Observation reports - Pymm's Chair ...

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 ...!

Remember, don't forget to send your observing reports to observations@maccastro.com.

06/08/10 - The sky, high above the Cheshire Plain

I spent a few of the early hours of Friday 6th August 2010 at a dark sky site in the Goyt valley. Pymm's Chair is a viewing point high up overlooking the Cheshire plane. There is a small car park there where you can set up your telescope, but wrap up warm because it is exposed. There is light pollution to the West but overhead it is pretty dark.

I was there from 0015BST to 0245BST on a partly cloudy night. But for a while it was almost clear. I saw about 10 shooting stars, most of them Perseids with a couple of random ones thrown in. One of the Perseids was very bright but most were faint. The Andromeda galaxy, the Double cluster and the Milky Way were all easy to see with the naked eye. The Milky Way could be seen through Cassiopeia and Cygnus.

The Double cluster and the Andromeda galaxy were spectacular through my 10x50 binoculars. I could also see the faint glow of the dumbbell nebula. The galaxy M33 was also visible as a faint patch of mist. I find it easy to see M33 in binoculars but very difficult to see through a finder-scope or a telescope, the natural movement of the binoculars helps it stand out.  I could also see the North American nebula and made out the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ part clearly.

Through my 4” Maksutov telescope I looked at M103, the Ring nebula, the Dumbbell nebula, the globular cluster M13 and the Double cluster. But I spent most of the time looking at Jupiter. All four bright moons were lined up on one side and over my observing session they moved relative to each other. One of the dark equatorial bands was missing. I did not see the great red spot, it must have been on the other side.

Christopher Hill

[ ^ ]