horsehead seen last night...Sedili ob report

[Gary]

@rlow - Thanks for the report! Looking forward to seeing these objects in your dob someday. You guys have a great weekend at Sedili! Clear skies!

Btw, that is one good looking model you have there to posing beside your dob. Better than the Celestron girls of yester years. LOL.

[rlow]

@rlow - Thanks for the report! Looking forward to seeing these objects in your dob someday. You guys have a great weekend at Sedili! Clear skies!

Btw, that is one good looking model you have there to posing beside your dob. Better than the Celestron girls of yester years. LOL.

Thanks Gary! Wish you guys have a good time there too!

waa...you just made someone a very happy model today...LOL!

[rlow]

hey guys...

we are absolutely delighted and greatly honoured to have the company of three of our veteran eagle-eye, human-goto-type visual observers to join us tomorrow for the Sedili trip.

They are: Jiahao (the model), Yang Beng (Canopus) and Elton (the one with that monster dob...).

Yang Beng and Elton will be bringing at least two fabulous eyepieces each, so if the sky is good tomorrow night, we have a fantastic line-up of eyepieces for a potential series of eyepiece shoot-out in the 15" dob:

Group A: Nagler 17mm, Ethos 17mm-13mm-10mm-8mm, Delos 6mm

(Yes... Canopus is probably the first guy here to use that Delos!)

Group B: Pentax XW 20mm-14mm-10mm-7mm-5mm.

Let's look forward to some serious fun tomorrow!

[Airconvent]

wow...3 human gotos! Seems like all the stars are aligned over there, rlow!

[rlow]

three...?

Hmm...you are quite right...!

With such fine company, I can literally sit back and relax...

...and I can happily relegate myself to be just an eyepiece caddy...hehehe!

We love good company, the more the merrier, so if there's anyone who wants to drive up to join us there to observe with the 15" dob, you are most welcome!

[Clifford60]

wow...3 human gotos! Seems like all the stars are aligned over there, rlow!

Not three but four and 1 of them a great in photography, at least 1.

Guys enjoy, do provide more pictures and report.

[Canopus Lim]

Thanks Richard that we had quite a good night. Although we were hampered with haze/ high altitude clouds, we did manage to catch details in many of the galaxies. The spiral shape and dark lanes were pretty easy to see in the 15". Also, this was the first time I saw the horsehead directly and with some 'imagination', the head shape can be seen. Nice objects also included the planetary nebulae. The Ghost of Jupiter was bright and we could see mottling in the inner ring, the central star and the outer portion of it very clearly. We also saw some PK nebulae (I do not know the number.. ha), and it was pretty dim..so Jia Hao concluded that with such high altitude clouds, it should not be attempted.

Apart from many DSOs, Saturn and Mars rendered pretty good images even up to ultra high magnification of about 700x. At that magnification, I caught a glimpse (fleeting movement) of the elusive Enckle Division (which is a very thin dark line that is close to the edge of A division). It was easy to catch due to the high magnification. I saw this elusive division twice with my 12.5" dob at 500x and 400x. 700x was definitely easier.

I guess for exact DSO we saw, best to ask Jia Hao, Richard and Elton. This is the first time that I was doing observing in 'seat back position'... haha.. I was look through the eyepieces and did not have to find the objects thanks to the human gotos. So for me it was a real holiday and a break from taking care of my baby; though I admit my bones are a pretty old doing such late night observing with the baby OTs everyday.

[Gary]

@Canopus - Thanks for the report! Glad you had a nice baby break. It is more fun to wake up regularly in the night to enjoy the celestial views under clear skies than preparing milk and changing diapers.

Hope you guys will beat this current record of human GOTOs + big dobs record in the near future!

[jiahao1986]

First of all thanks Richard for giving as a ride up there, and thanks Elton and Yang Beng for the great company. It was a great party for us hard-core visual observers!

First half of the night the sky was blanketed by high-level haze/cloud, shown in the picture below. Interestingly the haze added a natural diffusing effect to the stars.



During twilight hours, the moon-Jupiter-Venus conjunction was impressive. The haze/cloud made the moon totally over-exposed.

[jiahao1986]

Like what you saw in the images, the sky condition was far less than ideal. Though the high-level haze reduced in the second half of the night, I would rate the overall sky transparency at 6~7 out of 10. Seeing was also mediocre, 7/10 at best.

Despite the mediocere sky condition, we managed to see tons of stuff with Richard's 15 inch monster Dob. Below is a brief report on the highlights of the night. Well, not so brief, so I'll break down by catagories and write slowly...

Nebulae:

California Nebula (NGC1499): Well this is the biggest surprise of the night for me. I've attempted to see this neb with unaided eye and binos for numerous time before, under much better sky conditions. Absolutely NO success. However in this memorable night, with the help of H-beta filter, the nebula was VERY easy in the monster Dob while the crescent moon hadn't even set!

The nebula could be traced to its full extend, beyond 2 FOVs with the 40mm XW eyepiece. No fine structures could be seen though, due to the poor sky condition.

Horsehead Nebula (B33 against IC434): The H-beta filter really does magic. The Horsehead could again be seen easily with direct vision! Averted vision revealed the shape nicely. The background neabula IC434 (the red-colour triangular shape nebula we see in images) could be traced to as long as 1 degree running north-south. Look forward to better sky condition next month so that we can push to a higher magnification for a close-up look on the horsehead!

Orion Nebula (M42): The view as not as good as two weeks ago thanks to the haze and clouds. However the fine feather-like structures in the two wings, as well as the dark nebulae between M42 and 43 were very impressive to someone like me who doesn't own a big Dob! The greenish tone, not surprisingly, wasn't seen so well. Guess we can keep the pinkish-tone challenge for next session.

Monkey Head Nebula (NGC2174): Kochu imaged this intersting nebula shortly before, refer to his post here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10562

Last time I saw this object was some 10 years ago with my 8-cm refractor under very dark sky. Tried a few times under Punggai/Mersing skies later with no success. Well aperture rules here, it was very easy in the 15 incher aided by OIII filter. The dark nebulae which was the monkey's eye, could be seen easily as well. The overall monkey head-shape could hardly be imagined though XD...

Eskimo Nebula (NGC2359): The best Eskimo I've seen so far. The inner shell could be seen distintly, with quite a bit of mottled/netted look. Outer shell finally appeared uneven. Can't wait to have a even closer look under better seeing conditions.

Rosette Nebula (NGC2237): Another memorable one for me. Though the nebula was way too big to be fit in the FOV entirely, the central dark hole, and numerous bright/dark structures surrouding the hole could be seen easily. If only the FOV of the scope could be larger!

Thor's Helmet (NGC2359): I wasn't aware of this fine object before. I somehow didn't include it in my ETX-125 GOTO deepsky marathon back in 2006 when planning. The object is far better than many others in Canis Major; given the mag-7~8 sky that night, what a waste...

Through the 15 incher in OIII, the 'horny' helmet feature was easy and impressive. The third and fourth horns extending north-ward could also been seen, but not too obvious limited by sky condition. This one is definitely a must-see if one has a monster dob and OIII filter.

Ghost of Jupiter (NGC3242): The view once again impressed everybody. Like Yang Beng described, the mottled inner ring and the central star could be scrutinized closely in magnification as high as 700x! The bluish tone adds to its beauty.

This object is bright and stands to magnifications very well. A fine target for urban observations if aided by filters. During my NTU astro club days, people were in general quite impressed when we showed it to them.

Eight-Burst Nebula (NGC3132): There's a very famous image of this fine planetary by Hublle telescope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_3132.jpg), showing it as something resembles closely to a gem stone. The southernly lacation prevented observers in the north to see this wonder.

visually through the 15 incher, it was big and bright, showing almost the same structures as in the HST image. Another intersting feature of it is that the bright star shrouded in the nebulosity is not the real central star, but a foreground one. The real central star was much dimmer and close to the bright forground star. Elton and Richard successfuly saw it in high power, but I somehow couldn't get it. Guess I can conclude after years of visual observations that my eyes are more sensitive to faint nebulosities than to resolution-demanding features like planetary details and double stars.

******

We also tried a few really challenging diffuse and planetary nebulae like NGC2264 (Cone Nebula), Abell 21 (Medusa Nebula), PK238 34.1 and NGC2610. All could be seen with the help of filters, but featureless at best. Like Yang Beng brought up, the sky condtion was just not there.