Observing Session: 25, July05/08/2014
Astronomy

A rather nice session plagued with various gremlins.  The first Go-To after boot up, sent the mount off to some random spot in the sky. A slew to a known star and a ‘Synchronise’ solved the problem and got Go-To’s landing within the 40mm . I have no idea why the mount does this from time to time – it’s nothing serious, but it does piss me off as it happens for no apparent reason.

The other balls up were with my voice logs, which I’m now making on my iPhone.  While it’s simpler to use this rather than either of the two dictaphones I have, it’s proving very easy to delete the entries when I try and name them after each log is completed.

The latest version of SkySafari 4 is proving to be a great way of finding my way around as well as confirming what the scope is pointing at is what I’m actually observing through the eyepiece. With the screen brightness turned all the way down and the app set to ‘Red Mode’ the screen is easy to read and doesn’t stuff up my dark adaption. I can set up FOV for all scope and eyepiece combinations I have and just have to rotate the  iPad to match what I’m seeing.

However, holding and iPad  and an iPhone at the same time, is proving to be a bit of a  juggling act. Maybe what’s needed is a voice recording app for the iPad, then I can dump the phone.

While observing conditions were pretty good, I did seem to have rather a lot of ‘Not Found’ observations this time round 🙁
 

Session Data

  • Date: 25/07/2014 
  • Time: 22:28 – 01:30 UT
  • Seeing: I Perfectly  Stable,
  • Transparency: II Clear.

M57

In the Altair Astro 250mm, Delos 10mm, 203 X, 21.3′, West is to the 9 O’Clock Just off to the East of the PN is GSC 02642-0433, a 12.7 Mag star. No other bright stars were seen within a 4 arc min circle of the object. The PN is oval and is oriented NEE/SWW The NEE end of the ring is thinnest at this point and thickest at the S/E. The central star was not seen.

SAO33693: The Garnet Star

I was expecting this to be a lot redder. Looked Yellow/Orange to me.

NGC6543

In the Altair Astro 250mm, Delos 10mm, 203 X, 21.3′, West is to the 3 O’Clock The brightest star on the FOV is PPM 20675 at 9.7 mag. I get a hint of it being oriented N/W – S/E but cannot make out any structure within the object. Apparently the 14.0 mag Galaxy NGC 6552 is just at the edge of the FOV to the West, but I cannot see any sign of this.

NGC6934

In the Altair Astro 250mm, Delos 14mm, 145 X, 29.8′, West is to the 7 O’Clock There are three prominent stars going out from the centre of the FOV to the West. PPM 170284 at 9.0 mag, PPM 170269 at 10.6 mag and at 9.0 arc secs out SAO 125946 at 9.4 mag. All form a straight line pointing to the Globby. The Globular is small, very diffuse and doesn’t have a stellar core.

NGC6822

Not Found

NGC6946

Not Found

NGC6939

I deleted the voice log for this and for some reason cannot remember anything about it despite refreshing my memory by looking at a DSS image!

IC342, Caldwell 5

Not Found

IC1396

Not Found