Blast from the past.....dark sky jaunts to Leyburn.....3/4th of May 2003

As they say better late than never. was planning to post this on Sunday but ran out of time...here it is....

 3/4th of May 2003

Viewing conditions: Average transparency magnitude 7 skies ; Telescope 15x70mm binocs and on occasion a 10" DOB

Observing notes:

The weather wasn't the best over in Brisbane but the weather forecast for Leyburn was for fine skies. Leyburn is approximately 2 1/2 hours drive from Brisbane. When we got there, there were some clouds but it did clear up a little later on in the night for some superb binocular observations. Seeing and transparency was only so so. There was also an awful lot of dew which cut our observing session short. I was armed only with my 10x50's and 15x70's on a tripod (but of course my buddy brought along his 10" GS dob, his 6" and 4" refractors mounted on an EQ6). Did most of my observations with the binocs but did use the 10" dob a fair bit too.

Firstly the binocular observations. The 15x70's were a revelation under dark skies. Picked out quite a number of galaxies in the Virgo-Coma region (all the Messier’s and some of the brighter NGC's). The M65/66/3628 trio were very easy as was the M95/96/105 in Leo (2903 was also very nice and bright). M83 in Hydra was nice with a very bright core and nice surrounding nebulosity indicating its spiral arms. 4945 in Centaurus was a nice fat streak in the binocs. Omega Centauri was, surprisingly a large pinprickly (some resolution was very evident across the face of the glob) elliptical blob, the LMC showed extensive mottling, M42's wings and bulbs was just huge, M8's dark lane was nice as was M17 the swan (much more surrounding nebulosity was visible than from my mag 5-5.5 suburban skies), M20, the trifid showed both it emission and reflection nebula components. It is interesting to note that I could detect a greenish tint to some of the brighter nebulae like M42 and M8! Now what am I forgetting here..oh yeah and I finally saw the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros. Tried a little trick that someone once tried. Held up the UHC to the naked eye and saw the Rosette...with the naked eye! Also held the UHC up to one of the ep's of the binoc and saw the faint ghostly tendrils that was the rosette surrounding the cluster. The binos were also great for general panning. You would not believe how many dark nebulae are up there. Don't know the numbers as I don't have a map that shows dark Banard nebula's but by doing that, it would have detracted from the views I was getting.

Oh and yeah I did do some scope observing (mostly with a buddy’s 10” dob). In fact I started the night with the dob. Had great views of the Eta Carina Nebula and the homunculus in the 10" with the UHC and the 9mmWA. Omega Centauri was also very impressive in the 10" with the 6mmWA (with its usual lattice formations). Also had a good look at the dust lane in 5128 with the 9mmWA and the 10”. Spent the rest of the night having to deal with a dewed up finder (had to take it off and put it in a warm place 4x no less...totally frustrating..finding stuff that were not near any bright stars were just impossible). Ended the night with a leisurely cruise around the Virgo coma region where I picked up at least 11 new galaxies (all mostly small elipticals). Also spent the most part scrutinizing galaxy structure (M64's dark lane, M63, the sunflower galaxy's  and M94, the croc's eye mottling). Also picked up a couple of new galaxies in addition to the ones I “stumbled” across in Virgo such as 6744 in Pavo.