Location: Anza desert site,
Equipment: Stellarvue 102ED on
I did not manage to observe last weekend and decided to do Monday after work session instead. My truck was all packed and ready, and surprisingly there was no traffic on the back roads I am using to reach the Anza site. I was there in time to watch the sunset and moon rise. Unknowingly I picked the night of September’s full Moon which is the Harvest Moon. Did I mentioned that I love the desert under moonlight? Full Moon feels brighter in the desert, and yesterday it felt even brighter than usual. The chaparral, the valley below and the mountains around looked so beautiful in the moonlight. Crisp air, intricate play of light and shadows, sounds of the night with coyotes celebrating the Harvest Moon. I did not mind at all that otherwise it was the worst night to observe. Only the brightest stars were visible and I had difficulties resolving stars below mag 10 in the scope.
My usual targets for bright moon nights are planets, doubles, and asteroids. I started with Jupiter. Could make out the belts but the views were fussy. I checked asteroids list and there was one bright enough for my scope.
(43) Ariadne – mag 10.6 asteroid in Aquarius. SLV 15mm (48x).
Rest of the evening was devoted to doubles. I always check lower southern portion of the sky first since it is obscured from home.
Corona Australis doubles
HJ 5011 – 7.6, 8.5, 28.3” – white, orange. Wide pair in SLV 25mm (29x). However, the view was washed out at the exit pupil of 3.6 mm, so I switched to SLV 15mm (48x, 2.1mm exit pupil) to define the star colors better.
Lam CrA – 5.1, 10, 9.9, ab29.5”, ac43.3” – faint white component C was detected fair distance from brighter white main in SLV 15mm (48x). I tried hard to resolve component B, but it did not happen this evening.
BSO 14 AB – 6.3, 6.6, 13.4” – nice pair of equal white stars. Close clean split with SLV 25mm (29x).
B 957 AC – 7.3, 9.6, 57.6”, white, silver – wide pair in the same
Microscopium doubles
Nu Mic – 5.2, 9.9, 62” – needed 48x to detect fainter secondary. Could not define colors because the stars were prismatic very low to horizon.
SKF 2097 – 7.1, 8.2, 87.6”, white, yellow – wide apart at 29x, used 48x to define the colors.
DUN 236 – 6.7, 7.0, 57.5” – wide pair at 29x, prismatic.
RSS 557 – 7.5, 9.3, 55.2” – golden, orange - wide pair at 29x, used 48x to define the colors.
Sagittarius doubles
DUN 219 AB – 5.8, 7.8, 54.2”, orange, silver – wide pair at 29x.
PZ 6 AB – 5.4, 7.0, 5.9”, copper, white – best looking pair of the evening, clean tight split with SLV 6mm (119x).
H N 6 AC – 7.6, 8.7, 11.3”, white, white – resolved with SLV 6mm (119x).
ARG 31 AC – 7.4, 8.6, 35.3”, yellow, silver – wide pair at 29x.
S 698 AB – 7.2, 8.5, 30”, white, white - wide pair at 29x.
BU 243 – 8.7, 9.8, 40.2”, white, white – resolved with SLV 15mm (48x).
As you noticed many of the pairs this evening are quite wide, however they can still be nicely framed and enjoyable at low powers. This is why I prefer to use small scopes for doubles.
It has been a long day, so I run out of juice sooner than expected and wrapped the session around 22:30. On the positive site I woke up refreshed at twilight around 06:00. Watched sunrise while packing and moonset while driving back to work.
Here is a shot of the setting Harvest Moon.