triangle with fainter stars laced back and forth across it. I’m not a huge fan of open clusters, but this one is pretty interesting.
M77
This is allegedly a face-on spiral galaxy. I’ll believe it when I see it. It wasn’t a good night for galaxies, or at least for the faint ones. I can’t swear that I even identified this. There was a ghost in the field of view, just kind of a faint slash, that moved with the field, so I guess that was it.
M34
Another of those open clusters I don’t care much for, except I spent a long time on this one. If I were going to name it, I’d call it the Atlas Cluster. I imagined a bulky figure standing with arms stretching out and up (toward NW I think), legs locked, and a globe on its back. It started with two close stars that serve as eyes and three down the middle for abs. Strands running up and out in curves that define the limbs. It’s a sizable cluster with a couple dozen brighter components shaping the titan character and dimmer stars surrounding for the globe and environment. I enjoyed it!
Double Cluster
This pair of open clusters leaning against each other between Cassiopeia and Perseus are beautiful in binoculars. You need a pretty wide field of view to take it all in. Even with the 40mm e.p. I could only fit about one and a half of them at a time. Dozens and dozens of stars, mostly bright white or blue with one or two red ones toward the middle of the two.
Kite Cluster
Described as a diamond of stars with a string of five or more for a tail. I think I saw it, now that I’ve seen pictures of it, but it didn’t look like a kite to me.
M76
This planetary nebula (poorly named, having nothing to do with planets other than sort of looking like one) is fairly compact, maybe 15″? and appears kind of pine tree shaped, so it’s doubly badly named as Little Dumbbell. Maybe with better conditions and/or more patience it looks like the Dumbbell. I think I saw mostly the core. It varied in consistency from top to bottom, being kind of patchy. It sits next to one or two field stars to the west.
Gamma Andromeda (Almaach)
This is a beautiful double star out on the tip of Andromeda with the two stars varying in magnitude and color. The brighter partner is several orders of magnitude brighter than the fainter companion. The brighter is a golden yellow tone, while the partner is a bright blue. Very pleasing pairing.
M27
The Dumbbell (planetary) Nebula appears vastly larger than the Little Dumbbell! A large round object with mottled appearance, M27 filled about half the field of view at 222x. It’s an easy target and impressive to look at. Imagine, that’s what our sun may look like in 5 billion years.
M57
Unless it looks like this. The Ring and the Dumbbell are both remnants of sun-like stars. It’s thought that they appear at 90-degrees rotation to us, so that we are looking at the side of M27 and down the throat of M57. The Ring is farther away and appears smaller. Nevertheless, at 222x it was clearly a ring of nebulosity. I didn’t see anything in the middle, although sometimes material or a star can be seen.
Epsilon Lyrae
The Double Double is a pair of binary stars that orbit each other. With binocs you can split the one star into two, and at 222x the two split into pairs. The two pairs run perpendicular to each other, so that one pair appears up and down while the other appears side to side. Very cool, and a good end point for the night.
Fireball!
While I was starting to tear down, a bright green light lit up the sky, casting reflections from the telescope tripod legs and shadows on the ground. I looked up to see the end of the fireball, a very bright meteor. It was bright green. A remnant tail about a degree wide and 15 degrees long stretched from the endpoint up the sky. It seems to have run a track that appeared almost straight up and down, maybe from Delphinus down past Altair through Aquila, ending about 15 degrees above the horizon. The tail faded out quickly.
In the end…
Although the conditions weren’t ideal, it was still a very fruitful night out under the sky, which always does my heart and soul good. So glory to God who set all things in their courses and gave some of us eyes to see and souls to thrill at the beauty of it all.
A Pilgrim of Earth and Heavens 