Spring apparently means clear nights!

Well, this is Melbourne, so when I say 'clear nights' I really mean 'one clear night amongst the many murky ones.' Nonetheless: today it hit 20C for the first time in many months, there were lovely clear blue skies for most of the day - I sat outside and read! - and it stayed clear for the evening.

We started off looking at Venus, which was a delightful thin crescent. Then, waiting for the sky to darken at least a little, over to Alpha Centauri; split beautifully.

It didn't ever really properly darken tonight; probably we didn't leave it quite late enough. Anyway, Antares (the anti-Ares, ie Mars; cool!) was a lovely reddish colour, and I discovered that beta Scorpius, aka Graffias, is a double: a pair of whiteish-blue stars. Another of the Scorpius stars is also a double, but I did not split it - although it did look quite bulbous, so perhaps I was close.

Close to Scorpius is M7, which I managed to find all by myself - at exactly the same time that J found it through Copernicus, which was quite funny. It's a lovely open cluster, with a nice scatter of stars. Close to it is M6, but I did not manage to find it, which made me a little grumpy. To make up for it J pointed me towards Cr316, which I'd been thinking of finding anyway. It too is an open cluster, but (optically at least) much tighter than M7. Through the 35mm lens, it was quite spectacular.

Testing out just how good my eyes are, and how light the sky was, I next looked at the star G Scorpius, because next to it is a globular cluster, 6441: very faint from here, and you'd just assume it was a smudge if you weren't looking for it. In fact, my next target - M22 - I didn't even see even though I was looking for it. I got - ahem - a little petulant; J had a look to see where I was at... and it was there, in the eyepiece, I just hadn't noticed. Too faint!! - it's another globular cluster.

Really, all of this was a prelude to the main event, which was Jupiter. In order to get the earliest view possible, J decided he needed to do some gardening: bits of a climbing rose were waving about too high. Up a ladder, with secateurs, with only a red headlamp for light... awesome. Anyway, it was a totally classic view of Jupiter tonight. All four Galilean moons lined up, nicely spaced out. Jupiter itself still looking kinda weird with only one dark belt of clouds.

It was a great night's viewing, in all, and not even too cold. Also, not many insects! I'd like to observe in conditions like this all year rounf!

Clear skies are here again

It's been a while. Tonight, for the first time in a while, we had both clear skies and the energy to do something with them. Here's hoping Melbourne gives more of the same! - after the rain that's forecast for the end of this week, in any case.

Anyway, given the skies and the fact that even when the sun was barely down I had a good view of crescent Venus, I messaged some friends just down the road that they should bring their kids over for a look - I'd been meaning to do so for ages. They promptly arrived with two in tow, the eldest being sensible and staying home, feeling sick. We trooped out the back and had a good look at Venus, and Mars - just a blob these days - and had a chat about planets. Then, because the stars were coming out and they were enthusiastic, J decided to show off and show them the Jewel Box; I met that with Alpha Centauri, which split beautifully and particularly excited the youngest. All of which was very pleasing.

We went back out a few hours later, because it amazingly remained clear. Sagittarius and Scorpio are back to being high in the sky - it's like seeing old friends! It wasn't particularly dark, but J hopped around some clusters in the two - M4, M6, and M7; M20 and M21 - the Triffid, looking pretty awesome even with the light pollution. Right when we thought we were ready to pack it in, J had a last look all round the sky. And there, my friends, at -2.5 mag, was dear old Jupiter! I can't tell you how ridiculously exciting it was to see it hanging there so brilliant. Io, Europa and Callisto were nice and obvious, as was the one dark band of clouds that it has left. J thought he might have caught sight of the Red Spot, but I am unconvinced. I stared at that disk for quite a while before achey eyes drove me inside.

Mansfield nights

New moon weekend, and we managed to get away from Melbourne again, hurrah! The week had been cloudy and rainy in true Melbourne-autumn style, but we clung desperately to the forecast that the weekend would be sunny - and that Mansfield is on the other side of the Divide, so they get different weather. It looked incredibly unpromising as we drove away from Melbourne - no break in the clouds to be seen - but then, as we went over some hills, an amazing thing happened. The clouds were left behind, and the sky was a glorious blue. Joy!

I had me a list of double in Centaurus that I want to chase, so that's what I mostly did, over two nights.

Friday

Firstly, we saw Venus! on our way to dinner, but it's the first time in ages I've seen it after sunset - so bright!

Began by finding omega Centauri, the globular cluster, just for kicks and because it was naked-eye visible it was that dark. Also Mars, in order to get the Rigil in line; it's not nearly as interesting as it was a few months ago.

As for doubles, started off with Rigil Kent (alpha Centauri), which I managed to split although only just. When I then moved on to Hadar, the other Pointer, I realised that I had been somewhat optimistic: it's got a separation of just 0.9 arcseconds, which is really close. I reckon on really good nights I'll be able to split maybe 8 arcseconds? So no dice with Hadar, and I realised looking at my list that there were a good few of separations I simply wouldn't manage. Oh well; I found (what I think were) the stars anyway, for fun.

Also? I think I will have to learn the Greek alphabet since, according to J, referring to the stars' reference as 'the squiggly one with a bit on top'? Not so impressive.

The next attempt was on gamma Centaurus; also 0.9 arcseconds, also no luck. Alpha Circinus, however - score! 16 arcseconds. And yes, not in Centaurus, but just below so it totally counts. Gamma Circinus was another no-go, at 0.8 arcseconds, but I did find an unlisted double near it, so that's fine.

At about this point, the owners of the place where we were staying came out - I'd told them they should - so I found Saturn, and it looked awesome. In mine, I could see Titan a fair way out; a faint star close in on both sides, and another faint one on the opposite side. It turns out, through J's telescope, that those two close-in moons were actually both pairs! (Stellarium tells me they were Rhea/Enceladus, and Dione/Tethys, with Iapetus a long way out.) They were suitably impressed both with that, the telescopes, and the fact that we were outside at all - did I mention it was freezing? I was wearing multiple layers, although no beanie, which J thought was crazy but taking the glasses on and off with a beanie on is more trouble than it was worth.

I finished the night somewhat ambivalently. I found DUN159 and 133, but failed with I424 and R213 - imaginative names, aren't they? Then, having been outside for a bit more than 2 hours, we scurried inside to warm out near-frostbitten tootsies. Also, my scope was having a bit of a dew problem. J had rigged up a dew system for his, what with the mirror being bigger and all; he'd wondered whether mine would require it too. Having to wipe off the Rigil in order to see through it, and ditto the eyepieces? And discovering the front element had a fine mist of dew over the whole thing? yeh, that would be me requiring a gadget to act basically as a hot water blanket to my scope.

Just a quick observation

... since last night we had Other Things to do, and given it's Easter the moon came up like a spotlight when it wasn't very late (but my goodness it was cold).

Saturn was my first object of interest, and it was great showing it to J's parents; they were quite impressed. And so was I - I could definitely see Titan, and I thought I could see another moon, quite close to the disk on the other side from Titan. Through J's telescope, turns out I was right, and I could see another as well: according to Stellarium, they were Dione and Tethys. If I'm lucky, tonight we should be able to see Rhea too! (Saturn's moons are named after the Titans, the generation before the Olympian gods in Greek mythology).

Swung around then to Mars - quite red, and quite small. Since I was quite tired, and knew we weren't going to get much observing in, I then had a look at each of the stars of the Southern Cross - split Gamma Crucis (and Alpha Centauri too while I was at it). Since I was using a fairly wide eyepiece, I also managed to find the Jewel Box by accident when I was trying to remember if Mimosa Crucis is a double (if it is, not such that I can split in my telescope!).

J also looked at Saturn, and a few other objects, including the nebula in Eta Carina, which he let me look at. I was someone dismayed that we've basically lost Orion for the year.

Dinner, and a show

My darling was in a prolonged bike race in Mansfield this past weekend, so because it was also almost a new moon weekend we took the telescope(s) up with us, for a long weekend.

Wednesday night: cloudy. Bit sad, but not too much. Meant we could sleep well after our outing to the Mansfield Pub.

Thursday: was clear. Very clear. Firstly, though, we had to go and eat our way through DB's voucher for $400 at a local restaurant, won through this event last year. An entertaining night indeed. And then, out to discover just how dark it actually gets in Mansfield. Happily, we were about 1km from the main street - which was actually annoying most of the time, but did mean we were away from most of its (admittedly minimal) glow.

We'd set up the scopes before we left. To explain that plural: I have no picture yet, but J has decided that sharing with me was going to be just too annoying. Therefore he recently bought himself one: a 16" Dobsonian. If he's lucky a picture of it will appear on here at some stage. Because it's newer, and fancier, I decided it ought to be christened Copernicus...

Anyway. It was a great night for viewing. I had planned to find my way around Crux, because it's in a good spot at the moment and southwards-viewing really sucks at our place. I split Alpha Centauri for a start, which is always very satisfying. I also found the Jewel Box by myself, which is also satisfying - and is something I'm having to do all of sudden, what with J off playing with his own telescope. I split a few other doubles, too: Acrux, although I don't think I made out the triple; Gamma Crucis, and Mu Crucis. I also found the clusters NGC 4103 and 4349, and I might have found 4052 but I'm not entirely positive.

I got sick of finding brand new things after a while and swung over to the old reliable, Orion, which is sadly beginning to set awfully early these days! I split Rigel and had a look at the Nebula. Most exciting, though, was finding Mars - getting smaller - AND Saturn! Which looked totally incredible, with the rings directly across the face of the disk so it just looked like the pictures. And we think we saw Titan, too, and possibly another moon even! It was terribly exciting.

J went hunting Messier objects. Found Omega Centauri, M46 and M47 - which do look cool in the same field of view, because the former is a fuzzy blob and the latter is a loose, dense conglomeration; M50, M78, and M79 as well.

We stayed up until about midnight. We'd shared the night with D and K, for a while - they piked a lot earlier than us, but made lots of appreciative noises, especially over Saturn.

New moon weekend 1/12

NB: yes, this is several days after the weekend. Whatever. Also, I'm quite smug that I'm writing this based on notes that I wrote in the front of my Pocket Sky Atlas - the first few in the pitch black, then the others with the aid of our red light. (Have I mentioned this before? We found a red light! It looks an awful lot like a bike's rear light.)

We're hoping to make good use of the new moon weekends this year, and we decided to start by going to Forrest - a bit more than two hours from Melbourne, it's close-ish to the coast and fairly far from big urban sprawls. And hey, how convenient! There are mountain bike trails for during the day!

Friday

...had us alternately groaning and gleeful, as we drove down, because the clouds built up and then disappeared several times. Early in the evening it looked like the clouds had come in... but then, by the time it was properly dark (except for the glow on the western horizon which stayed there, and so was presumably Geelong rather than the sunset) the clouds had gone and voila! for the first time in a really long time, there was the Milky Way. It was dark enough to see the Coal Sack quite clearly, next to Crux; and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were totally obvious. Lack of light pollution makes the most stunning amount of difference.

First, because it was there, we tried looking at Mars. Sadly, although it's at its closest for years, it was quite a small disk. Distinctly red, though. For something a bit different, we swung over to Omega Centuari: the largest globular cluster in the southern sky, I think? Pretty impressive, anyway, although I actually think not quite as good as 47Tuc, because it didn't seem to have the tendrils reaching out.

(Pause for collimation...)

On to the Carina constellation - which I still can't quite figure out, the Pocket Atlas isn't so good for that - and checked out the Eta Carina Nebula, which is enormous and has really cool dust lanes in it. The whole area around that nebula is pretty cool - heaps of stars, of course, because it's bang in the Milky Way. Then off to the Southern Pleiades, an open cluster... and I just don't find open clusters that interesting. They just look like a bunch of stars. Yes, sometimes they're in a pretty formation - I like the normal Pleiades - but... anyway. Also in this area is another, tighter cluster - IC2581. And it was more impressive, I think because the stars are closer together and there are more of them that are obviously part of the gang.

Moving on, we decided to get a bit ambitious and have another look at the Large Magellanic Cloud. I probably didn't actually spend enough time looking at it, to allow my eyes to adjust enough to pick out interesting aspects; there was too much else to look at. But I'm quite sure that the fuzzy blob - in the same place as when we looked at it in Ballarat - is the Tarantula Nebula. It's pretty awesome to have found an object in another galaxy.

Finally, to finish Friday night (by this time Saturday morning), we had a look at Alpha Centuari - split it easily (I think I'd like to start collecting double stars...), and of course it wouldn't be a complete viewing night at the moment without checking out Orion, which looked breathtakingly awesome. Of course. A final look at Eta Carina, and 12.30 on a Friday night was definitely bedtime.

Also, we saw numerous satellites.

Saturday

... was another very off&on again day, cloud-wise. We really thought we were going to get screwed over, but come 10.30 or so (and a little snooze) it had cleared enough that we bothered dragging Ptolemy onto the balcony. (Did I mention that? Observing from the balcony. None of this whole going-a-long-distance-from-the-house-or-car business for me.) We had a quick look at Eta Carina again (and aren't we glad the Atlas comes with a Greek alphabet guide, since it's a long time since I did esoteric maths), but frankly the most interesting thing about the sky was watching the clouds and general murk come... and go... and come again. I think we only stayed out for half an hour or so, because then a sky-covering cloud came in and ruined our fun. There was certainly no Mars viewing.

The one thing I was sad about? No Saturn. Rising too late, meant that it was in the murk both nights. Hopefully we get to see it over winter.

Oh Melbourne

Another lovely clear night! We've been blessed the last few, and apparently it should stay like this. Of course, given we have a long weekend coming up, it's likely to be cloudy...

We looked at Jupiter: Europa was getting very close and, over the evening, we saw it get closer and closer until - blip, its light was swallowed up Jupiter's. It's passing in front, so eventually there will be a shadow chasing behind, but I don't think I'll be up for it. Sadly, along with a lovely clear night, we've got mosquitos. J did a sketch:

I too could see that faint half-band to the south; this was very exciting. I could also definitely see some texture especially in the lower of the two dark, middle bands.

We looked at the moon: going from crescent to gibbous, it looks awesome. There's a really cool section at the south pole, right on the terminator; very cratered.

We split Alpha Centauri definitively.

We gave the UHC filter another go, and the result on NGC 6231 was very convincing (we did a with/without test). It's a winner for urban astronomy. Also convincing when pointed at the Lagoon Nebula (both of these with the 10mm, the rest with the zoom). I tried it on Antares, too, since there's apparently nebulosity around it... I thought I could see some fuzziness, but I might have been kidding myself.

On the horns of a dilemma

We had the lovely A, and the ever-entertaining R, over for dinner last night. It was a lovely clear evening, so we'd put the scope outside early on - but deciding whether to be congenial or observing wasn't the dilemma. A went home when little E started getting a bit ratty (landing on the floor not helping with that), so we then invited R out to have a look at the moon and Jupiter - and he was gratifyingly impressed. He's good like that.

No, the dilemma I will have from now is whether to look through the wonderful, original 10mm eyepiece that J got with the telescope... or whether to look through the 3-6mm zoom lens that he recklessly purchased courtesy of the Australian dollar skyrocketing, despite an agreement to get it for Christmas. Apparently he'd had it in his pocket for a week or two and been waiting for a good night to present it to me.

So, we'd had a quick look at the moon and Jupiter - just three moons visible - with the 10mm, and then we of course stuck on the zoom to see what it could do. Oh my goodness. Jupiter was huge! I think I could see a polar band, which was cool, but THE exciting thing was a shadow transit, probably of Io! Apparently it has something to do Earth and Jupiter at opposition?which makes it possible to have a shadow transit without the moon actually transiting as well. This may also account for Callisto being impossible to see because, according to Stellarium, it was at mag 28 or something - I guess in Jupiter's shadow relative to us and the sun? Anyway: a shadow transit! It was so exciting! And over the time we were observing - maybe 40 min - it moved across maybe half of Jupiter's disc. So cool. I experimented with the zoom on the lens; it was actually quite a hazy night, despite the seeming-clarity, so the higher mags weren't really doing it for me until just before we went it, when it cleared a little. But even at 6mm, it looked just amazing.

And then there was the moon: too big in the zoom lens to fit it all in! So much detail on the craters! And of course, Atlas and Hercules were out - so it was amazing to see them so very close up, and begin to get a real sense of detail. I think it will make getting to grips with the southern hemisphere easier, too, because I'll be able to look at one section, identify it on the map, and then move just a small amount to figure out the next section. Anyway, again, it looked just incredible.

Finally, before going in, J found alpha Centauri for me: and, even with the weird hypercolour thing going on because it was so low to the horizon and street lights, it was very definitely and very clearly a double star. YAY.

As well as the eyepiece, J also bought two filters: what I'm calling sunglasses for the moon - a neutral density filter which makes the full moon not so glary; and a UHC one, which turns things green when they're as big as Jupiter, and is designed for allowing urban astronomers to see nebulae more clearly by blocking out light pollution... somehow. I know it turns Jupiter green because it's also meant to make the bands more obvious, but it didn't really work for me.

Itty bitty crescent moon

Awww, so cute! 11% waxing and it's a bitty crescent - couldn't be seen until quite close to sunset. But there she is: haven't seen it in a while, and it's very cool. Again. Still.

After the sun had set and it got a bit darker, the moon looked even more impressive because the rest of the disc was illuminated by Earthshine. It's just lovely, against a dark purple background - a star above and below - the disc just hanging there. Pity I'm neither poet nor painter.

I knew J wanted to do a sketch of the moon, so while he was futzing around I swung the scope over to Old Reliable. Jupiter is going to disappear behind our antenna, and then behind our house, in the next few weeks, I think. Tonight though: all four moons - three on one side; two bands, as always through this eyepiece. I think a planetary eyepiece may be on the cards. Maybe for Christmas.

J is currently sketching the baby moon before it disappears behind the tree and fence. After that... I'm not sure what we'll look at. I should look at a map. Fortunately, one of the results of J's spending spree was Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas, which is a whole lot easier to use than the bigger sky atlas we also got.

I didn't get back out to the scope until the moon had disappeared, so no more lunography for me. There was this, though:

Inspired by the pocket atlas' picture of double stars, I found alpha Centauri - which I think I split, but the south is the brightest part of the sky around here - and then tried to split Kaus Australis - Sag Epsilon, I think - the brightest star in the Teapot. No luck. Spotted J's little favourite open cluster, NGC 6231, and its more diffuse neighbour Cr 316 (not sure what that designation means; something else I ought to learn). Checked out Antares, in Scorpio's tail, because the atlas showed bright nebulosity around it; not in my sky there wasn't. While in the vicinity we tried finding the globular cluster M4; we think we found it, based on a very faint fuzzy patch that was really only apparent when the view was jiggled around.

Ah, urban astronomy. It's all about what you don't see.

First night of viewing in Melbourne

Our first night back home it rained, and rained, and rained.

Tonight, it didn't look too promising at sunset - lots of cloud. Twilight, I went out to check on the sky (and the washing), and there was the moon: a beautiful crescent! (A waxing crescent, illumination: 16.1%, at 3.9 days old apparently.) We had Ptolemy set up next to the door, so we dragged it out and set it up as quickly as we could. We set the tripod up lower than in Ballarat, because we have plastic chairs out there and we decided to give seated observing a go - and it's a win; so much easier and more comfortable.

I sighted on the moon, and my goodness: what a sight! I hadn't expected it to be nearly as clear as it was - incredibly exciting. The first object that my eye latched onto was Mare Crisium - and I know this because J has gone a bit nuts on Amazon recently, and one of the things we've/I've ended up with is Sky&Telescope's Field Map of the Moon - foldable, laminated, and mirror-image so it's very useable. Anyway - the Mare - with the Picard, Peirce, and Swift craters very obvious. North of that was Cleomedes, Burckhardt, and Geminus; further yet Lacus Temporus, and Endymion - which I think is a crater? South we picked out Condorcet close to Mare Crisium; then, strikingly, the crater set of Langrenus (with its hill in the middle), Naonobu and Bilharz, and then further south still Petavius. I can see myself becoming quite the fan of the moon. I might well aim to do the moon one hundred at some point.

Because we could, having a reasonable window of cloudlessness and wanting to test the limits of the light pollution in the city, we aimed for Alpha Centauri; J managed to split it, while I confess that it just looked like a particularly large star to me, mostly. J also looked at the Jewel Box, but it had gone behind clouds by the time I got outside; and we pulled up M7, too, but it wasn't that impressive.

To end the night we looked at Jupiter. Europa and Io were fairly close together on one side, Ganymede and Callisto quite separate on the other. I could see two bands, but the seeing was pretty average - think there was some high-level wispy cloud, as well as the light pollution and heat haze from the city.

All up it was a very exciting night for our first at home. The moon should continue to offer plenty of interesting viewing even when the rest of the sky is a bit hard to see because of the light pollution. And Ptolemy really is easy to use, fast to set up, and portable - an excellent choice for us.