Praise the Lord for clear skies

For the first night in a while, we have a delightfully clear night - so far, anyway. It's also almost warm! Which is exciting.

We started viewing at about 8pm, when by no stretch of the imagination could it be called dark. But I wanted to see what Jupiter looked like without a black background. Answer: like Jupiter against a dark blue background. There's three moons out right now, but having checked Stellarium I know Europa is coming out of occlusion right now. So excuse me while I go see if I can see it happen...

Some time later...

Well, we eventually did see it come out - which was cool. I don't know why, given the other three moons are just pinpricks in our eyepiece, but for some reason I was expecting to see a bulge in Jupiter's side! Instead, at first we thought it was us seeing what we expected to see, and then we knew it was there: a little pinprick moving slowly away from Jupiter's mass. By the time we went inside it was still quite close to Jupiter, and fainter than the other moons. I also some a meteor while looking at the planet - presumably part of the Orionid mob.

Meanwhile, waiting for Europa, we looked at other stuff too. We're learning our way around the sky, so we figured out which stars were Altair, Formalhaut, and Antares - three of the brightest stars up at the moment; we already know alpha and beta Centauri (the Pointers, of course); the other bright stars aren't visible from our high-fenced courtyard.

We'd figured out some interesting objects to try and see, from an October sky map, but we hadn't really taken magnitudes into account. M6 looked impressive - diffuse but big clump of stars; M7 was a bit faint. M8 - one of my favourites when we were in Ballarat! - was quite disappointing; took some imagining to see the Lagoon at all, although the stars were impressive enough. M20 was also a bit disappointing, while M22 was a very faint blob of nebulosity. (The Messier Icon Sheet is a quick and easy way to figure out what I'm talking about!) We totally failed to see several other objects we had hoped to see in that same area of Sagittarius. We did manage to see NGC 6231 - it's very reliable, and one of J's favourites. At least partly because you can actually see the whole clump of stars in the finder scope so you know when you've found it!

As well as scoping out the sky we also counted the stars - part of a project to map light pollution around the world. You have to find the Teapot (part of Sagittarius) and count how many of the stars you can see (there's a guide sheet). Our back yard is mag 4; J claims he could just see the stars that would make us mag 5, but I'm not convinced.

Eventually came inside at about 9.50! My eyes were pretty sore by then - I was having trouble focussing on Jupiter, which is what I looked at most. But it was a very, very awesome night of observing. Pity it's meant to cloud over this evening...

Reassemble Ptolemy

We had to disassemble Ptolemy last week, for having a little birthday bash - and it wasn't that much of a loss frankly because the skies have been rainy and cloudy almost every night for more than a week. Except last night! After a day of rain and hail and general cloudiness, there no clouds in the sky last night!

... well, so it appeared. Turned out, after we set up the 'scope and had it outside to cool down for an hour or so, that actually the atmosphere was quite hazy and there was some high-level cloud. We sighted Jupiter for a start - all four Galilean moons out, two on each side - but it started giving me a headache to look at it because it fuzzed a lot. I did, though, see either a meteor or satellite out of the corner of my eye - exciting stuff.

We figured there wasn't much point in looking at much else, with that much haze going on and bright lights nearby; we had a quick look at an open cluster whose number we've forgotten, and then M7, but that was it. Hopefully we get a chance in the next while to have a look at some other stuff before the moon is our main target again.

Second night's viewing!

Not as cold tonight as last, which was a relief; or perhaps I was better rugged up. At any rate, we stayed outside for maybe an hour and a half, and only my nose got a bit chilly. Also, we decided to take the laptop out, set up on a stool under the tripod, with Stellarium loaded up so we could have a go at finding some stuff.

Firstly, Jupiter - again. I might have seen three bands this time; certainly two dark bands were quite visible. Io and Europa quite close in; I was rather hoping that if we stayed up long enough we'd see a transit, but J looked it up and apparently they will pass behind. This has therefore become a goal - to view a moon transiting Jupiter. Can't be that hard, surely? A matter of diligently reading the ephemeris when Jupiter is clearly visible, I presume.

Next, we swung over west to have a look for some stuff in and around Scorpius and Sagittarius. I've never been very good with constellations; it was very exciting for me when I learnt to pick out all of Orion, a few years ago. One of my big achievements for the evening therefore is now being able to pick out Scorpius! He's very obvious when you know where it is, and actually makes sense as a scorpion's tail. I can roughly pick Sagittarius, too - although he doesn't make nearly as much sense as Scorpius. And Capricorn, which I basically made out because Jupiter was in it, is just bizarre as a goat.

Tonight we had a look at a number of Messier objects: the Butterfly Cluster (M6; not entirely positive we saw this one, actually - we tried hard thoguh), M7, the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Eagle Nebula (M16), the Omega Nebula (M17), the Trifid Nebula (M20 - I think I saw dust lanes, but I'm not positive), M21, M22 and M28 (both of the last two are globular clusters; M22 was quite bright and I could pick a few stars in it). Some of these objects were smaller than I had expected, but some were quite lovely. I'm not always sure exactly what I'm looking at, so I may not be getting the full effect, but still the view - all 2 degrees of it in the eyepiece - was generally well worth looking at anyway. I guess it will be worth looking at these again when I'm more used to looking through the eyepiece, and at picking up details... and when there are fewer lights going on at random intervals in the house next to the 'scope (argh).

Also, saw one - possibly two - meteors. Perhaps this is just a factor of actually being out there and actually looking. I'm really looking forward to being out during a good meteor shower, now. Finished with Jupiter, again, because it's just too good to go past right now.

First night viewing

Along with the telescope, J bought me a 10mm teleview eyepiece. Tonight, we went out to give the whole contraption a go.

Before dinner, we had a quick look at Jupiter, because that section of the sky was clear and it's high in the sky. I could see three moons, although one was fuzzy - it was actually two moons close together. I could also see two darker bands on Jupiter's disc.

After dinner, we braved the cold again, and brought up Jupiter, and this time all four moons were distinct. J is sure he saw a red patch on Jupiter; I definitely didn't.

As clouds started to obscure Jupiter, we swung the telescope around and looked at the Jewel Box - NGC 4755 - which was just above the tree line. Lovely! I might have seen a hint of colour, but the stars were lovely anyway. Also had a go at aligning the 'scope. Alternating between glasses on and glasses off may be a bit of a challenge; viewing without them seems to be the way to go at the moment.

After the Jewel Box, J brought up a globular cluster - NGC 5139 - in Centaurus. I slowly got my eye in and could make out some individual stars on the outskirts of the cluster. It, too, had a very nice set of stars around it.

There were a few clouds around, so to finish off the evening we swung the telescope up not-quite-horizontal and just had a look around the Milky Way - probably around Sagittarius. J happened upon another globular cluster (possibly M7?); we saw a nice open cluster; and a few random sets of pretty, bright stars (one of which was quite orange).

It was a bloody cold night. I'm starting to get the hang of the fine RA/Declination controls. We had a bit of an issue with the motor control - it wasn't tracking at all - until we switched it to Northern Hemisphere controls. Looks like we might have put something together backwards...

Also, I think I saw two meteors! One, while I was looking at the Jewel Box, might actually have been a satellite; not sure. The other was definitely a 'shooting star', though. Terribly exciting.