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A Starlight Night

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Author Topic: A Starlight Night  (Read 643 times)
martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
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« on: August 24, 2008, 01:20:00 pm »

After quite a poor day of cloud and rain the sky suddenly cleared up around midnight revealing the best quality sky I have seen in a long time. The trans was excellent, and despite the glow from the last 1/4 Moon (with ES) low in the NE the sky was quite dark at the zenith. The Milky Way was breathtaking with dark dust lanes breaking up the milky band at regular intervals in high contrast/vivid detail. The Moon itself was very close to M45 making for  a photogenic conjunction (I didn't take advantage of that). I quickly set up the camera in the backyard and took two images of the zenith. 30 sec exp at ISO1600 with 28mm lens and F/2.8. Considering that this is only a bridge camera taken from a garden surrounded by street lights I was happy with the detail detected. The Milky Way and dust lanes can clearly be seen, even the NAN is visible. I also took an image of Aries in search of Boattini which I have yet to check. D'Arrest was covered by low level cloud so this didn't turn out to be a night for comets, rather a time to enjoy the beauty of the Milky Way!. On the previous night I managed to observe the mountains which mark the edge of the huge Mare Orientale impact basin due to very good libration on the eastern limb which was some sight. Thanks to John for pointing me in the correct direction. I'm holding my breath - that's 4 clear nights in a row from here. I think it will come to an end tonight though.




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brianb
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« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2008, 03:22:19 pm »

Lucky you.

I'd sort of given it up as a bad job, woke up at 2:20 BST, had a look outside & found some clearish areas. Decided it was probably clearing, set alarm for half an hour ahead & went back to sleep. At 2:50 sky did seem to be clearing so got up & set up scope etc all except for removing the caps & connecting the power. At this point the cloud seemed to be closing in a bit so had a cup of coffee. When finished the sky was almost completely covered with thin stratocumulus apparently with cirrus behind it ... Packed up & went back to bed. Cry Been much the same through the day, essentially cloudy but bright with occasional bursts of hazy sun.
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Roman White
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« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2008, 05:07:34 pm »

(...)The Moon itself was very close to M45 making for  a photogenic conjunction (I didn't take advantage of that).
Maybe you was too late for last night's occultation. I observed the Pleiades occultation from 22:40 to 01:25 EEST, it was great.
I have some photos, but visual observations were much better.




Pleiades weren't much impressive (because the Moon was present), but the Moon itself was a beautiful sight. I could watch on the Moon for a whole night, if only I needn't to sleep.

 
The Milky Way and dust lanes can clearly be seen, even the NAN is visible. (...)
Great Milky Way shots, Martin. The dark areas are good visible. BTW, what is NAN?
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SkyWatcher 130/900mm EQ3, Bresser 76/700mm, 20x90 bino. and other, Olympus SP-550UZ
Eclipse & comet chaser, occultation & meteor observer
Poltava Astronomy Portal
martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
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« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2008, 05:27:58 pm »

Roman, those are fantastic occultation images. Have you tried sending them into www.spaceweather.com ?. I never knew there was an occulation, it must have been before moonrise here. I really like those images!. I bet the visual view was great.

NAN = North America Nebula

http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/n7000.html

Thanks
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Roman White
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« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2008, 06:19:13 pm »

Martin, if you think they worth to post them to Spaceweather, I'll try to do it.

The same occultation occured in Ireland before or just after moonrise, so it was unfavourable to observe. But it was deeper than here in Poltava (25 Tauri was occlulted, while you can see on my photos that it was in a very close conjunction). Next one will take place on September, 20. Don't miss!
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Paul
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« Reply #5 on: August 27, 2008, 04:05:38 pm »

Excellent shots both - Martin, you're getting the Ha red of the NAN very well with your camera.

Paul (still catching up!)
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