The cool air certainly woke me up fully and just sitting back in my chair I could tell that despite the low level fog in the valley, the sky had improved from the previous evening. The transparency was pretty nice. I could easily see the dim path of the winter Milky Way arcing across the sky from Perseus down through southern Gemini and northern Orion into Monoceros and Puppis. While faint, it was clearly evident as a beautiful ghostly band. After admiring this view for a bit, I turned my attention to Venus, which was glaringly bright in the east. I sat at the Z10 and aimed it to the “morning star” and began a very quick and very informal outing before I packed things up and headed home.
(Equipment used)
10 inch
Ethos 13mm (96x, 1.0° TFOV, 2.6mm exit pupil)
Venus (Leo, planet, mag= -4.5, size=25.3’, illumination=48.1%):
Finding Venus in the eyepiece was easy after a quick alignment of the finders. Its glare preceded it as it slipped into the field of view. It had been some time since I last looked at Venus, and it was exceedingly bright in the eyepiece at 96x. Its disk was large and just slightly less than halfway illuminated. The disk had a nice half-moon appearance, with its illuminated half have a pale whitish look that seemed almost a little ghostly to the eye, light a brilliant apparition that is there, but very otherworldly. Which of course it is! I found it entrancing and beautiful.
I next aimed the scope at the Orion Nebula complex. I could detect its presence with the naked eye so finding it was easy. Scooping it up in the Z10 at 96x, its structural elements were quite fantastic. The bright central concentration around the Trapezium cluster gave way to diaphanous tendrils of delicate nebulosity as the eye moved outward. The feathered fingers of haziness went in many directions and at times, to my eye, looked like the wings of some wispy and ghostly creature frozen in time. The compact brightness of
The so-called “running man nebula” north of the main Orion Nebula complex was very obvious at 96x. I could see two distinct clumps of nebulosity; both oriented roughly east-west. The glow was uneven in illumination along its major axis, as one might expect. The separation between the two portions was clearly defined and the nebula was dotted with blue-white stars of the embedded cluster, OCL 525.1.
This can be a tricky object visually. Easily seen south of the Orion Nebula complex, the view is dominated by bright Iota Orionis. The cluster, also known as Collinder 72 is surrounded by a dim, likely HII region that can impart a glow to the field. However, bright Iota (Nair al Saif) does impart a noticeable glare in the eyepiece which may sometimes making identification of the nebulosity challenging.
Sighting the scope on mag 1.8 Zeta Orionis (Alnitak), I easily picked up the famous “Flame Nebula” using 96x. Though easy to see it was of low surface brightness, and fairly large in visible size. It consisted of a pair of glows separated by a darker lane. The visible portions seemed fairly smooth illuminated. I find it a pretty and intriguing object.
About 2.5° northeast of Alnitak I located the brightest reflection nebula in the sky. At 96x in the 10 inch, it presented a somewhat bright and somewhat large boxy glowing cloud, with the dominant stars involved within looking like a pair of headlights through the fog. This is a fairly common description used by observers. I have also likened it a pair of piercing eyes peering from a ghostly apparition. It can be a bit of an eerie object at times, but an enjoyable one.
I now turned my gaze toward Sirius, brilliantly glaring at me from the south. I shifted my focus south of the star and could make out the diffuse glow of this fine cluster with the naked eye. Aiming the scope at its dim glow, it exploded into a dizzying array of stars at 96x. I saw several stars of 6th to 8th mag that stand out in the central region, with countless dimmer stars infusing the field with their shimmering presence. This gave the cluster a little bit of an illusory layered appearance. I gave up counting stars when I reached 50. It is truly an amazing object that is one of my personal favorites.
This duo is another of my personal favorites. At 96x they presented a very obvious contrast. M35 appearing bright, large and rich in stellar points, while
The infamous “Beehive”, also known as the “Praesepe” (Latin for manger or crib), is one of the most observed objects in the sky. I would have fared better had I brought out the 21mm Ethos with its 1.7° TFOV in the 10 inch. In this case with the 13mm the cluster exceeded my view so its beauty was lost because it was not framed well. But then I expected this, and only stopped by because it was a very apparent naked eye object. In reality, the cluster was better presented in the 8x50
My final object this morning was the other
It was now about 0630 hours and the sky was getting brighter by this time as the Sun was making its way upward below the ridgeline on the other side of the valley. The fog was also rising by this time and Venus and many of the stars were not sporting a glow around them as the fog was refracting their light. So I moved the scope and chair back to the garage, put the eyepiece back into the case and took the PSA inside. I then began the process of packing up my stuff and putting it in the truck. I was ready to roll out about 0800 hours and bid the dark site house goodbye for this time around.
