I saw a supernova

It has been a terribly long time since I last managed to get out with the scope, but last night we finally did it! Off to Heathcote because it's the start of dark night.We took both the 5" Tak and the 16" Dob, and got set up nice and early so that we had time for the obligatory admiring of everyone else's scopes before HOORAY the stars came out and I could finally align.

I planned to look at a bunch of double stars, and I did, but then I realised that some of the ones I'd thought to see had a too-small separation so that made me sad. Still, the ones I bagged were very pretty, so that was nice.

After that... well, there was a bit of random looking. But yes, my title is indeed accurate: someone announced to the world at large that they knew a supernova had appeared in NGC1365 (better known to you and me as the Zorro galaxy, because it looks like a Z), so there was a bit of a rush to find it. And there it was: a star that was not there last time we looked at that galaxy. It's only about 5 days (... and however many million light years...) old. I cannot begin to explain how incredibly excited I was.

What else? I am utterly standing by the idea that I found Uranus - I swear it looked vaguely blue and disk-like - and I know that I found Neptune, so that was very nice. I get a good view of the Small Magellanic in my Tak; that is, I can see the whole lot, which is pretty cool.

Thanks to J's Dob, we saw a number of faint fuzzies, some of which even looked like galaxies: the Grus quartet in particular, a few in Fornax and Sculptor... the one knows as the Cigar is pretty cool because it's (relatively) so big. However nothing is quite as cool as Andromeda, which we got to see through our neighbour's 20" Dob because he was (deliberately) in a very good position for the northern sky - and it was amazing. (Although not as cool as a supernova.)

Finally, after much frustration with trees, Orion made it up to clear viewing so I got to finish off the night in the best way possible. I will never, ever get bored by the Orion Nebula. I promise. I love my Tak because I can effectively zoom in to see the Trapezium and try to ferret out the last two faint stars... or I can have the whole view of the entire nebula (well, nearly) and just amuse myself by finding shapes in the dust.

Also, Jupiter too made it over the trees... well and J manhandled the scope so that it was in a better viewing position. So I got to totally blow my night vision on it, which was cool, although the seeing was a bit mush. The four Galilean moons were out in glory, and I definitely saw three cloud bands with maybe some mottling around one pole.

We made it to about 1am. I had thought, early in the night, that going the freezer suit was the weak option... especially when the Norwegian neighbour mentioned he used to wear one observing IN NORWAY and when the Scottish neighbour mentioned observing in MINUS 26 DEGREES. But whatever. I was glad by the time we were packing up.

The Little Desert, Night Two

Not quite as good this second night. There were a few reasons for this:
1. Mozzies.
2. It stayed hot all night - maybe 23C by 2.30 - so the mozzies stayed around too.
3. More mozzies. They were trying to eat me through my clothes.
4. People. There were a few more people at the Lodge, so there were a few more lights on. Also, I actually knew one of the people! He and his friends came out at about 10pm to have a look, we showed them some of the usual suspects... and then he hung around til midnight. I wanted to have a look at the stuff I'd planned, but it wasn't that interesting, so I didn't feel like I could while he was there....
5. Mozzies.
6. Trying a new telescope. Um. Yes. Have I mentioned our new telescope? It's a Tak FS128 (5") which J picked up through his usual cunning ways. I've called it Keppler... and he's huge, in comparison with Ptolemy (90mm). Coming to grips with the different fields of view in the eyepieces, etc, took some doing, and I'm still not there yet.

What did I look at? Well, we started with Jupiter - of course - and it was by far THE most amazing and awesome view of Jupiter I have ever had, enough to almost make me want to sketch it. The main dark band was blindingly obvious, there was detail to the north and the south, and - perhaps most amazingly to me - the moons clearly appeared to be of slightly different shape and colour. Ganymede was obviously bigger and redder. I was totally blown away - as were the people we showed it to a bit later. We also showed them M42 and 43 - of course! - and it too looked stunning through the 128. In fact I looked at it several times over the night, and it just got better and bigger every time.

To get my mojo back a bit, after my acquaintance left, I took some time to just look up. Keppler has a box disconcertingly like a coffin, which it turns out makes an excellent bench, so I just lay back on it (the ground was awfully sandy) and stared up. Orion was pretty close to the zenith (we were pushing midnight by this stage), and the view was just delightful. I also had a chance to look at a few things through J's Dobsonian, probably my favourite of which was an awesome planetary nebula, NGC1360, with a bright core and a discrete cloud around it. I tried dialling up planetary nebulae to 'tour' on Keppler but it was a bit of a bust with the lights on in the distance.

Anyway, I decided to have a go at some doubles. Using the list of doubles in Orion from vol 1 of The Night Sky Observer's Guide, I had a look at and split: E627; E630; 17-rho Ori (a lovely double, orange and blueish); 19-beta Ori; E664; h2259 (although only the 3.6/10.8 mag stars, not the other companions); h697 (the triple); E697; E701; h2268; E114; E790; E816; 60 Ori and E877. Which, yes, was possibly a stupid number of doubles to look at it one night, but I did stop when I was bored. Additionally, I was practising with the Argo, because I found all of these by pushing the telescope around until the read-out on the Argo was the correct RA and Dec. There was a few times when it wasn't quite right, but overall it was a good way to start getting a handle on using the mount as well as the Argo - and getting myself more used to directions.

We stayed up until just after 2, determined to see Saturn. However, we were flagging fast, so when it was just above the horizon and mushy as all get-out (not coming clear at all, and looking like a weird bulging object as a result), we threw in the towel. Still, it was a good night overall (despite the mozzies), and we're hoping for a few more like it - this time in the Grampians.

The Little Desert, Night One

While it's not exactly a desert, when I say we came here because it's a dark part of Victoria, it is seriously a dark part of Victoria.

My main aim on this first night was to play with my new Argo - a Christmas present - and get used to my Losmandy mount. While I grew to love my industrial green Tak P2Z, it is awfully nice not to have to remember to disengage the tracking and then re-engage.... Anyway, I aligned it pretty easily, and then had a look at Jupiter (of course). Since it's so easy with the Argo I also found Uranus - and even though it wasn't very dark, it was an obviously blue little disk.

I decided to start off by having a go at one of their tour functions, and chose Non-Stellar Objects within 30 degrees of Sirius and a lower limit of mag 8 - since I'll admit that it wasn't exactly pitch-black yet, but I was impatient. First off was M41, a bright open cluster, which looked great. The next few objects were also open clusters, and although they can be interesting enough the joy soon waned: I looked at NGC2345, M50, M47, and M46, skipped a number of NGC clusters, and then gave up and moved on to trying to find triple stars, again using the tour function. This too I fairly quickly gave up on; for my part, it was probably not quite dark enough to be trying to split triples, but it was frustrating in general because the Argo didn't supply mags for all of the stars, nor their separations, so I wasn't sure if I found them or not. And thus I moved on to the 'Bright Nebulae' tour.

First, the Rosette Nebula, around NGC2244. In Ptolemy (90mm refractor), the nebulosity was very faint indeed. However, I badgered J into finding it in Copernicus (16" Dob), complete with brand new filters, and WOW! It looked awesome - we couldn't fit the whole thing into the field of view in the 21mm. It was matched, and bettered in my scope, by M42 and 43, of course - I really do love this time of year - they just looked incredible. Every time I look at the nebula there it just looks brilliant.

I was interrupted at this point in my tour my J's excitement at having found the Horsehead Nebula. He got a H-beta filter specifically for finding this, and was over the moon at spotting it. I'm not as patient as him, so while I could see the band of nebulosity and just pick the 'divot' that marks the famous horse's head, I couldn't make out any detail. The Flame Nebula, however, was waaay more interesting, looking quite a lot like a maple leaf. He also showed me M1, the Crab Nebula - a large, faint, not very crabby smudge - and, a bit later, several faint galaxies around Fornax, including the awesome 'Zorro', NGC1365.

I looked at a few more bright nebulae - NGC2175, M78, NGC1975 (drowned out by M42), and a couple of others that I couldn't really pick - before going back to my old fave, double stars. As with the list of triple stars, I was a bit frustrated by the lack of information provided in the Argo about magnitudes and separation distances for the double stars. I ended up grabbing my Cambridge Double Star Atlas, and looking them up in it to see if it was worth my energy - but some of the ones listed on the Argo weren't listed in the Atlas... I know there are double star catalogues available to download, so I will to investigate those. Anyway, I saw E816 (a separation of 4.4"!! Very proud); Ori60; E838; E877; OE73; Ori68; and E766 (I really should figure out how to do Greek letters, since the E is meant to be sigma...). In doing so I also stumbled on an awesome little planetary, NGC2438, and a totally lovely open cluster, NGC2169.

To finish up the night I tried the non-stellar objects tour again, this time in the incredibly rich area around Carina. I skipped most of the open clusters, but looked at Omega Centauri (always breathtaking, and stupidly detailed); NGC2808 (another globular, this one quite faint); the Gem Cluster and Jewel Box (open clusters I will make an exception for); Centaurus A (a faint galaxy with what appears to be a split in the middle); and the seriously cool Ghost of Jupiter (another planetary nebula - I love it).

We packed it in around 2.15, with the moon rising: a crescent, it was so yellow it looked like a banana. If we'd hung around a bit longer we could have looked at Saturn, but my goodness it got cold. From complaining about the heat in the day, we ended up as rugged up as we've ever been while observing. Can't wait for tonight.

The Warrumbungles #2

While we observed for a shorter time on the second night, I actually saw more through my scope, because I didn't have to hang around trying to figure out where Capricornus was. Mostly, I looked for doubles, but I also got J to find some Messiers in Capricornus that I was having difficulty with: M72 and M73. M72 is a faint globular, and M73 is a group of four stars that I don't entirely understand why they made it as a Messier object. Guess it's not my place to question it.

Three doubles in Capricorn made a nice little view in my 10mm (2 degree field of view): rho and omicron Cap (I think; still getting to grips with the Greek letters...), and pi Cap was there as well but with a very small split I didn't figure out which one it was. Omicron is two white-blue stars of similar magnitude. Rho has a bright yellow primary, a fainter yellow companion, and I'm not sure if I could see the third star in the triple - I should have been able to, but I don't think I actually figured out which one it was.

Sigma has a bright yellow primary and a much fainter companion, which I found by star-hopping from the above field of view.

Other doubles in Cap:

S763 - about the same mag; one maybe more red than the other?

h5220 - very faint, both of them, with possible another double nearby that wasn't listed in my atlas?

h5226 - both quite faint; not actually positive I caught this one, but the position seemed about right.

I think I caught the triple of beta Cap: one bright yellow, one fainter blue, and a very faint third. Nice pattern, with the yellow in the middle and the other to either side, kinda forming an elbow.

The Warrumbungles, #1

When we left Lostock and the Ice in Space camp, we headed west to Coonabarabran. The point was to visit the Australian Astronomical Observatory, and maybe get some viewing in. The AAO is cool to see - I especially liked the world's-largest solar system replica: the dome of the AAO is the sun, and the rest of the planets are spaced out, at appropriate distances (over 100km), along the main routes into town. The visitor's centre is a bit... um... tired.

We stayed at the Warrumbungle Mountain Motel, which is for sale if you're interested. I think our motel room was bigger than our house. And we were the only ones there the first night, so when the clouds finally cleared - hurrah! - we dragged the scopes out onto their golf course (!) and settled in for a couple of hours. We'd even been sensible and prepared a thermos of tea in advance.

The moon was out at as a little crescent, which was really lovely to see - especially as it got darker and the whole disk was lit up by earth-shine. It formed a picturesque triangle with Venus and Mars, both naked-eye visible; Mars was very red to the naked eye, and in my 6mm, although it was a bit hazy. Jupiter, on the other hand, was looking spectacular; I could clearly see a white band of cloud in a roughly similar position to the dark band in the opposite hemisphere. And, excitingly, we saw Neptune! - definitely through J's scope, and I think through mine. Hard to see through J's, for me, because it was near the zenith - so I was on tiptoes to reach the eyepiece.

J had a good night of chasing Messiers and galaxies. I had a good look at NGC247 and 253, both of which were (to me) surprisingly large, and bright, although they did both still look basically like cigars.

I was pleased to be able to hunt down a couple of doubles in Capricornus, and M30, a globular cluster which looked bizarrely like a molar. The first double I spied was epsilon Cap, with a bright white primary and a very faint companion. The second was an absolute highlight: alpha 1-2 CAP, so called because alpha 1 and 2 are a binary (I'm pretty sure), both beautiful yellow stars, and they both have a separate companion. I found one companion, but not the other - it's only 7" away from its primary, and it wasn't great seeing, so that's not a huge surprise.

I finished up the night hunting down M4, near Antares, because the rest of the sky got cloudy... that was around 10.30pm. I'm very proud that I now know Capricornus.

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!

Mansfield nights #2

Saturday

While we were setting the scopes up - before it got dark - Venus came out from behind the clouds, so I saw it for the first time up close! It was a bit fuzzy because of the clouds (which went away when it got dark), but it was both definitely not a star (too disk-like) and also not round (think a gibbous moon). Exciting indeed.

I was determined to get through my list, so that's what I went straight into. There was a little crowd of three doubles that I thought I'd tick off quickly, because they were close, but in the end I had trouble figuring which ones were which, which meant difficulty figuring out which direction to go in next. Didn't help that one was only 2 arcseconds of separation, so I probably say it and didn't realise. That was R227; I did however split Q Centaurus, and Rmk18. Go me. Happily, I also managed to find and split DUN128, chi Centaurus, and iota Lupus. And, accidentally, I found and split h4651 as well, and tau Lupus (1) also.

My big, smug-making achievement of the evening was finding the galaxy Centaurus A... admittedly, this was easier because it basically forms a straight line with Hadar and omega Centauri, and because it was so dark that it was naked-eye visible, but whatever! I still saw it through my scope!

Saturn, this time, had four moons basically trailing behind it like ducklings after their mother: Titan, Rhea, Tethys and Enceladus, according to Stellarium, getting closer. Plus the rings were incredibly crisp, as was the shadow on Saturn's disk from them.

I was on quite a high after finding most of the things on my list, so despite being freezing (according to J's scope it was 4C), I decided to grab the SkyMaps list and at least check off the naked-eye objects, in my continuing quest to learn my celestial cartography. Couldn't find five things, but only because they'd already set. But, for the record, I did find: Arcturus (in Bootes); Sirius (Canis Major); Procyon (Canis Minor); Canopus (Carina); the Coalsack (near Crux); Regulus (Leo); Antares (Scorpio); and Spica (Virgo). I was totally going to try for the binocular objects, but when I realised that the scope was dripping with dew and I would have to spend heaps of time swinging the scope around and around, I gave in and went inside.

J did show me some awesome things through his - I especially liked the Blue Planetary, a round nebula that really does look like a planetary disk.

All up, it was a brilliant weekend. Our star chairs - both Cats' Perches - were marvellous and very welcome for 2-hour observing stints. I have rarely been so thankful for my down-filled jacket, and the doubling-up of Explorer socks in my walking boots was awesome on Saturday. Plus, our headlamps - strapped to our heads, looking a bit dorky perhaps - with red cellophane inside? Brilliant! No longer worrying about ruining our night-vision with white light, and not having to use a bike light to read the map!

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.

Doubles hunter

With my brand-spanking new Double Star Atlas, I can now really and truly have a go at hunting doubles!

Last night was the first in ages that was actually clear. There were some high wispy clouds at sunset that had J panicking, but they went away so we went outside. As well as my Atlas, the other exciting new thing I have is a Cat's Perch! J's been talking about getting a star chair for months, and he ended up ordering two of these - it's so much easier to focus and hold steady when you're sitting down, rather than standing. He'd constructed them last weekend, and sanded them yesterday, so they were ready for a test. And I loved mine: I was observing to the west, so I ended up having the scope very low down and the seat correspondingly so. I could have had it higher, but I think that would have been more annoying.

So, what did we see? I started off with Saturn, of course; and it was lovely. I could definitely see the shadow band under the rings, and I could just see one moon, which was either Rhea or Dione. I then swung around and decided to play around in Canis Major, to see what doubles I could find and whether the Atlas is going to work for me.

Firstly, I'm glad it's spiral-bound. The Atlas has 30 double-page maps, with constellations and doubles and some other features marked. Then, at the back, it has the list that the authors worked from, of which doubles to include: this has the magnitudes and separations of the respective stars. This is very, very useful when you think you've found the right star, but you're not sure you can see a companion, so you need to know whether they're only 8 arc-seconds apart and therefore unlikely to resolve under light-polluted skies (which happened to me), or whether the companion is TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE arc-seconds away and therefore could be one of three faint stars you can see (I am annotating the list as I go, with ticks and dates of when observed. This one I also annotated with "srsly?!"). The one problem - and this is only a problem for me, not the book - is that they're in right-ascension order. This has to do with how the stars are mapped, and I am struggling to really get my head around it. (Dumb moment of the night: realising that I was treating the lines of right ascension and declination as if they were straight, rather than curved....) This is something that I will get used to over time. I presume.

Anyway. Canis Major. Start with Sirius; no luck splitting. Move up to Wezen: success! (At least, I presume so; that's the 265" split.) No luck with Adhara (7" split, so not that surprising). Then, on to some harder ones. There's a little group of three along the 'spine' of Canis, two of which are noted as binaries. I hazarded a guess at where they should be, looked in the scope... and didn't think I'd found it. Asked J for some help, tearing him away from his open-cluster hunting, showed him the map... and he found exactly the same thing. I looked at it a bit longer - checked the list at the back - and realised that actually, one was a triplet, and that's what I'd been confused by: the top star in my eyepiece had two very faint stars nearby, which was indeed my triplet! This was also helpful because I now have an idea of what 44" looks like. That was 17CMA; sadly couldn't split pi, so that will have to wait for another night. After that success, I attempted tau-CMA, which is in the open cluster NGC 2362 - which, I didn't realise, is J's favourite little one. And I found it, and I think I saw the double; at 85" separation, in a cluster, it's hard to be positive.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a great end to the night. There's another little group of three, between Sirius and Mirzam, that looked like they should be easy enough to find - two are bright-ish, and they're convenient between those two very bright stars. I got quite frustrated because I just couldn't find them. So J had a go, and swapped in our widest eye-piece. Turns out I was looking in exactly the right place... but I had totally underestimated just how wide the set was. This is another thing I will have to get used to judging. Anyway: I split v-1CMA and v-3CMA (although the latter doesn't appear to be in the master list, which is odd).

The other thing I have to get used to, and adjust my expectations for, is how many things I will manage to see in a night. At the moment, the answer is not that many. J has much more practice with observing, and reading charts, and is not handicapped with a monumentally unspatial brain like me - so he's always going to see more. It's also a lot easier to tell when you've hit a cluster, than when you've hit a double, so he can skip around more easily if he wants to. I think this is something I can deal with... eventually... and as I keep reminding myself, the sky actually will stay basically the same for my entire life. It's not like I'm running out of time to do this.

Easter Sunday observing

Tonight started off as quite a family night. I got to show Saturn (and Titan and Rhea, and possibly Tethys although I might have been kidding myself) to most of J's family, who were all very appreciative, as well as Orion, which a couple of them had never seen. It's always great to show something like that and say - your eye sees that as one star, or a fuzzy blob at best. (Annoyingly, I couldn't split Rigel tonight; I think the seeing was worse than it appeared to the naked eye.)

Then, my telescope got hijacked by D, who wanted to just cruise around the Milky Way a bit. So I pointed it at Eta Carina and showed him the controls and away he went. I sat in one of the deck chairs we'd dragged out and just looked up, which was very pleasant and included seeing the Beehive, thanks to the great big pointer that is Mars.

I got a bit bored then for a bit, and was considering going inside even before the moon came up, because I hadn't planned what to look for/at. But J decided to look a the Leo Triplet again, so that was worth staying up for (much fainter than in Mansfield though), and then I realised we had the star atlas out with us when J grabbed it to find Virgo. Consequently I now know where Leo is, and I can basically figure out Virgo too. I tried to split Regulus, in Leo, but that didn't happen; I had better luck with Algieba though. Over in Virgo Porrima wasn't splitting for me, but I did manage the double in Corvus, called Algorab, which looked awesome because they both appear to be red. Nice.

Through J's scope, I saw a few of the Virgo galaxies (awfully dim, here), and a few star clusters.

Combing Puppis

It worked well for J having a list of Messier objects he wanted to look for, so he could mark them off. Just having the book to look at with Crux hadn't worked as well, so I chose a new constellation to check out - Puppis - and made myself a List. I ended up working on it both Friday and Saturday nights.

Puppis as a constellation was, or is, a part of a huge constellation: Argo Navis. Puppis is the stern - Carina is the keel, Vela the sails. Puppis was directly overhead on Friday and Saturday, which in theory was good because it's the best seeing but in practice made it bloody hard both to find things and then to look at them properly. It also didn't help that it's not an especially distinguished constellation; I had to keep reorienting myself with regard to Sirius and the rest of Canis Major, because I just couldn't figure it out otherwise.

I'll say up front that I didn't find everything I wanted to. Partly that was a tiredness issue - because we were doing a lot of other things, as well as observing, we weren't nearly as fresh as is optimal come dark. It was also an issue of navigation. I'm still finding this quite difficult. That most of our maps are designed for the northern hemisphere does not help; nor does the fact that the maps have different scales - often it's different for different maps in the same book - so, when you're starting out spatially challenged, it's an added degree of difficulty. Nonetheless, I did have fun, with the odd moment of frustration.

Puppis, for a scope the size of Ptolemy, is all about the double stars. So, I found and split k Puppis; 5 Puppis (a nice reddish tinge) and 2 Puppis. I don't think I found R65, which was disappointing because it's a triple. I think I found Sigma Puppis, but I'm not convinced - I saw a reddish star with what looked like a faint companion, but I'm not sure it was the right spot.

Other than those, I also found M46 and M47 all by myself (and didn't that just get a victory dance from yours truly), and another open cluster in M93. NGC2451 is yet another fairly diffuse open cluster; NGC2477, however, is a very cool, fairly faint, kind-of teardrop shaped cluster which I really liked. And found all by myself.

Again, we had friends out with us both nights; D and K, and also A&G. So we had to turn on a good show: Mars, Saturn, Orion Nebula, the Jewel Box, (I looked at all of these both nights, I think - old reliables!) and just to show off I showed what Acrux looks like as a binary. Which was fun.

J was chasing Messiers again. It was dark enough that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were quite obvious to the naked eye when it wasn't even what I would call especially dark, so he aimed at the Tarantula Nebula which was awesome. He found the totally amazing Leo Triplet, too - a set of three galaxies that can be seen in the same field. And we looked at the Beehive through the binoculars. Well, I tried anyway; I really am not good at holding them in place. Glasses don't help.

Again, it was an awesome weekend of viewing. We didn't stay up as late as we would if it had been a dedicated astro weekend - don't think we saw midnight either Friday or Saturday, although we did hear all of Mark Seymour's gig on Saturday! But given it was mixed with riding, and lots of food, and lots of people, I think we did well.

Last week's observing

We had a mighty fine time last week! A whole string of clear nights; we took the 'scope out the backyard and decided to work our way around Orion and Canis Major (and a couple of other fine things).

47 Tuc, and it really was beautiful.

In Orion, I checked out Rigel - which it turns out is a double star, and I could indeed see the very faint blue companion star. I also looked at the other three corners of Orion - Betelgeuse, which was really red, and I forget the names of the other two corners. Then there's Eta Orionis, which is really a triple but only the AB pair are visible, and even then very close: they look to be touching. The Trapezium, of course, is glorious; and the nebula of M42, even from the light-polluted backyard, is always a happy-Alex-making sight.

I enjoyed looking around Canis Major. Of course, there's Sirius - almost bright enough to be blinding in the scope. The delightful H3945 is an orange and blue double, pretty widely spaced apart. But even more awesome - and perhaps my new favourite object - is Beta 324: two pairs of doubles, perpendicular to each other. They just look amazing. Then there's M41, an open cluster; c121, another cluster; NGC2362, a tight cluster with a single very bright star in the center (Tau Canis Majoris); and yet another open cluster in NGC2360.

Mars is particularly marvellous at the moment. It's still getting up a little too late for easy casual viewing, but it's getting there. It's far enough north that when we were out and looking, we had to drag Ptolemy through the entire house (the courtyard looks south) to check it out. But it was worth it: a great big red disc. Glorious.

I think that basically covers it. I was pretty out of it the first night, despite J's attempts at jollying me into it. The next few nights I got more into it, which was great.

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.

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.