City Stargazing : Finding gems under indifferent skies..my writeup from the equator!

I don’t know what is it that compels me to gaze skywards. Maybe it was the impressions I got as a young teenager looking upward in awe. Maybe it was parental influence. Maybe it was peer pressure. The funny thing is that many of my close friends of whom I grew up with stargazing are no longer looking up.  I only know of one other friend who still continues to observe like I do. I never lost that special feeling, the bond, the oneness with the universe above. I never lost that special feeling when I first spotted Saturn’s rings through my small 40mm Celestron Cometron.  I am so draw to the stars that I look up even when most would not. One such place is my light polluted backyard back in JB, Malaysia. I grew up in the same compound where I lived half my adult life. It was also here when I first gazed upon some now familiar DSO’s. The skies have changed dramatically from the days of yore. I remember being able to see things in my small scope that would be impossible now. The skies that were once dark are now pink and, at its best grey. They have gotten so bad that DSO’s are only visible if I use the 127mm Celestron Firstscope. My Cometron CO40 is only good now for bright solar system objects. And it is set to get worse with new skyscrapers adorning the southern sky (mostly KSL City’s new office and hotel block).

Its funny how people take things for granted. I used to just say meh to observing here. I had it good in Brisbane, Australia. The skies there are heaps better than back here in Malaysia. Suburban observing was good. And I had a whole new southern sky to gawk at. The old saying goes that all the good and bright stuff is in the southern hemisphere. That is very true. I now live in the northern hemisphere, and while I still have the same urge to gaze skywards, I miss the times when I could just go out and scan, at low magnification, the glorious star jammed regions surrounding the Eta Carina Nebula. There is no northern sky equivalent to this region. Those skies seem so far way now. From my dark sky site at Mount Pinos, the heart of our galaxy is a horizon hugger (maybe I am exaggerating things a bit as it is a tad higher than that). My once fave objects such as Omega Centauri just skims the horizon now. The only way to see them again is to brave the hordes of mozzies and the heat and humidity when I come home to visit. I guess the advantage of living on the equator is that you get the best of both celestial hemispheres.

Observing from the tropics has its downsides too. The weather is often uncooperative and there are many days of clouds and rains. In fact the recent longest lunar eclipse on June 16^th got washed out by rains, right when totality was about to happen. Major bummer? I think so. The best times are to observe are right after a huge thunderstorm. The skies are the clearest and most transparent during these times. Fortunately I came back in the May/June period when Centaurus and the southern cross are riding high in the southern sky. Well higher than Los Angeles for sure.  Coming back for five weeks gave me more time to plan my observations. The number one object on my list was my good old friend Omega Centauri, and the jewel box. I also wanted to see Eta Carina, but at this time of the year, it lies uncomfortably close to those stinking KSL towers. Will try for it in my trusty 10x50 binoculars. More to come on this……

My first try in early June was disastrous. I had not quite come to grips with using the relatively heavy 127mm Firstscope OTA on a photo tripod with no fluid panhead or slow motion controls. In order to get an object in the FOV, one had to overshoot the target, tighten and then let the object drift into view. With a whole heap of cussing, I finally managed to get some DSO’s in the field. It was a practice in frustration! Mental note to myself to bring back a EQ1 head (without counterweights as that would be too heavy) next time. This scope will be my nephew’s firstscope. I want him to get a better headstart with a much larger scope than my puny CO40. Such a small scope would no cut it under such observing conditions!!!!!!

The first object on my list was the jewel box. Not as pretty as I remembered it from Brissie, but then the skies are a whole heap better there (5.6 versus 4 magnitude limit at zenith!!!!!). I played around with magnification, but overall the best views came using the 24.5mm Meade Superwide in the 1000mm focal length scope for a magnification of 40x. The jewel box looked prettier at 50x with the Orion 20mm Expanse. Next stop Omega Centauri. Boy did I have trouble finding this one. Going from memory, I pointed the puny 5x24 plastic finder and then stared into the eyepiece. No go. Had to scan around a bit and finally found the fuzzy cottonball that was Omega. Was it pretty??? The answer was no. But as I found out that night was not a very good night. I have seen it better on three separate occasions, using the same magnification. I can almost make out some graniness to it, with some stars winking in and out. Any attempt to look at it with higher magnification was met with failure. I need a better mount with slow mo controls.

We had some rains in the day yesterday, the 20^th of June and with the skies clearing to a glorious nice and clear day, I brought out the scope and was once again under the stars. The jewel box seemed a lot snazzier last night, easily revealing more stars within it’s a frame of brighter stars. Star colors were also a lot more noticeable tonight (even better than Friday’s session). Omega stood out more boldly and there were many more stars “resolving” tonight than on previous occasions. Still a vague caricature of its spellbinding self under dark skies but one cannot complain when all one has is this. Also as it was almost 2 weeks since my first observation session here, Scorpius and Sagittarius were much higher too. Visited more old friends such as M6, Ptolemy’s cluster and M7, the butterfly cluster. Both looked better under my light polluted LA skies than here, which only showed how bad the skies here have grown. I tried for the planetary nebula, the bug nebula but had no success. Maybe I should try for it with the NPB filter in place. Speaking of the NPB filter, I also had a chance to look at M8, the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius. Wow hardly any nebulosity apparent. With the NPB in place, I could just about make out some. I guess the 40x magnification did not help either. From experience the best views I have gotten of M8 is at very low magnifications, even better if you can get both the Lagoon and Trifid nebula in the same view. Also had a good look at the Sagittarius starcloud and the false comet cluster at the tail of Scorpius. No luck with M17, the swan nebula as yet. Will try for it and have another write up when I do.

Fastforward to the 23^rd of June. We had a huge downpour in the morning, leading to gloriously clear skies, the best I have seen since coming back! I estimated the magnitude limit at zenith to be 4.5 or better. This was the make or break night seeing how I will be leaving for the northern hemisphere in a couple of days time. Both Omega Centauri and the jewel box looked spectacular tonight (well still nowhere near as nice as what you would see from a dark sky). I think I have finally mastered the mount! I find I can now push the magnification higher. Plus it helps when you elevate the mount to eye level (what was I thinking duh!).  I guess bending over to look in the eyepiece makes it harder to make out detail, or very faint objects! Omega once again looked “peppery” with stars winking in and out at 50x magnification. I generally find the best views of Omega come at about 50 or 60x magnification.

Seeing how good the skies were, I decided to go for broke and hunt some of the objects I failed to see the nights before. M104, the sombrero galaxy was “glimpsed” barely at 80x magnification (skies in LA a definitely better as it was much easier to see in LA). More like a smudge with no detail with averted vision. I tried for M83 at the head of Centaurus with no success. I was hoping to at least see the core of the galaxy.  I then moved over to the Sagittarius-Scorpius region. The first stop was M4. I know its crazy but I have not had any luck finding this bright globular on previous occasions. Not today. It was faint but definitely visible. The bar of stars going through the middle of the cluster was definitely visible at even 50x magnification.

M6 and M7 were glorious tonight. At least the skies did not appear as grey (must be all the dust and moisture in the air on the previous nights). Both filled the eyepiece with sparkling diamonds, with the butterfly cluster’s shape standing out.  The false comet cluster looked great tonight too. Seems like all the open clusters were showing off (even the ones around Eta Carina were visible earlier on while scanning, with the glow of KSL towers not far off!). The next logical target was the bug nebula. This was a no show a couple of nights ago too. Tonight, using the blinking method, I finally confirmed that I was indeed seeing it. Again unspectacular, looking like an unfocussed elongated star.

By now the whole constellation of Sagittarius was easily visible. Started off at M22. Big cotton ball with only a slight hint of resolution. I felt I needed more magnification on this one, so I popped in the 2x Orion Shorty Barlow. The views were only marginally better. M8 and M20, the Lagoon and the Trifid looked heaps better tonight though. The views of the Lagoon tonight sans the NPB filter looked just like what I saw a couple of nights earlier with the NPB on! Niceeee. Tonight the dark lane that gives the Lagoon its name was clearly visible, as well as some of it outer wisps. Even the Trifid was visible tonight. No details were visible though, just some faint nebulosity surrounding a star.

Emboldened by my success, I set out to see if I could find M17, the Swan Nebula. No luck there as well…what gives. My final two objects of the night were bright objects, a globular in Hercules and a planetary in Lyra. M13 was a nice concentrated ball of unresolved stars. The core looked starlike with no resolution. M13 appeared brighter than Omega and M22, probably due to its compactness. And M57, good old M57 the Ring Nebula, my old nemesis. Was never certain I ever saw this object from JB skies. I caught glimpses of it in my CO40, but was never certain. Looked like an out of focused star. But tonight I finally saw its ring shaped visage at 80x with the NPB filter in place. Guess my observing career in JB has come full circle with me spying M57!

The moral of the story is stargazing and DSO observing is possible even from the worst locations. One just has to be very persistent and have sufficient light gathering power (nothing smaller than a 4.5” in my opinion). Oh and I forgot to mention my most valuable tool to combat light pollution, my ever trusty dark monks hood cloak. Never leave home without it!!!!

Blast from the past....my writeup for Orion Show and Tel......Stragazing Downunder

It has been a while since my last sidewalk astronomy experience. Seeing how I was going to write up an abbreviated version for Orion Telescopes Show and Tel contest, I decided to put up the full version of my prose here on my blog. I do enjoy the occasional “street” session to educate the masses about our fantastic hobby. So without further ado, here is the full version….

I have always tried to promote our hobby of stargazing to the masses. I have a couple of colleague that have more than a passing interest in looking up. Being in Brisbane, QLD, Australia has its perks. I have been stargazing here since the late 90’s and have seen the sky get progressively worse. The milky-way used to be a lot more structured, even from my apartment balcony in suburbia. Back then I could go down to magnitude 5.7 easy and hunt galaxies brighter than magnitude 10 with my C6. I have even spied M33 in my 15x70 on excellent transparency winter nights. These days the best I can manage is 5.5 under similar conditions (still much better than at my current abode in Culver City, CA where the best I can manage is 5.2). The milky-way is still visible in the direction of Sagittarius-Scorpius region, although devoid of all structure, and the SMC and LMC can barely be made out. One has to know where to look.

I have organized several sessions in the past, mostly using my Orion 80ST on a photo tripod, and my old beat up Celestron C6 6”f/5 newtonian (mostly involving two or three close friends). I usually organize such sessions closer to the southern austral winter as there are many brighter things to look at. Also I usually choose public parks such as Robertson’s Park in Indooroopilly, a site also used by the Brisbane’s Suburban Astronomers group, and Mount Cootha, used by the Brisbane Astronomical Society. I have successfully “infected” two of my non astronomer friends to take up the hobby, with one getting just a 76mm Alt-Az scope not unlike the 3” Orion Spaceprobe, and the other a 6” f/5 Eq Newtonian.  Both have just a passing interest and occasionally look up at the planets. Guess you have to start them somewhere right?

This time however I had a much bigger group, approximately 10 people in total. I put a note up on the whiteboard at work and have been talking it up all week!!!!! Everyone knows I am the labs astro geek. I chose a site not too far from home and work, a site used frequently by my then lab for Melbourne Cup day picnics, Perrin Park in Taringa, Brisbane, QLD. I have also used that site extensively since moving to Taringa on nights I want to use the 10” f/5, and I am not at my society’s dark sky site in Leyburn. The dob is way to big to be carried up three flights of stairs or to be used in my apartment balcony. My target this time was to get the 10” f/5 GS out, in addition to my trusty C6 6” f/5, Orion StarBlast 4.5” f/4 and my 20x80.

This time of the year (mid September) Orion is still up for a bit, and the winter milky way rises not much later. First up was the seven sisters in Taurus. I think everyone agreed that the views were much better in the 20x80’s, with the StarBlast coming a close second. I challenged them to visual test to see how many Pleiads they could spot with the naked eye. Most could see 6.  Then we moved onto M42, the Orion Nebula. This one drew gasp through the 10” with many commenting that the nebula looked distinctly “greenish”. They also liked the open flower impression. This also allowed me a chance to start explaining about young open clusters (i.e. the Pleiades) and how stars form from collapsing gas in nebulae (they also liked how nebulae is the latin word for cloud ;)

Taking it from the top, I began talking about forming stars, galaxies (sadly the skies were not nearly good enough to show them any bright galaxies…I did try NGC 5128, Centaurus A later but no one could see it…I find beginners generally find it hard to see galaxies, even the brighter ones!!!), globulars (everyone was impressed with Omega Centauri, M22 and all could make out individual stars in the 10” and the 6” at high magnification). It was also a good time to explain the difference in light gathering since I had a good representation of scopes (4.5”, 6”, 10”) as well as the effects of light pollution and the use of ultra high contrast (UHC) nebula filters. Most liked the views of open clusters better in the StarBlast and in the 20x80 (especially views of open clusters such as the Pleiades, M6 and M7 in Scorpius…they commented that they could make out the butterfly shape better in these) and the numerous star spangled fields around Eta Carina Nebula.

Throughout the night, I showed them more examples of gaseous nebulae. They got to compare and contrast M42, the Orion Nebula versus Eta Carina Nebula. Most of them agreed that Orion was easier to look at, but Eta Carina showed more character due to dark lanes, that were emphasized much better with the UHC filter. But it wasn’t these two celestial showpieces that stole the show, it was  the swan/omega nebula (M17) in the northern reaches of Sagittarius. When some could not quite make out the shape, one of my female colleagues dropped onto the grass scrunched herself up to make a swan shape……definitely the highlight of the night!!!!!!  Finished off the night right at the end of a stars life and showed them examples of some of the skies best planetary nebulae, M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra and M27, the Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula. My colleagues loved my association of M57 to Homer’s doughnut, but they could not quite understand why M27 was called the Dumbbell Nebula. Apple-core or football nebula was more appropriate ;) As some of them put it, without the UHC filter, it looked like someone took two bites on either side of the football. Overall a fantastic night out with great company. Although I really enjoy my quiet moments under pitch black skies, I occasionally yearn for the companionship that only sharing the universe with some other like people can provide. This is also a good way to educate people on why we must preserve our night skies for future generations to come…….

Visiting SoCal's temple to the stars...Mount Pinos

I was stoked...and I mean stoked! Have not been out under dark, transparent skies in more than a year. Given our huge move from the southern skies in Brisbane, Australia to its northern counterpart in Los Angeles, California, the birth of our firstborn, my lil angel in June, I guess I can be excused for not being able to get out a whole heap sooner. Now I have checked out some of the northern sights that I have been itching to see, but under less than dark suburban skies. So this was a treat for me. I initially had apprehensions going there by myself, but as it turned out, my fears were unfounded. I met some wonderful and friendly neighbourhood SoCal astronomers :) And the site, Mount Pinos was every bit as good as my southern dark sky site in Leyburn, save maybe the tall pine trees that obscured much of the southern horizon...well they pretty much obscured all horizons. Was also worried about the temperatures this time of the year as it got down to below freezing the weekend before, and the weekend after I went. As it turns out, Pinos really is that cold at night. Imagine my surprise seeing snow on my drive up. Yup there was still snow up on Mount Pinos....in early May! Oh well.

Arrived at the parking lot in Pinos relatively early as I was worried the area used by a whole heap of astronomers in summer would be there. As it turned out, I was the first one there (most people started pulling up at 6pm...and there weren't even that many of them 5 groups to be precise, some of them campers and only one serious amateur). Scopes in attendance included a Meade 12" goto SCT, a 5" Celestron Nexstar goto and a 8" Orion SkyQuest dob. Since I got there early, and I had never been to Pinos, I decided to do some bushwalking to the summit of Mount Pinos, which was only about a 2 mile walk one way. Needless to say it did not take me very long to walk to the summit. The views were breathtaking. The walk up was okay. Had to stomp my way through some pretty thick snow (and got my hiking boots wet in the process). It was not as cold as I thought it would be (I only had a single thermal layer on and a long sleeve tee and jeans!). Saw some chipmunks and squirrels on the way up. Totally worth the walk up.

Astronomical twilight only descended on us closer to 9pm. We kept ourselves busy looking at the rather new moon (took some afocal shots but my steady pix mount kept unscrewing itself...sheesh!) and Saturn. I only had with me my C6 f/5, my 20x80's on my Orion Paragon tripod and my 76mm Celestron Firstscope (first maiden dark sky voyage for the baby dob, which I used on my car boot and bonnet ;) Once the skies got dark enough, I pushed forward onto the realm of Ursa Major's galaxies. This is one of the constellation that was too far south in good old oz to explore. Galaxies galore...and big and bright ones too. First stop M81, Bode's galaxy and M82. I have seen this pair of galaxies from suburbia, but the views from Pinos were heaps better. M82 showed intense mottling and the dark rift down the middle. Not that much structure in M81, but I though I could make out traces of its spiral arms. Next stop M97, the owl nebula and M108. Both were easy catches as they are close to the bottom of the panhandle. At high mag I started making out traces of the dark owl eyes, with one more prominent than the other. Then it was onto more galaxies. M51 the whirlpool easily reveled its spiral arms as well as traces of the bridge in my C6, appearing much more detailed than I have ever seen, even when viewed in my 10" f/5 from oz. I guess its much higher elevation in the skies made the difference. My final stop was M101, the huge face on spiral in Ursa Major. This galaxy is an impossible catch from bright suburban locations due to its large size and low surface brightness. But it is a sight to behold under dark, transparent skies. Again spiral arms were pretty obvious in the C6.

After tackling target objects (and sketching them), I slowed down my pace and leisurely took a stroll through some of the more famillar constellations. Starting in Corvus, I revisited some old friends like M104, the sombrero galaxy (dust lane obvious at high mag), the Corvus planetary NGC4361. Moving onto Leo, I scrutinized the Leo trio M65, M66 and NGC3628, then moved onto M95, M96. This wetted my appetite for the multitude of galaxies Virgo-Coma cluster. Started my journey in Virgo, first port of call M59 and M60, and then worked my way past M87 and into the markarian chain (M84, M86, etc.). After taking some time to soak in some faint galaxy photons, I moved into the Coma area and began my tour of this region, starting with the pencil thin edge on NGC4565, appearing as a thin needle of light bisected by an even thinner dust lane. Also the black eye galaxy, M64, showed its dark eye.

Now the temperature was dropping rapidly, to the point that I started to shiver. Also as it was getting later, people started going home. David, the first astronomer I met, who owns a Meade 12" SCT, came over and we chatted a bit and we decided to look at some stuff using his goto mount. Revisited some of the galaxies I mentioned earlier. Also took a look at the cat's eye planetary (never seen this one) NGC6543. Nice envelope within envelope detail. He wasn't using a very short focal length eyepiece, but I guess SCT's have a much longer focal length so no worries there.

Now the winds that were strong earlier on seemed to be getting stronger. David was packing up and then finally left at 11.30pm. As the summer milky way was rising, I decided to stay a little longer (original plans were to stay all night...but then with the dropping temps, the howling winds, and me being there by myself...I decided to drive home that same night...not a very long drive from LA, approximately 1 1/2 hours drive). Went back to the C6 and had a good look at the globular M13 in Hercules. Propelar effect was very obvious in Dave's 12", and definately visible in my C6 too. The ring nebula (M57) in Lyra was awesome as was M27 the dumbbell nebula. These are my two absolute fave planetaries. They look good even from light polluted skies! That was when I realized there was a still another couple around. They came over and I showed them some of the sights. Started packing up the scope at 12.30am, and then used the 20x80's and the Firstscope 76 to look at the wonderful sights in the Sagittarius-Scorpius region (M6, M7, M8 the Lagoon Nebula, M17 the swan nebula and M22 the crackerjack globular). Started driving down the mountain at about 1am. All in all an excellent night. Will I be back in the summer? Most definately.......but I will be driving home ;)