9:30 pm (2130
ES127
Doctor 12.5
TV 22 Pan
Pentax 7, 10 XW
6, 4mm KK Orthoscopic
TV 2X Barlow
Swarovski 10X30 binoculars
LXD75 mount.
Seeing:
Pickering 5.
Transparency:
Similar quality to the seeing with naked eye views of M31, and the Double Clusters as a measure.
M4 revealed low on the southern horizon early in session with binoculars.
As the evening progressed M4 improved to reveal the center bar under the telescope power.
Sky condition deteriorated for about half an hour at midnight and then improved to earlier condition. My pickering check with hi mag on Vega was performed at 0130.
Jupiter is very bright and clear, taking 158X with 6mm KK Ortho. Contrasting cloud banding flashed glimpses of swirl detail.
Saturn was her beautiful self, but had not risen far enough for best view. By the time she had reach her high Jupiter was hovering on the edge of a far tree line.
I cruised the sky with excitement. This is the best sky in months. Through the 4 hours I observed most of the
The most fascinating observation was M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy and its partner
The
First viewed with TV 22 Pan, Pen 10XW, 7XW, leica
My first view of M51 was over a year ago with my 127Mak on the SLT mount. I was able to identify pretty well, but without much structure revealed.
From April 10, 2018
"M51 “The Whirlpool Galaxy” is a spiral galaxy in Canes Vanatici and was pretty much what I expected…very difficult to relate to the images… :-)
RA00.43.47
Dec13.30.37
8.01 Mag
....There were two fuzzy blobs at a slight angle to each other. They could have been mistaken for one blob... they were so close as to appear as one distorted form with almost no separation between them. The "tell" that they were two was that they both had a pin prick of light in the core. "
My view last night was many orders of magnitude finer.
The spiral arms of M51 were clearly revealed outlined by the brightest parts of the arms, and the core was sharp and bright.
I roughly sketched these after viewing for about 30 minutes. My night vision was well adapted. We have NO terrestrial lights at this dark site in Penfield Illinois.
I finished my drawing with manipulations and texture in Photoshop. The finished drawing is black and white rendered with #2 led pencils which had contoured tips. It was transfered to a cotton vellum sheet, photographed and loaded into photoshop for further rendering of tecture and my color blends.
This was the best visual observation of M51 that I have had. In this view I ran through all of the
The sky by 0100 had snapped into focus it seemed. I figured I would give Saturn another go. It was in a better position now. I was able to count 4 moons of Saturn. The highest mag used here was a 4mm KK Ortho at 238X. I was easily able to observe 4 of Saturn's moons, and retained pretty good focus and detail on Saturn.
The best detail of Saturn came with the 6mm KK with reveals of the polar cap, a nice shadow on the top of the ring section, crisp Cassini division with a and b ring and I believe a hint of the outer f ring.
Unfortunately my Nikon batteries were dead so no camera for planetary. Bad planning I suppose. I might have gotten some fine images.
By 2:30 Henry and I were pretty tired.
Oh by the way a young man and his wife rode into the site on bicycles at about 1 am as well. They enjoyed a view of Saturn and some binocular views which I directed with my green lazer.
They are planning an outing with a group of High School kids this Thursday. Apparently the young man works at the planetarium in Chicago, Ill. It was fun to share with them.
So I rolled into bed at about 3:00 this morning. :-)
This was a great outing, the best in a very long time.
Peace brothers and sisters, and clear dark skies to all.