This was our sky:
Per usual Henry images while I attempted to take the pleasure tour of the Milky Way.
But here was my problem.
I brought a 3 inch shore gun to a squirrel shoot. You would think I could be very successful, but I brought too much glass !
You might scratch your head and say to yourself...
"Mark is nuts. How can an astronomer bring too much glass into the field?"
Well, a 10 inch
It felt odd to me.
I went on to dig deeply into M42 and although unable to resolve the e and f stars in the Trapizium due I believe to the poor seeing I was able to enjoy the dense nebulosity winging away into NGC1975.
I was regretting I had not loaded my
I made the best of things and eventually resolved satisfactorily M77, Cetus A, although this target was very dim and intermittant in direct vision. Averted vision was steady on this mag 9 Spiral Galaxy in Cetus. On the plus side I believe I have only caught this once before. I remember it being more of a "thing" on that occasion so it must have been in 2017 when I last had both "seeing" and "transparency" working for me. I know I did not understand these considerations at that time and took them to be normal. I have since been school in the gymnasium of scintillating stars and foggy light scattered skies. At least I can intelligently complain now, although it never seems to change the sky no matter how I might be provoked to curse it.
As I worked my Meade I also took some pleasure from the Theta 1 and Theta 2, Tau a and b, the double stars in the middle of the Haydes cluster in Taurus. These two were very sharp and color contrasted to the surrounding field of the Haydes. They resolved a fire blue color, similar to the fire blueing on a classic firearm. That is what the color reminded me of. It was almost a whitish fire blue. They were visually dominant in this contrast and a nice view for me.
The final view and a remarkable one to my was a nebula I stumbled over in my attempt to catch a visual of the HorseHead very near Alnitak. Here is where my frustration mounted.
As I mentioned earlier, I had chained myself to the field of view in the glass at hand. This precluded any broader view so as to identify this nebulosity. The binoculars, Swaro 10X30, which I always bring out could not resolve this object. I did a sketch.
I may sound a bit spiky here in my report but I did enjoy myself. And Henry and I ate apples and almonds as our snack. I wish I had brought coffee as well. The outing for me lasted from 10 pm Oct 3 to 3:45 am Oct 4. At the end, although I loathed packing up with another hour of potentially good sky, I was becoming disoriented and dizzy.
So that is my report for Thursday. Oct 3-4 2019
Thank you.
I hope you have been able to get out !
"Two duffer Neanderthals"