Observing session May 15-16th, from back garden, Rogerstone, Newport, South Wales.
Clear sky all evening. Warm in the day which carried through to the early hours.
I used Sky Atlas 2000.0 as my guide, taking photos of the specific area I required on my phone and using that a hand held navigation tool, allowing me to stay at the eye piece.
With a waxing crescent moon low in North West I fancied an attempt at my project of photographing the Lunar 100. My optimism was high but the moon to low. Also, with some horizon hugging clouds it was not to be. With a waxing moon though, hopefully I will have some clear nights for the next couple of weeks to get going.
So giving up on the moon it was over to Cygnus and then down to Albireo. It’s a beautiful double star with striking colour contrast between the pair. A larger yellow star paired to a smaller blue one. I attempted some photos but I had forgotten to charge the camera battery so photography tonight was not on the cards.
Next I located Vega in the constellation Lyra. I attempted the double double but was unable to resolve them. Splitting Epsilon Lyrae is simple at low magnification but splitting each 1 and 2 was not possible, will try the 2xBarlow next time. Just down from here is Stephenson 1, a small open cluster. Between the two bottom stars lies M57, the Ring Nebula. An easy target to resolve it shows up as a hazy ring with a darker centre and a hint of some colour.
Traveling further down and lying directly between Albireo and Sulafat is M56. This is a small globular cluster that was quite difficult to see. But spending some time here and with the help of some averted vision I was able make it out fairly well, a darker sky would have been better.
Next up was the constellation Ursa Major. Firstly I located the star Merak. From here it’s an easy route to M97, The Owl Nebula. Not dissimilar to M57, again a hazy ring but with two darker regions in the centre forming the eyes that give it its name. Next to this is spiral galaxy M108. A bright core could easily be mistaken for a foreground star, but with a hazy elongated structure leading away from what is obviously the stellar core this is a good little galaxy.
Staying in Ursa Major I star hopped up to Alkaid. From here it’s an easy move across to M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy. I love this one. The two bright stellar cores of M51 and its companion M51a, with a hazy spiral structure surrounding each of them and linking in the middle, M51 having the larger of the two.
I find that following an observing session I take a look at photos of the objects I have just viewed on the internet. For me this helps consolidate what I have been viewing, especially as some of the objects are very faint. Also, by looking at high resolution photos after I don’t have any bias when observing them, or making myself see something I now is there but when in reality I can’t quite get it.
As it was a clear day, 16th, I got the scope out for some solar observing. There is a lot of activity going on in the Sun lately and it was no surprise to see several sunspots. The largest being AR1745. The much publicised AR1748 is just to the left and although being smaller is attracting a lot of attention because of its recent production of large solar flares.
Close up of AR1745.
NurseRoberts 