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 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.

Late night Ballarat viewing

We did view briefly on the night of Boxing Day; we showed some friends the moon, and they were suitably impressed. We didn't get much more viewing in - we saw Orion, and 47 Tuc, both of which were of course awesome; but then the clouds came up.

Last night we were utterly tuckered out. We convinced ourselves there were some clouds around.

For tonight, our last with the clearer skies of the Rat, we prepared well by napping in the afternoon and not having too strenuous a day. Very important, this sort of preparation. Happily, it wasn't as cold as the last few nights; sadly, for us, the moon is enormous (86% full, according to my adorable widget) and was hanging bulbous and annoying right near the Pleiades.

Anyway, we started by looking at Jupiter - very low in the sky, in fact just about disappearing behind the roof of the house. It wasn't an awesome view, but most importantly for me I'd realised that Neptune is very close to it at the moment. We're pretty sure we found it; the blob of light certainly looked like a disk, rather than a point of light, just as Jupiter's moons (let alone Jupiter) and Mars resolve. There was no blue/green colour, because it was too low to the horizon; it was yellow/red instead. For the same reason, Jupiter was an awesome fake yellow/orange colour, although it was impossible to resolve it properly thanks to the atmospheric issues. ETA: apparently Neptune is currently mag 8, so I'm pretty pleased at finding it, it being so close to the moon and all.

Next, we tried checking out some stuff near Canis Major. First up, M41, an open cluster. I'll admit here and now that I am not usually wowed by open clusters (in my vast experience of them). This one was pretty enough... but it just looks like a particularly dense clump of stars. Which it is. Nearby, we looked at Cr121 - where Cr, according to my trusty Pocket Sky Atlas, stands for Collinder, presumably the dude who catalogued it.

Swinging around we amused ourselves looking for 47Tuc, and although the sky was still washed out it was still all tendril-y looking. Swinging back, J got a bit ambitious and tried looking for M44 - the Beehive. We didn't find it - too low, and therefore behind the trees from our position. We did find some cluster, but we have no idea whether it has an official designation.

The Orion nebula, as always, looked good - although it too was a bit washed out from the moon. Despite that I think I'm picking up new details every time; I don't remember noticing a star below the Trapezium before. And M43 looked quite obvious too. J picked up the Small Magellanic Cloud in the binocs, as well as various other bits and pieces. I had a quick look - I'm not very good with binocs, at least partly thanks to the specs - but in my wavering grip even I could see M42, vaguely, as well as a couple of the open clusters.

Finally, we wreaked vengeance by looking at the moon - remembering this time to put the neutral density filter on, although to be honest I still felt blinded. Tycho and Copernicus were both in full view, with their respective ejecta very obvious; it was a brilliant sight.

Overall, we've had good viewing up here. It's going to be weird to go home to very obvious light pollution.