[Chaos-l] Observing this weekend

[Mark South]

Hi, 
We had a great time observing.    Some of the clearest skies I've seen at Farrington.  
Observers:  South, John Miller, Michael Hrivnak
Scope: 15" Dob (f/5)
Notes: M54-- moderately bright, very small and highly compact. Even high power (271x) didn't resolve stars. 
M22-- 63x, amazing object, very large
Lagoon Nebula-- dark lane prominent
M24-- 63x- tried to find the "Inkspot" but could not find it. 
M70-- similar to M54 but slightly larger.  
Veil Nebula-- 0III filter- 63x, 146x - wow.  The best I've seen it at Farrington.  An OIII and a clear sky really brings this out.  We were able to lots of detail, especially the "helix-like" streamers winding all the way down to the "claw".  
Blinking Planetary-- looked great in John's scope, but terrible in mine.  Stellar in appearance at low power.  Direct vision brought out the star, but averted vision made it disappear.   In my scope at 271x, the image was really soft due to a need for re-collimation.    I plan to revisit this object sometime after good collimation.  

It was a great time of observing, but also a good time to learn how to star-hop better.  Thanks John for showing me how to hop to the blinking planetary.    That's a tough object to find because it is stellar in appearance at low power.   Michael, you have picked up star-hopping really fast.  Awesome!  Having a good finder-scope does make a big difference. 

I am very happy about this weather!   Hope it keeps up for MASP (www.masp.org) .    BTW, John, Michael, and I are planning to be at MASP this year.  Are other folks going?  It would be cool to set up an "area" for us, but not sure that is OK. 

Clear skies,
Mark


Mark South
500 Market Street Ste. 204
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
http://web.mac.com/md_south

 
On Monday, September 03, 2007, at 05:39PM, "Michael Hrivnak" <mhrivnak at hrivnak.org> wrote:
>There was some nice observing last night.  It was a remarkably clear night, 
>and about as dark as you could expect at Farrington.  I brought my Orion 8" 
>Dob, Jon was there with his 9.75" SCT with motorized tracking, and Mark 
>brough the heavy artillery, his (I think) 15" Dob.
>
>Several friends came out to partake in the views, and a father-son duo joined 
>us.  I didn't catch their names, but the son was telling us about Greek 
>mythology relating to the constellations.  They have a small telescope of 
>their own, and I think we'll see more of them in the future.
>
>The object of the night was probably the Veil Nebula through Mark's scope.  It 
>was quite vivid, and very impressive.  We saw quite a few objects, but by 
>about 11:30, we were feeling the Moon's wrath.
>
>I'm planning to head out there again tonight.  If anyone is interested, I'll 
>be there hopefully by 8:45 at the latest, and I'll probably stay until the 
>Moon spoils my fun.  In fact, I'll probably be out again tomorrow night as 
>well.  Especially since my first two months in this hobby have been so 
>cloudy, I'm going to really enjoy these few days!
>
>Michael
>
>On Monday 03 September 2007 4:16:18 pm you wrote:
>> Did any observing take place at Jordan Lake this weekend?  I'm always glad
>> to see someone come up with a silver lining for this summer's drought.
>> Walter
>>
>> On 9/1/07, Michael Hrivnak <mhrivnak at hrivnak.org> wrote:
>> > There is an observing session tonight scheduled for Farrington, but I
>> > think
>> > I'm going to save it for tomorrow.  The cloud forecast looks much better
>> > for
>> > tomorrow night.  I'll probably be out to Farrington (the ramp to the
>> > left) between 10pm and 10:30pm tomorrow night (Sunday) with a friend or
>> > three.  If
>> > the seeing is good, I'll probably stay out until the Moon crashes the
>> > party.
>> >
>> > For what it's worth, the drought means that the lake is dangerously low.
>> > Thus, there will probably be far fewer boaters around than normal.
>> >
>> > Anyone else up for going out tomorrow night?
>> >
>> > Michael
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
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