Bragan 5/11/10

Here's a report from a session at Bragan on Friday night. One of the Bobs Knobs from the Lightbridge has broken, so I used the Celestron C6.

This was one of those nights when a little patience, mixed with persistence and optimism, paid off to give a memorable experience. Simon had been at Bragan since about 9.00pm, but I was delayed and did not arrive until 9.45, to find a totally overcast sky, with gentle drizzle falling. We decided to wait it out, as we could see on the satellite images that there were clear skies on the way. We waited, and waited, until 11.45, at which point, the sky started to clear from the northwest. We decided to set up our scopes, and the clouds finally cleared, to reveal a stunning sky. The Milky Way was as bright and clear as I have ever seen it, and it could be traced all the way down into Monoceros. The stars themselves were bright, with very little twinkling, transparency was superb, and the night was dry with only a gentle breeze, although a little cold.

Due to the continuing problems with the Lightbridge, I had brought the Celestron C6 with me. Because of this, I decided to spend some time hunting down star clusters and a few double stars, while leaving the galaxies to Simon and his 14" dob. But, after setting the goto, I decided to have a look at a couple of favourite galaxies, just to see if I could see anything, and to test the goto itself. First was M74, and, amazingly, it was quite large in the 17mm Hyperion, although very faint. M77 was next, and the bright core was easily seen, although not much more than that. It looked like a bright, slightly unfocused star, embedded in some surrounding nebulosity.

I had picked up a couple of pointers from Sue French in the last couple of copies of Sky and Telescope, and decided to try for some of her recommended targets. Since I was already in the area, I headed for Gamma Ceti. This is a very close double star, rather like Epsilon Bootes, and I needed to add the 28mm ring to the 8mm Hyperion in order to split it cleanly. The secondary star had a hint of blue colour in it, while the primary was white, with a hint of yellow. A lovely sight. Next came the planetary nebula NGC246. The was tiny in the C6, although described by some texts as being quite large. There was little or no detail to be seen.

I then moved on to the constellation Cepheus, in search of two clusters, NCG7261 and NGC7281. The guide star in the goto for these was another lovely double, Xi Cephei (Kurah). NGC7261 was an open cluster, which consisted of about 20 fairly bright stars, arranged into three distinct groups, with a large darker area in the centre. NGC7281 was a bit odd. There were three stars in a straight line, surrounded by a dozen or so tiny little stars. It did not really look like a cluster at all. Oddly, as I was looking at it. I noticed that on the edge of the field of view, there were another three stars also forming an almost straight line.

We took a break at this point, and just looked around. The southern sky was absolutely superb, and the whole of Canis Major could be seen easily, an unusual sight at this latitude. Also clearly visible was the whole of the constellation Lepus, below Orion. We could even distinguish the two stars which mark the ears of the hare. We also traced the constellation Eridanus from its beginning near Rigel in Orion, all the way down to the point where it disappeared below the horizon. Orion itself was stunning, M42 and the surrounding areas were quite brilliant. Monoceros was also excellent, as was Cancer. M44 was quite obvious to the naked eye. The whole of Cetus and Pisces could be seen to the west, and Jupiter was very bright. The whole of Leo had risen in the east, and it was fantastic to see the great spring constellation at the beginning of November. Gemini and Taurus were now high in the south, almost overhead, and the Hyades were superb. Cygnus was diving into the horizon to the northwest, although Sadr and Deneb, with Vega in Lyra, did not actually set while we were there. It was one of those nights when I would have been quite happy to have no scope with me at all, but just spend hours viewing the sky with the naked eye, and I will remember it for a long time.

I decided to take advantage of the conditions to search for the rarely seen M79 in Lepus. The globular cluster was ok in the C6, but
Simon then turned the dob on it, and it was superb, taking up much of the field in the eyepiece, and resolvable to near the core. I then viewed a few old favourites, beginning with M41, and this was stunning in the 17mm Hyperion. I used the 40mm eyepiece to widen the view, and it was a superb sight, one of the absolute highlights on a night full of them. Next was M67, and this was possibly even better. Again, I used both eyepieces to view it, and it was a magnificent sight. The stars were very steady and very bright, with no twinkling. I also had a short look at the lovely wide double star Iota Cancri. Next was my beloved M35, and yet again it was fantastic in the 17mm Hyperion.
I then moved to Taurus, and had a long look at the lovely cluster NGC1647, before moving on to NGC1750. This was enormous, and again I used the 40mm eyepiece. There are another two clusters very close to it, and I found it difficult to distinguish between the three, as they all rather merge into one huge group. This is one to come back to another time.

It clouded over overhead for a while, although the horizons remained clear, so we had another short break. The cloud only remained for about 15 minutes. We discussed the constellation Draco, which could be clearly followed along almost its full length. This of course led to a viewing of Caldwell 6, the Cats-eye nebula. It was quite well seen in the C6, and had an obvious blue colour, but it is really an object for the dob. Time was getting on now, and it was very cold, so I finished off in Monoceros with a look at the cluster M50, and then the Christmas Tree cluster NGC2264, which was excellent. Finally, and I had been saving it all night, the spectacular triple star Beta Monoceros. I put the 28mm ring into the 8mm Hyperion to view this, and it was absolutely wonderful.

Simon had also been getting some fantastic views, Especially memorable was the galaxy NGC891, which was brilliantly seen. As Simon said, it was almost like looking at a photograph. The view of M79 in the dob, as already mentioned, was memorable, and the view of M42 was breath-taking.

We finally finished off at 4.45am, very cold and tired, but both with inane grins all over our faces. it was a superb night, probably one or the best this year, and I won't forget it for a long time.