Blast from the past.....special dark sky report from Mark'splace at Glenore Grove.....19/20th August 2006

Finally getting back to regular postings. I intend to keep my word and finish posting my blast from the past blogs. Re-reading them sure does bring back heaps of good memories and makes me want to go back to oz to observe. So without further ado here is my blast from the past from Glenore Grove, Mark's orchard observing site.

Viewing conditions: Excellent transparency magnitude 6++ skies, below average seeing ; Telescope 10" GS dob and 20x80LW binocs

Observing notes:

Glenore Groove Report 19/20^th of August 2006-08-19/20

 "Observing from Glenore Grove, our awesome semi dark sky site that was some 80% as dark as Leyburn, from left to right, Mark our gracious hos, Andrew Middy and my best astro buddy Andrew Durick. Equipment in piccies from left to right, my 20x80LW, my 10" f/5 dob and Andrew's 12.5" f/5 truss"

A big thank you to Mark for hosting us once again at his humble abode out at Glenore Groove. Since I have not gotten out to darker skies in a while, I was really keen to get out. Plus the 10" GS dob has not seen dark sky action. Needless to say I was itching for some good dark sky observing and galaxy hunting! There were just the 4 of us Andrew (Durick), Andrew (Middy), Mark and me present. Mark was with his 20x80 triplets, while Andrew had his 12.5”f/6 truss and me with my 20x80 LW’s and 10” f/5 GS dob.

The night started off brilliantly even before nightfall. We spotted a brilliant irdium flare towards the east which brightened thrice before fading. Cool start to a great night of superb transparency if indifferent seeing (stars started to look bloated past 200x magnification so most work was done below that magnification). As the sky got darker, the milky way became more and more prominent. I was a little bit worried coming in from Brissie as there were some bush fires here and there. But the skies were just glorious from Glenore Groove (as always)! Our home galaxy was so structured that the dark rifts were apparent. The coal sack near Crux was black as night and the celestial horse and the pipe nebula were all easy with the naked eye. And the North American Nebula was also easily visible without optical aid.

I started with some of the constellations that were slowly sinking into the twilight such as Corvus (M 104 the Sombrero brilliant in Andrew's 12.5" f/6 truss and in my 10" GS dob at powers of about 200x with the dark lane showing easily and the Corvus planetary...nice central star visible). Also had a quick sneaky peek at the galaxy fields in Virgo (started off with M59/60 pair and worked my way to M84/86, stopping at other sights along the way like M87). I did not have a structured observing program for tonight and just wanted to hit as many of my faves as possible to see what they looked like in my 10” dob. The zodiacal light was pretty bright so the views of the Virgo galaxies were compromised. Also swung to the south and picked out the quickly sinking Eta Carina Nebula and surrounds (again Eta Carina was glorious with the NPB filter with its dark lanes and extensive mottling and the clusters…need I say more?). I am again reminded of how lucky I am to be observing from such a southerly location as the skies were just strews with stars and clusters. I also looked at objects in Centaurus, Crux and Musca. Omega Centauri was first up and I got superb views of this glorious ball of stars. I like views of this at 63x in my KK widescan III with the cluster fully resolved to the core. Higher mags are okay but at such high powers, loose globs such as Omega start to look more like rich open clusters. Also looked at NGC 4945 and its small companion. Nice mottling and it looks as if a bite was taken out of its quarters. NGC 5128, the Centaurus A galaxy with its dark lane bisecting the galaxy also looked very nice in the 10” and moving north to M83 at the head of Centaurus, this lovely face on spiral showed its bar and spiral arm structure in the 10”. Also the spiral planetary in Musca looked great with the NPB filter. Whilst in the vicinity, we hopped over to Lupus and looked at the planetary and the galaxies NGC 5643, IC 4444, NGC 5786 surrounding this planetary. This was impromptu but we managed to bag three new galaxies. Cool.

"My old faithful, then only less than a year old 10" f/5 Guan Sheng dobbie"

I next swung to the northern sky and looked at the usual suspects. As I was sure the small galaxy near M13 (nice propellar shape of its arms visible) would be visible, I placed it in the field of view and immediately saw the faint glow of this small galaxy. Also I knew that M57, the Ring Nebula (nice unevenly illuminated ring with the dark hole, now not so dark with inner illumination…cool) had a similar companion. No such luck though through both the dobs. We will need a better map for this one or even a photo. M27, the Dumbbell nebula was a glorious sight in Andrew’s 12.5” with the Dumbbell no longer looking like a Dumbbell as it had its wings outstretched. Then I had a look at the Veil Nebula in the 12.5” and then in my 10” dob with Andrew’s OIII filter. All three portions were visible including pickering’s triangle down the middle. The Veil looks distinctly clumpy and filamentary and looked like a black and white photo. Great views all. And while we were on the subject of star death, Andrew remembered Sp1 in Norma and hunted that down. We got to look at this faint inconspicuous smoke ring that was brighter on one end with Andrew's 12.5" and my 10" dobs. Views were very much enhanced with narrowband filters. Andrew also hunted down a bipolar nebula in Norma and this one was nice as well with a central bright star and two nebulous ears on both sides. Will have to check the NGC or IC number for this.

With that I decided it was time to scan the star clouds and nebulosities of Sagittarius and Scorpius. Started off with the easy stuff like open clusters M7 (Ptolemy’s cluster nice companion globular easily visible with some resolution in the 10”), M6 (the butterfly cluster), the false comet cluster and some globulars like M4 (star bar easily visible even at 63x), M80 (resolution at this mag as well), M22 (looking like a poorer cousin of Omega Centauri but fully resolved as well), M55 (sparser cousin to Omega and M22 also fully resolved at this mag and looking like an open cluster) and some of the globulars in Sagittarius like M28 (also resolution evident). Also took a slight detour from this and looked at the Ophiuchus globulars, M10 and M12 and the Wild Duck cluster, M11 in Scutum. Both were also nicely resolved at 63x in the 10” (you can see that I was a little bit lazy in switching eyepieces). The Wild Duck was a glorious swarm of stars, appearing more like a loose globular cluster than an open cluster.

With the clusters out of the way, I now indulged myself in some nebulosities, screwing on the NPB to the Orion 20mm Expanse so I would not have to screw and unscrew the filter from the KK widescan III. M8, the Lagoon showed extensive nebulosity surrounding the open cluster, appearing much larger than I have ever seen it before.The hourglass nebula close to its core was clearly evident as was the dark “lagoon” running through the nebula. M20, the Trifid likewise showed delicate structure with the dark lanes so evident. Its reflection component was also easily visible. I then swung northwards via the small Sagittarius starcloud and hit M17, the Swan nebula and then M18, the Eagle nebula. Again the Swan looked brilliant with extra nebulosity surrounding the immediate area of the Swan. Again at higher powers, the billowy effect down the Swan’s back was evident as was the dark “lane” running across the Swan’s neck. The eagle showed traces of the dark “pillars of creation”structure with the NPB filter but looked more like O’Meara’s little ghost than an eagle. To top off my Sagittarius tour, we looked at Banard’s galaxy (NGC 6822) and the little gem planetary.

Since I was still in the southern part of the sky, I decided to check out NGC 6397 and NGC 6752, the Ara and Pavo globs. Both appeared nicely resolved at 63x.My fave glob would still have to be the starfish/Pavo glob.It is bright and has very nicely resolved outstretching arms. And since I was in the vicinity, I looked at the Pavo galaxy (NGC 6744) as well. Spiral arms visible in the 10” as well. I then noticed that the SMC was now well placed for viewing and naturally went for 47 Tucana. Nicely resolved at 63x with a tight but glittering core. High powered views are usually better for 47 Tucana but tonight the seeing was just not up to it.

To end the night, we decided to go galaxy hunting once again in the Grus, Sculptor region. Started with the three bears in Grus (NGC 7582, 7590, 7599, make that four bears as the fourth member was also easily visible NGC 7552) and several galaxies surrounding this field, and looked at the brighter galaxies such as NGC 55 (very nice with the mottling in the fatter part of the galaxy…this galaxy goes on forever…..), NGC 253 (nice mottling as well and very bright with its companion globular also resolved nicely NGC 288). And finally M31 and its companions in the 20x80LW’s as they were too low for the scopes. And did I mentioned that I looked at M15 in Pegasus as well. Not fully resolved at 63x. More magnification required.

But the highlights for me for this trip would be scanning the dark nebula’s and brighter regions of our home galaxy in my tripod mounted 20x80LW’s. This is the best time of the year to be a large binocular user. The views of these were just unreal and cannot be expressed in words. The milky way came alive in the binocs with stars being resolved against the multitude of unresolved stars, appearing as clumpiness in our galaxy. And not to mention all those dark nebulosities……COOL! I will have to get out to dark skies more often.