01/29/2006, Greensboro, MD
I took my 4.5" 114mm celestron to a friend's house for some observing in his dark skies. Not as dark as tuckahoe, but it's still good. We found quite a bit for a little scope. A ton of clusters, Whirlpool galaxy, M81 and M82, M31, Orion, Flame nebula, Saturn, Mars, M1, and some doubles. It was a good night. M81 and M82 looked not bad at all, sitting in the field of view. Whirlpool when viewed was quite close to some sky glow so we needed to use averted vision a little. Saturn was great, used a 2x barlow with a 15mm lens with a dark green filter. Great detail, they really enjoyed it. I might have a new observing buddy, I been observing with them for a while. 1 of them(Otis) isn't involved at all, while the other(martin) is really into it. I taught him how to use star charts and now he's finding stuff with the celestron and the 14". Now he's gonna get his own scope, a 5" reflector. Pretty excited for that, well...that's about all I can brag about. Clear skies!
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01/27/2006, Tuckahoe Ballfield
I probably had the best observing night so far. I like the power of "Light" and "Magnification". Tuckahoe truely rocked, I found many galaxies, nebulas, and clusters. I found 1 globular cluster which was M79, found around 12 galaxies, uncountable clusters, and a few nebulas. My favorite objects of the night was M81 and M82, Flame nebula(just too cool!), and M50. Once I arrived, Jean Paul was there, but he forgot his poles. I felt so sorry for him...if I could...I would of let him use my poles but his set up was different. We talked some until it got darker. Then I got to work, first looking at Mars to allign the telrad. Then moved to M42, I seen some detail in the gas clouds that's not seen here at my home. Looked a saturn for a while, and went galaxy hunting. I first looked at Msomenumberiforgot in aries. It kinda looks like M79 the globular cluster in Lepus(Not sure if I spelling it right). Then I looked for M81 and M82. What a pain!! I finally found it from 5-10mins of searching. It was amazing...seeing them for the first time in the 14". Then I found M108 and the Owl Nebula, both looked great. Mark right beside me told me you could see the flame nebula without a filter...I would never think of looking at it!! So I turned right towards it then BAM! There it was! It was big, faint, but really cool. I found many other objects like M78, M66 and M65 in Leo, some nice doubles, a ton of open clusters, and a cool galaxy that wasn't on my star chart. It was around M81 and M82, I wonder why it wasn't listed. It had a bright surface...and quite large. Anyway, as you could see...Tonight was great! There was a downfall, which was the clouds in the west. It started to reflect the light and the milky way shrunk(AND MADE ME NOT SEE THE WHIRLPOOL...BLAST!!!). I still had a great time, finally meeting Mark and Bob. Now I'm about to go outside with my ETX hehe...I got the fever tonight! Clear skies!
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01/27/2006
I'm going stargazing tonight at tuckahoe...Just happy...The report shall come tomorrow!
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