Observation reports - Kerridge ...

Reading about other people's experiences at the eyepiece of a telescope often inspires us to view the glory of the night sky. Go forth and explore ...!

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01/05/11 - A 30 minute celestial journey

For half an hour I took myself on a distant journey. Even though it had been very breezy, I noticed that the transparency of the sky was excellent. With my binoculars, I lay on my back and looked up directly to Ursa Major (the Plough).

My first targets were two distant galaxies that can be seen simultaneously in the same field of view. My 12x36 binoculars showed them very well indeed. Cigar-shaped M82 was contrasted by the larger oval of M81, both appear ghostly smudges against a star-speckled backdrop. Next, I journeyed to the last handle star of Ursa Major to find another two galaxies - this time an interacting pair - M51. The diminutive haze definitely appeared condensed and elongated, quite bright too.

Then something occurred to me. What about M101, just on the other side of the handle? It is a large but challenging faint face on spiral. I have never seen it in binoculars, but with patience it revealed itself to me - silently fading into visibility as I used averted vision. It appears much larger than the other galaxies I observed, but very tenuous. I wanted a further challenge. This took the form of M109. It is fainter then M101, smaller and more condensed, so in theory probably as easy (or difficult!) to see. I was right, it was difficult. My guide was an faint equilateral triangle of stars. M109 was nestled very close to an even fainter star. It actually appeared to be stellar. It took patience and a little self-convincing to see, but I am confident I succeeded. M109 is 55 million light years away …

My last object was completely different. A planetary nebula called the Owl. M97 is even fainter than M109 at mag. 11.2, but is so small in binoculars that it appears like as a star-like object. It was surprisingly easy to spot. Planetary nebula give themselves away very easily to the eye. When you look at them, they disappear. Look just to one side and they pop into view. This 'switching on and off' is exactly what I saw. I felt very satisfied at the end of my celestial journey.

Some of you are probably wondering why I haven't mentioned M108. Let me tell you - I couldn't see it! I believe it was being overpowered by the star Merak just nearby. I'll leave that challenge until next time.

Andrew Greenwood

29/11/10 - Saturn, the Moon and Venus

Since its last appearance Saturn's rings have tilted towards Earth. What a sight. I could clearly see the ring casting its shadow onto the planet's cloud-tops and the globe itself casting an inky-black shadow on to the rings, cutting a 'notch' out of them. The seeing was reasonable, so the Cassini division occasionally showed itself. The planet had a subtle but broad ochre band and slightly more blue-ish tint to North to South.

The Moon was lovely - suspended in the sky. Through the eyepiece, Aristarchus was very prominent, but the day/night terminator caught my eye. Jumbled craters within craters, great fissures and mountains. These were casting gigantic shadows, some are so high that even though their bases were deep in shadow, their peaks were in bright sunlight. I noticed something striking. The sunward facing slopes of Montes Caucasus were much brighter that the surrounding surface. Dazzlingly bright. The light from the Sun was being scattered off the slopes much more efficiently than the surface due to the low Sun angle.

Lastly, Venus. The sky was very bright but our 'sister' planet was still easily visible to the naked-eye. Though the little William Optics 66mm telescope it looked beautiful - a crisp, pure, glimmering silver crescent, which was Smiling back at me. I had to pause to take it in - it was a wonderful moment.

Andrew Greenwood

17/09/10 - Jupiter watch 2010

Last night members of my society, Macclesfield Astronomical Society hosted a Jupiter watch at Kerridge Cricket Club, Bollington. I am the Society's observation co-ordinator, and decided last month it would be a good idea to get together in a public place to show members of the public, and our beginners to astronomy, Jupiter.

This event was, despite the annoying cloud, a success. We had a total of five telescopes set up ranging from my Orion (UK) 10" a 6" Mak-Newt a 6" SCT an 8" SCT and our Chairman's 12" Meade Light Bridge.

Because of the slight haze in the sky, the seeing was for once superb. I estimated it to be Antoniardi (ANT) two. The ANT numbering is the scale used for judging the seeing conditions for the night. ANT 1 is excellent whilst 5 is very poor (why are you outside?).

And because the seeing was very good, Jupiter was very sharp when viewed with a good high power eyepiece. At one time last night, I had the planet at x300 (4mm Vixen LV) but my best views of the planet were at x160 (7.5mm Plossl).

I said the planet was sharp, and what a view! When Jupiter came into view and rose higher in our sky the views were simply stunning. I saw clearly the GRS which was very bright pink to my eye, together with the shadow of Io and various cloud features.

Later in the evening towards midnight. We were treated to a view of Io, that nobody anticipated. The moon was suddenly visible before it broke free of the planet, and we watched as Io slowly separated from Jupiter. The view is hard to describe; Io was a tiny disc that looked iridescent against the backdrop of Jupiter's invisible South equatorial belt, it really was an amazing sight through the telescope.

The evening was a great success and, with luck, I hope to be there again tonight for stage two of our Jupiter watch; sadly though the weather doesn't look fantastic for tonight, but you never know.

Paul Brierley

Chairman's note: As Paul has mentioned, the event was extremely successful, it was very gratifying to be treated to some wonderful views. It has been a long, long time since Jupiter has looked so good through a telescope at our latitude.

The changing sky itself was quite dramatic. The veil of Cirrostratus produced a number of subtle optical effects. We saw a paraselene (moon-dog) and part of a 22 degree halo, upper tangent arc and upper and lower Moon pillar. All three are infrequent night-time displays. The most striking optical effect was telescopic. Looking at Jupiter it was clear to see a beautifully coloured, oval-shaped halo around the planet. As Paul has mentioned, the seeing was amazing. The GRS and inky-black shadow of the transiting moon was striking. It has been a long time since the GRS appeared so orange/red. I expect this is because of the absence of the SEB. A multitude of subtle details were visible within the polar regions of the planet, and even after the GRS had exited the disk, there was a large oval in the NEB, which to my eyes had a very defined dark area, much smaller than the transiting shadow.

After waves of thicker Cirrostratus came and went, something miraculous occurred. The sky became ultra-transparent. The Milky Way burst into view straddling Perseus, Cassiopeia and into Cygnus. No telescopes were required to see the Double cluster and the great Andromeda galaxy, M31 - or to just gaze at the countless majestic stars.

The final target for the night was 2.5 billion miles away from where we were standing. It was Uranus. The pale green, glimmering disk of the distant planet was clear to see. All the more amazing was its line-of-sight proximity to Jupiter - it was only 0.5 of a degree from the giant planet, but separated by two billion miles ... Wonderful!

Upon returning home, I took one last lingering look at the Milky Way, hopefully anticipating the brief appearance of a meteor. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Still, I felt very happy with the wonders I had witnessed.

Congratulations to Paul for organizing a very successful observing evening. I very much hope there will be many more.

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