Last Pinos run for the year...and a solo adventure too.....kewl 13th October 2012

I had to get out. I just had to. This would be the last trip to my fully dark-dark sky site, before winter sets in and it gets too cold, with snow, blah blah blah. Anyways I also had another reason to get out there.....to test out my new Celestron/Costco 102GT scope. I have had issues with the GOTO (which will be covered in detail in an upcoming review of this very same scope!) so I was hoping that would stay away. Anyways had the car packed and I was ready to bolt at about 7pm! I had with me my trusty 10" f/5 GS dob (its second dark sky run way up here in the northern hemisphere) and my Celestron/Costco NexStar 102GT. Its amazing how light the whole GOTO setup is, way lighter than my Celestron/Vixen C6 and Vixen Porta Mount. This scope also fit in my Orion carry case really well and I had no problems zipping the whole case up. Got to love good, light and portable setups. I was also hoping to shoot (no pun intended!) for some DSO shots with my Meade DSI, which up until now has not logged any imaging time due to backfocus issues with all my short focal length newts. Hopefully this longer focal length refractor would solve my focusing issues.

The drive there was pretty uneventful. Traffic was nice and light at this hour and I had just added new movie soundtracks to my iTouch. Blasting the music while driving is definately recommended as I got pumped just listening to my playlist. My new fave new tracks include Transformer Prime and the new Batman Rises theme song. Got to love Brian Tyler and Hans Zimmer!!! Music really makes for a good companion whilst driving on the road and flying solo. I was in pretty high spirits, right up to when I got closer to my exit. Where did all this fog come from!!!!!! OMG I was freaking out. I had to get gas and a drink so I stopped at my usual gas station. But man oh man was the fog was thick. As I filled my car up, thoughts were racing through my head...should I turn back, should I head to Malibu, should I just give up and go home? Thankfully I decided to press on. As I drove towards the summit, the fog lifted. Whew. I ended up pulling over at the very same spot Terry and I found the last time we were there. I did not feel like driving all the way up to the summit. This was a much shorter drive, plus I get a un-obscured views of the southern sky. No pine trees to block my view!!!!! The only drawback to this site is the frequent passing cars and their pesky headlights. Well I was just glad to be out there ;)

First order of the night for me was testing out the new GOTO scope and to see if I can get the DSI to work with it. After unpacking the car (in a hurry too as I was keen to get stuff underway). Got the dob out first and checked its collimation. Then turned on my wifey's PC laptop, unpacked and set up the NexStar, connected the handset and the battery pack. This is when the frustration started to kick in. Did the two star alignment, as usual. NexStar read alignment success. Used the GOTO....big FAIL. It was slewing to the wrong spot every time. I realigned the GOTO, selecting different alignment stars this time.....NexStar read alignment fail. Tried auto two star alignment...FAIL, 3 star alignment FAIL. Dammit. At this point I was getting really pissed off. I have read that the batteries had to be fresh to get he GOTO to work properly. Since I had done about 2 1/2 hours on the 8 Duracell AA batteries, I figure it would still have some way to go (some sites on the internet state that 8 AA batteries can last up to 10 hours...I was being more conservative and cut that time in a half). Well that was not the case. Looking back I was wondering if the cold had anything to do with this. It was cold that night. Got down to about 0 degrees Celcius! Will have to test the batteries again when I get home to a warmer climate!

Not wanting to waste anymore time (the center of our milky way was long gone by then, even when I pulled up to the observing site ), I decided to do what I do best, manual star-hopping and visual observing. I was keen to at least sketch one new object tonight, and check out some other DSO's that I have not seen for a while (or not at all). Got good views of the usual suspects. Started off with a tour of the summer planetaries. First stop was M57, the ring nebula. Then turned to M27, the dumbbell nebula. With the 10" extra resolving power, I got excellent views of NGC 6826, the blinking planetary in Cygnus. Internal detail easily visible at 208x with the 6mm Radian. Also looked at M76, the little dumbbell in Perseus, a bipolar planetary. It is interesting to note that from a lower elevation, the DGM NPB filter made these nebulae stand out better. This was the same case for the Veil Nebula in Cygnus and the Helix Nebula in Aquarius. Speaking of the Helix Nebula, this is the first time I am seeing it from northern skies, and with my 10" no less. The views were pretty spiffy, with whispy detail visible in the nebula with the NPB filter in place.

Also looked at some pretty open clusters, the most outstanding being the double cluster in Perseus and M45, the Pleiades. Scrutinized some galaxies too, such larger galaxies as M31/32, the Andromeda Galaxy, M33, the great spiral in Triangulum, M76 in Pisces, M77 and its surrounds in Cetus and finally, I looked at NGC 253, the Silver Coin galaxy in Sculptor. This remains my fave southern galaxy after the LMC and SMC. The views were heaps better from dark skies. Mottling was very evident in the 10" and the spiral structure was evident (not as evident as from oz, but heaps better than from say Malibu). Wanted to give NGC 55 in Sculptor a go, but this was hidden behind a hill when I went for it. Oh and yes I sketched NGC 772 in Aries the ram. Not much detail visible.

As the night progressed, it got colder and colder. The wind chill did not help either. I was getting chilled to the bone and the winds keep up its buffeting of my monks hood. I was kinda glad the GOTO did not work. It would have been impossible to keep the images from jumping around. Ended the night....and my Pinos run for 2012 with a gorgeous view of M42, the great nebula in Orion. Never get tired of looking at its green/subtle pastle colored visage at low mag in the 10". I actually prefer the views of M42 from a dark sky site without the NPB filter screwed in. My plans for the next few months would probably be focused on getting some imaging down from my light polluted playground as I attempt to master my GOTO scope and Meade DSI CCD camera. I might take an occasional trip out to Malibu but we will see what happens. The call of dark skies can be pretty hard to ignore......

Mini Reports: Dark sky getaway 8th (Mount Pinos) and 15th of September (Solstice Canyon, Malibu)2012

I am going to lump two reports into one post so bear with me. It has been about a month since my last dark sky visit due to my recent trip home to Malaysia/Singapore. I did do some stargazing while I was back there with my trusty Celestron Cometron CO40 and my nephews Celestron Powerseeker 127mm OTA on photo tripod. Seeing how we just collected our new Mazda5 minivan, I decided it was time to give my 10" some dark sky time. It has been more than 2 years since this scope has seen ancient DSO starlight. In fact in the 2 years or so I have been in LA, the scope has only been out twice under indifferent light polluted skies. Needless to say I was itching to let my 10" stretch its DSO chops once again. So after taking three trips down two flights of stairs, the 10" was ready to make its pilgrimage to Mount Pinos. The targets.......the centre of our milky way, as well as some northern skies goodies it has never had the opportunity to catch. Terry my observing buddy came with me on this trip. He had with him a new set of observing gear. Gone is the SkyScanner and Manfrotto tripod. In its place a spanking new Orion StarBlast 4.5" on Vixen MiniPorta. He purchased a Orion StarBlast 4.5 EQ. We left pretty late as I went factory outlet shopping that very day. Since it was late, we decided to just find a spot somewhere along the way up to Pinos (closer to Lockwood Valley). One advantage of this site was the unobscured southern sky, allowing up full view of the southern sky goodies. We arrived at that site just after 10pm. The centre of our home galaxy was still visible, so after unloading the scopes (I had with me my trusty 10" GS dob, and my cute blue tubed 60mm 80's Meade refractor (Its second Pinos run).

First up nebulae M8, M20, M17, M16. All were awesome in the 10" with my 24.5mm Meade SWA with DGM NPB filter despite their lower elevation. I could not frame both M8, the lagoon and M20, the trifid in the same filed of view. Using my lowest mag ep, a 24.5mm SWA Meade, I could only manage 51x, the downside of a larger scope with a longer focal length. M8 appeared mottled, with its nebulosity punctuated by dark nebulae and the lagoon lane stood out boldly. M20, the trifid showed its dark lanes easily. I then perused globular alley, starting with the grand daddy of the Sagittarius clusters, M22, then moved onto M28, M55 and M54, M70, M69. After scrutinizing what Sagittarius had to offer, both at low mag and at higher mag, I moved onto Scutum and its riches, focusing particularly on M11, the wild duck cluster. I then turned my attention on some of the other summer wonders such as M57, the ring nebula, M27, the dumbbell nebula, North American Nebula and Veil Nebula. Then it hit me....I really really miss my 10". The Veil was as intricate as a photograph, showing braided structure with the 24.5mm eyepiece and the DGM NPB filter. The North American and Pelican were viewed in portions due to the longer focal length of the dob, but was nevertheless detailed. I also looked at some other objects that I had not looked at in recent times such as M2 and NGC 7009 (Saturn Nebula) in Aquarius and NGC 7662 in Andromeda. Now this is where aperture starts to make its presence felt. I could push the magnification wayyyy up to between 200 and 400x (my max magnification in this scope with the 6mm Radian and Orion Shorty Plus 2x barlow) without light loss. Internal detail was abundantly obvious in these smaller planetary nebulae. I also looked at the little dumbbell (M76) for the first time with so much aperture. Even M57 showed more (variation in intensity in the ring) and M27 too on a football appearance with the "hollow" areas filling out with nebulosity. I love planetary nebulae!!!! They are just so fun to look at if you have sufficient aperture to make them look different.....

Other objects viewed that night include M31 and its companions (also could not fit this in the FOV so I had to pan around), M33, the double cluster in Perseus and two new objects Terry pointed out in Cepheus, NGC 6946 (galaxy) and NGC 6939 (open cluster). Did my first sketch in ages! Now I am raring to sketch even more objects! Final objects of the night include M45 (the Pleiades), M42 (the Orion Nebula) and good old Jupiter. It was a great night all in all. My only gripe was that they closed the 405 freeway on my home stretch and we had to take a detour...sheesh!!!!!

Malibu run

Okie this is going to be ultra short since I basically looked at similar stuff, just with less aperture. I had with me my C6 6" f/5 newt on Vixen Porta Mount. I just had to get out there, and seeing how it was the new moon weekend (yup I jumped the gun with Pinos and went there during the last quarter moon that rose pretty late at about 1.30am). Also Malibu has not had the best weather for stargazing in months (last trip there was in May!!!!!!!!!), thanks to the marine layer. The only new DSO's I looked at included Sculptor galaxies NGC 55 and NGC 253. These two were my staple galaxy diet from down under. Both appeared a pale reflection of their former glories. With their lower elevation this was expected. Still its nice to know that I still have access to some of my fave southern sky friends. Not much detail in these. Will have to check them out when I go to Pinos this weekend with my 10", weather permitting of course. So yes here is my report...up next Pinos take four for this year.....and a scope review of my all new Celestron/ Costco 102 NexStar GT....an amazing scope for the price!!! Stay tuned!!!!!