Viewing Report 19th August 2022

22:43 – 03:06

First tonight was to take some 300s darks for the other night for NGC 6765. I only needed 5 of them so spent the first half hour on that.

Then looking at what I could do before the Moon comes up around 11:30pm, I have a couple Messier objects on my list to go after. M26 is the initial one to tackle. I will try a low exposure for luminance and longer on RGB.

Initial focus position is 17,782 for Luminance. I then had to take a new set of darks for the Lodestar camera. I am not sure why these no longer match.

@ 23:53 I started imaging M26 LRGB, L = 60s, RGB = 300s

M26 – Red 300s

Focus run at 1:06am 16,879 for Luminance

Finished imaging just before 2am when the object was too low and the bottom of the dome slit was in the way. I then went on to grab flats and darks.

Viewing Report 7th August 2022

22:30 – 02:37

Tonight John Barrie-Smith and Bob came round to observe with me from Mirador Ellisfield. The temperature has been warm +24c and the humidity average. I assembled the 22″ dob and brought out the 100mm binos.

Bob had a pair of tiny binoculars which whilst we were waiting for darkness to arrive we thought we would try them out. To our surprise when looking at the Moon we could see a star to the East which transpired to DSschubba, a mag +2.2 star in the constellation of Scorpius. This is top star above Antares in the scorpion. This was unseen with the naked eye.

We then realised that the Moon was going to occult this star and that we could watch it happen. So with Bob on the Binos, JBS on the 22″ and I with my Canon 6D with the 300mm lens, we set about watching the event.

We caught the star being occulted by the Moon, but then we struggled as the Moon was setting behind the trees in the distant forest. However around 22:13:20 the star reappeared just as the Moon was setting around +4 degrees altitude. A good result!

Moon setting with the star hidden behind

So after a thrilling and unexpected chase, we set about using the 22″ for some visual. I had started SkyTools 4 for the first time earlier in the day and created my first observing chart. I printed a list of objects to go after and we used this to work through some very appealing and easy targets.

SkyTools V4

M21 was seen by JBS and I before it quickly set behind a tree, however this open cluster looked great.

M102 was easy to see with direct vision. This galaxy looked splendid through the 13mm Ethos eyepiece. This was a long thin galaxy with a slight bulge to the centre. Whilst SkyTools did state the 24mm Panoptic was the best eyepiece to see this with, we felt that the 13mm Ethos was a good option and provided the best view.

John then wanted to go to M101 the Pinwheel galaxy. This is a face on spiral that has a low surface brightness and was rather hard to see. We tried all 3 eyepieces, so the 24mm Panoptic, 13mm Ethos and 31mm Nagler. To prove that this was because it was a harder object to see with relatively low surface brightness and thus did not appear on my SkyTools list of Easy and Obvious objects to see, we set about looking for M51 with it’s associated NGC NGC 5195 interacting galaxy. This was as we noted fairly faint to see also but rather distinct with the 2 objects being visible.

We also looked at an open cluster called the Cooling Tower, M29 or NGC 6913, Bob could see the cooling tower in this little cluster of stars which was bedded into the Milkyway’s rich star field.

We then looked at the Blue Flash nebula, NGC 6905 which did indeed resemble a flash in the pan of oil.

We then went to M5 a glob that was very low down and did appear on the list. The scope was all but horizontal but provided a good view despite the seeing.

Finally we stole a look at M13 which was to compare with M5 and wow it was really bright and steady and the details of the stars within especially with the 13mm Ethos were amazing. It is worth noting that it was fairly high in the sky unlike M5.

Once Bob and JBS packed up and went home around 12:30am I slewed the 12″ in the dome to NGC 6905 the Blue Flash and too a single 2 min Luminance exposure to see what we had seen.

Blue Flash Planetary Nebula NGC 6905
Blue Flash cropped 2 min

I then loaded my sequence for NGC 6765 and took a set of LRGB and OIII 300s exposures, x 5 each until 3:45am. I left the scope running until morning and went to bed at 2am. A really good night with friends.

NGC 6765 Planetary Nebula by the arrow 300s Lum

Viewing Report 5th October 2021 – IMT3

19:21 – 21:00

NGC 6765

Focus 18,406

imaged for 1hour 36 mins and then the safety went off and it stopped imaging, no idea if the dome closed at that point or if it just lost a guide star but that was it, despite it being clear all night. So I need to not set the Boltwood OK to image setting in SGPro and I need to find a way of time stamping the dome closure

Viewing Report 11th September 2021 – IMT3

22:35 – 23:45

Focus position 18464

Temp -25℃

Gain 139 Offset 21

OIII LRGB 20 x each, 600s on OIII and L and then 300s on RGB

Rotation angle 29.420

NGC 6765 planetary nebula in Lyra

Everything up until 23:45 is Luminance as the filter wheel was not connected correctly in SGPro and it thought it was moving but did not…..

Went to bed

Looks like it clouded over around midnight so a few images only. I also now seem to have a mark on the Luminance filter at the bottom which is a pain, not sure how that got there on a closed system. Also the scope must have moved during the imaging as a few of the images are of a different FoV.