Observing Notes, March 13 2007
The Clear Sky Clock called for good views from about 5pm to 9pm, and the temperature was above 10C. Who could ask for more. Well, it turns out that there’s a lot of mud at Binbrook now, and it never even occurred to me that they don’t plow the snow on those roads.
Now that I have signed up my first sponsor…
This evening I joined John Gauvreau’s night-school group and other members at Binbrook. My intention was to refine my skills as a star hopper, using my 15×70 binoculars as my visual aid, and my laser pointer in a pinch.
I arrived at about 7:10 and found everybody already there. The sun was setting. With care you could pick out Sirius in the blue sky. It was not long before the stars of Orion started to be visible to the unaided eye. Thin clouds were present over perhaps 25 percent of the sky, and constellations like Orion were drifting in and out of view. In my case, when looking for Orion’s belt, some help from Jackie with a laser pointer allowed me to see what I could not see a few seconds before. Its amazing how it helped… (or perhaps the clouds drifted away at the right time)
Tonight’s mission was to pick out a smattering of Messier objects, and employ the index, star charts, star hopping and averted vision to prepare for the MM. The emphasis was on being able to seek a designated target.
I tested my ability to align binoculars with something in the sky by seeking the Orion Nebula. I must say that this is the first time I got a full appreciation of the nebulosity without relying on photographs. That’s not bad considering the amount of cloud and haze which at times competed with the low surface brightness objects.
We decided to try to observe Mira… After several attempts, John provided star hopping advice… but it was to no avail. Unfortunately a bit too late to actually see it. It was down too low to the horizon, and the haze was pretty bad.
I continued my mission to observe the various Messier objects, primarily those considered binocular objects.
The Messier Marathon allows about 5 minutes per object. In some cases we were exceeding that.
Of course it was easy to pick out a few of the bigger Messiers, like M45. But some of them were such that I would not have considered it a positive identification. It takes a trained eye to distinguish nothing from something.
Using Orion and Gemini I tried to star hop to the Beehive Cluster (M44). I could see a hint of it in the sky but not align it in the binoculars. Even at 11 pm we could still see all around. (but not read the star charts without a flashlight).
There was a lot of sky glow from Hamilton reflected in the clouds.
I learned a few things…
I probably need a finderscope for my binoculars; a Nexstar scope is not all that easy to align, if it’s daytime or cloudy, and makes a lot of noise when slewing; what looks like a 150 degree angle on a flat star chart turns out more like 110 degrees in the sky. When the wind blows, my tripod shakes, and Sirius makes nice lissajous patterns; I need a gadget to elevate my binoculars higher than my tripod does. I will head for Home Depot tomorrow. I need more than a 4 inch scope, (or darker skies) to pick out the Messier objects considered dimmer than binocular objects, but my binoculars appear to be equal to the task for the 60 objects so designated. There are enough stars in the binocular field that star charts cannot show them all, so it’s not easy to star hop through binoculars. M40 seems to be somewhat of a hoax; I could see more stars than in the star charts, but nothing even remotely cometary. The constellations are actually pretty big;
2 inches on my star charts is 4 inches at arms length; My green laser is likely a 20 mw version; By the time I asked for advice on the Andromeda Galaxy, it had set; and the Beehive Cluster looks magnificent through my binoculars;
Some of the telescope Messier objects are a challenge even with a GoTo scope properly aligned. M56 and M66 gave me a lot of trouble; letting my glasses touch the rubber rings on the viewfinders was a disaster. The smudges on them made clear focusing dependent on exactly what part of my glasses were in the optical path. I will be bringing plenty of lens cleaners for my glasses next time. Also, reading glasses… (and a rocking chair, perhaps?)
I don’t think I can snatch the pebble yet.
The Rangers came at about 10pm and suggested that they might close the park later in the week because of possible damage to the grass.
Jim continued to serve up treats with his scope, calling us over as needed.
I saw a double star (cannot recall which) but the 2 were about a factor of 10 difference in brightness. It was a welcome change to have the scope already pointing in the right direction.
We packed up around 11 pm.
As Jackie observed, there’s a lot of walking around in an observing session. My apologies to the grass… we made quite a field of mud just walking on it.
With a little help from friends, our cars were pushed back onto the roadway.
A rather long drive to the ‘alternate’ observing location afterwards, with a view to possibly doing the MM there if Binbrook is muddied out.
I would recommend setting up on the pavement next time, and parking the cars further down the lane, but leaving one blocking the lane against unexpected vehicular arrivals.
