(no subject)
So this was the first time I have been able to get the new 10" Dob out to a dark sky site. The good news the Tube fits in the back seat of a Mazda 2! (which is what Haim rented)
The site was Silent Arrow which is a camping Lodge just outside of Mizpe Ramon, It kind of caters to the hippy dippy set, but thats OK. The 2 backpackers we met were both very nice and came out for a look threw the telescope at some point. The bad part is that it is closer to the town of Mizpe Ramon so there was a bit more light polution than in the old spot. But by positioning the scope well I managed to use some tents to screen the town (to the east) and the army base (To the north from direct view. The presense of flush toilets, somewhere to sleep and hot water for tea made up for the minor light polution.
The sky was clear and wonderful. I started with M42, which was amazing, (I did a sketch which I will scan at some point). It covered most of the field of view of my stratus 13 (The stratus 13 gives about 90x in my scope and was the eyepiece I had in most of the night).
M45 (the Pleadies) was stunning in the celestron 15x70 bincolars. (I was showing it off to someof the backpackers).
M79 which is the one glob in the winter sky was quite nice. I used the scope's COL (computerized object locator) to find it. I did not have great luck with the COL. I think I need a unit power finder and to make sure it has fresh batteries.
I also found NGC2244 (The Rossette ) with the COL so there is a slight chance I had the wrong object. It was very nice but I did not notice much nebulocity.
At this point we headed inside for abit to warm up, then hit the sack until about 2:00 am.
Saturn - The rings were well defined at 90x and 190x with the barllow, and well seperated from the planet. But no hint of the Cassini Div. I did see some hints of banding on the planet.
I was unable to find M104, I need to work on my star hopping skills.
M4 in Scorpus was well defind as pretty as always.
M57 - (The ring nebula) in Lyra was visible but was somewhat in the muck of the town of Mizpe Ramon, Barlowing did not help. A LP filter may help but I don't hve one.
About 3:00 am a meteor was seen crossing northbound ending bellow Lyra. I think it covered about 20deg of sky.
By About 4:00 am the Milky Way was visible in Sagatarius
M22 was seen int he binoculars, and nice as always.
M20 was pretty, as a cluster.
M8 some Nebulocity was visible to the lower left of a cluster of stars. There was a swirl of about 30 stars to the NE of the nebulocity. The Neb was faint but easily seen in the 10" dob at 90x. Again a Narrow band filter would have helped.
At the end of the night I kind of wandered around the area and stubled over a bunch of objects but as I was rather lost I'm not sure what they were. My Sky Nav skills need were and my COL needs a new battery
Venus came up just as I was packing up.
The site was Silent Arrow which is a camping Lodge just outside of Mizpe Ramon, It kind of caters to the hippy dippy set, but thats OK. The 2 backpackers we met were both very nice and came out for a look threw the telescope at some point. The bad part is that it is closer to the town of Mizpe Ramon so there was a bit more light polution than in the old spot. But by positioning the scope well I managed to use some tents to screen the town (to the east) and the army base (To the north from direct view. The presense of flush toilets, somewhere to sleep and hot water for tea made up for the minor light polution.
The sky was clear and wonderful. I started with M42, which was amazing, (I did a sketch which I will scan at some point). It covered most of the field of view of my stratus 13 (The stratus 13 gives about 90x in my scope and was the eyepiece I had in most of the night).
M45 (the Pleadies) was stunning in the celestron 15x70 bincolars. (I was showing it off to someof the backpackers).
M79 which is the one glob in the winter sky was quite nice. I used the scope's COL (computerized object locator) to find it. I did not have great luck with the COL. I think I need a unit power finder and to make sure it has fresh batteries.
I also found NGC2244 (The Rossette ) with the COL so there is a slight chance I had the wrong object. It was very nice but I did not notice much nebulocity.
At this point we headed inside for abit to warm up, then hit the sack until about 2:00 am.
Saturn - The rings were well defined at 90x and 190x with the barllow, and well seperated from the planet. But no hint of the Cassini Div. I did see some hints of banding on the planet.
I was unable to find M104, I need to work on my star hopping skills.
M4 in Scorpus was well defind as pretty as always.
M57 - (The ring nebula) in Lyra was visible but was somewhat in the muck of the town of Mizpe Ramon, Barlowing did not help. A LP filter may help but I don't hve one.
About 3:00 am a meteor was seen crossing northbound ending bellow Lyra. I think it covered about 20deg of sky.
By About 4:00 am the Milky Way was visible in Sagatarius
M22 was seen int he binoculars, and nice as always.
M20 was pretty, as a cluster.
M8 some Nebulocity was visible to the lower left of a cluster of stars. There was a swirl of about 30 stars to the NE of the nebulocity. The Neb was faint but easily seen in the 10" dob at 90x. Again a Narrow band filter would have helped.
At the end of the night I kind of wandered around the area and stubled over a bunch of objects but as I was rather lost I'm not sure what they were. My Sky Nav skills need were and my COL needs a new battery
Venus came up just as I was packing up.