|
Open clusters from the drivewayIt looked like a clear night so I wheeled the 10" out onto the driveway. The neighbor’s porch lights cast a shadow so dark adaptation is not an issue. I was too lazy to move the car so I could not bring out the 8' tall "light blocker".
Site: home I began the evening with the Pleiades. I observed with the Nagler 31 (45x, 1.8 FOV). Nice framing. Bright stars. nebulosity seen around Merope and one other star ?Maia? It was too late to look in Andromeda so i had to give up on Don's quest for the PN there. Saturn was observed at 200 and 400x using the Nagler 7mm with and without a 2x Barlow. The Cassini division was well seen. During moments of good seeing, i deluded my self into seeing some structure near the edge of the outer ring. One dark band was seen on the surface and there was hint of some texture on the surface during moments of good seeing. My neighbors lights are getting to me, I don a hood (black cloth over head, aka "babe magnet" - tres chic) NGC 1647 is a bright OC in Tarus of mag 8.6, NSOG says 50 stars over 45'. Observed with nagler 31. To me the stars are fairly close together at this power. NGC 1746 is a mag 8 OC in Tarus. NSOG says a large, loose, irregularly scattered OC. I agree that the stars seemed scattered. In spite of this at 45x they seemed brighter and distinctly different from the back ground stars. I fish around in the case and mate a Deep Sky Filter (I thought I grabbed the UHC) onto the 9mm Nagler and position the scope for M1. At 158x it appears dim but is readily visible (which it was not earlier this year when there was more moisture in the air). It seemed to elongate in one direction with averted vision but it did not "clean up" as much as I'd hoped (probably as I was using the DS and not the UHC). I bounced over to Auriga and stumble onto M38 in the finder. It is one of those clear nights when you look through the 50mm finder and the Messier clusters in Auriga are beautiful "bright" fuzzy objects. It is easy tonight to zoom from one to the other in the finder. M38 (m6.4) is a rich but not too dense OC and near by is the small OC 1907 that is a tight little jewel of a cluster. I though wow, the stars are brighter then i'd expect for the UHC and the sky background contrast seems better then usual with a slight bright ring at the edge of the FOV. A light comes on in my head, I look at the filter box, it is the deep sky and not the UHC. I decide to keep it on as it seems to help. I begin to bounce between M36 (m6.0 OC) and M38. M36 is smaller. it seems to be a little tighter then M38. Between these 2 clusters are many bright "field" stars. i cruse the area between them, back and forth ... It's back to the finder and on to M37 (m5.6, OC) this is much a denser cluster then the other two. Nice. NGC 1931 the EN and RN is not seen. IC 417 EN is not seen. Jupiter, the king of the planets. The DS filter is removed. I observe with the 9mm with and without the barlow (160-320x). During moments of good seeing the ?north equatorial band showed some white clefting of its inferior margin and a darker red area was seen, while the ?southern equatorial band resolved as two bands. Above the ? southern band 3 other redish bands were seen when the seeing steadied. Below the ?northern band there were 2-3 redish bands. Ah, its cold. Time for bed. Tally:
planets: 2
|