Lock down and clear skies
On Wednesday I was sitting in my office yesterday afternoon in a Teams meeting when I suddenly noticed that the sunlight was going into the Web cam and blowing out the image. Its been a long time, but the end result was lockdown-clear-skies had returned. I had been waiting since the 24th December to try out the new Nexus DCS on the Dobsonian having done a preliminary test on that evening to show all was working. So planning was done in DSP 8 ( updated from an unused DSP 4 from 2008), the new version is very impressive – Herschel 400 objects in Cetus, all Gx – that constellation was due south early evening and no ladder needed. A 2 star alignment on Capella and Diptha and selected the first GX and there it was in the EP of the 34 mm. It was not very clear as the RH was 85-90% and to be honest the Telrad fogged over in about 10 minutes, but nice to be outside, even at 3 degrees. Moving the scope to the next Gx, problems started as the Altitude moved, but not the Azimuth on the pointers. Turns out ( I hope) that the pivot bolt was moving with the azimuth rotation. A ¾ inch spanner ( the bolt is ½ inch imperial) was used to tighten the bolt, but it did not last long and began undoing itself again. I will have to get a ½ inch nut from somewhere and lock the bolt from below.
No matter, back to star hopping and reverted to Hershel 400 OCs in Perseus and M76 which took a while to find owing to the local light pollution and all observations had to be done up the ladder, but a few more 400s ticked off, the first for a long time.
Cheryll joined me and we looked at a few lollipops, M42 was stunning and clear to the east ( yes E and F was seen), Running man was not clear in shape, but the nebulosity was visible around the stars and a shadow of some shape within, M78 some clear mist from the reflection nebula around the two stars, but it was too moist to see the Flame nebula so never bothered with Horsehead ( did see that later when Orion was due south). She was stunned by the views compared to her 80mm and the 200 mm in the observatory.
Most of the street lights go off at midnight and that is when the viewing gets really good to the south, sadly work gets in the way, but one last session was needed. The DSCs were forced to work in a restricted area i.e. align on Aldebaran and Sirius and keep within that boundary, so jumped to the PN NGC 2022 and that was in the EP okay, its very small and onto NGC 2438 the PN in M46 in Pup which was simply stunning to see, surrounded in the starfield. So the DSC works very well, the connection to scope is the issue to solve.
Overall the best unexpected observing I have had this year. The weekend looked good both here and Abingdon, but Saturday gets worse every model run, so Sunday now looks better. However, last night was not well predicted so late decisions based on satellite imagery seem the best way of planning.
Trevor
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AAS Privacy Policy, Issue 0.2, 27/10/2019
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Chris Holt, Secretary, Abingdon Astronomical Society Date:
