Location: home,
Equipment:
EPs (Mak):
TV Plossl 32mm, 50 deg (84x, 2.2mm exit pupil, 0.6 deg TFV)
TV Delite 18.2mm. 60 deg (148x, 1.2mm exit pupil, 0.42 deg TFV)
TV Delite 15mm, 60 deg (180x, 1.0mm exit pupil, 0.34 deg or 20.4’ TFV)
TV Delite 13mm, 60 deg (208x, 0.9mm exit pupil, 0.3 deg or 18’ TFV)
EPs (frac)
TV Delite 18.2mm. 60 deg (39x, 2.6mm exit pupil, 1.6 deg TFV)
TV Delite 5mm, 60 deg (143x, 0.7mm exit pupil, 0.4 deg TFV)
TV Delite 3mm. 60 deg (238x, 0.4mm exit pupil, 0.3 deg TFV)
I love the PST time! Started the session at convenient 18:30.
SATURN
A few weeks ago, had a great view of Saturn, which wanted to reproduce. However, despite Saturn been high in the sky seeing in that (south) direction was poor. Saturn was boiling in both scopes. At the moments of better seeing, I was able to resolve the North Equatorial Belt, but no hint of Cassini division.
C/2023 H2 (Lemmon) COMET in Aquila.
Next on my list was the comet. Media have promised binocular comet, but It did not happen. At first, I could not see anything at the location. Dialing in the power and using AV tricks I was able to resolve a very faint round spot in both scopes. SV102ED seemed to capture a bit more of faint
Last week I was hunting doubles in Pisces. This evening they were riding high, so I have switched to Cetus below. I did not realize at that time, but now while writing the report I have discovered in my logs that I was splitting doubles in Cetus exactly a year ago on 11/11/2023.
CETUS DOUBLES (all observed with 182mm Mak)
HWE 2 (8.4, 10.6, 15”) – yellow, brown (148x).
HDO 47 (8.8, 10.6, 9.6”) – pale yellow, bluish (148x).
HJ 2043 (6.5, 8.7, 5”) – pale yellow, orange (84x).
AA Cet (H 2 58, 7.3, 7.6, 11.8, ab8.8”, ac167.5”). AB - attractive yellow pair, C – gray spec in a distance (84x).
STF 171 (9.6, 9.7, 12.9, ab34.5”, bd54.2”). AB – yellowish pair (84x). faint gray D was resolved at 208x.
SKF 2156 (8.5, 10.1, 88”) – yellowish, gray (84x).
BHA 1 AC (8.7, 10.4, 3.4”) – FAIL
HJ 2052 (6.9, 7.5, 80.5”) – white, yellow (84x).
I 445 A, BC (8.1, 10.9, 69.1”) – yellow, gray (84x).
HJ 3437 (7.4, 9.4, 12.3”) – pale yellow, bluish (84x).
Over the course of last few years, I have spent several sessions in Cetus, split 140 pairs and actually run out of doubles to hunt! There are still plenty within the reach of my scopes, but that would be faint pairs with brightest component of mag 11 or dimmer. Too faint to resolve any colors and thus aesthetically not attractive.
Still, got plenty to hunt in other constellations and as such have switched to Aquarius.
AQUARIUS DOUBLES (all observed with 182mm Mak)
A 2289 AC (7.5, 11.3, 15.3”) – white, gray (208x).
H 5 96 (7.7, 10.1, 50.9”) – golden bluish (84x).
STF 2921 (9.9, 11.6, 11.2, ab29.7”, ac84.9”) – yellow main with two faint grayish sidekicks (84x).
STF 2928 (8.6, 8.8, 3.1”) – yellow pair, split by hair at 208x.
HN 140 (6.7, 10.9, 9.7, ab61.9”, ac160”) – golden main with silvery B and C components (84x).
HJ 5355 (7.5, 8.8, 9.4, ab83.3”, ac106.7”) – this is a neat triple forming isosceles triangle, with yellow C at the top and white A and B at the bottom (84x).
JUPITER’s IO TRANSIT
Around 21:30 I have switched the scopes to Jupiter for the upcoming Io transit. The seeing again was not good and as a result smaller 4” ED frac at 143x had the advantage over 7” Mak at 180x and 148x. The level of details was about the same in both scopes, but there were less glare in the frac and the image was a bit sharper. Once I have established that, I have stayed with the frac for duration of the event. I have also used my favorite combo of two Baader filters: Contrast Booster + Moon and Sky Glow.
I have started viewing at the right time. Io was short distance from the Jupiter disk, and I watched how it became a pimple and then slid on to the disk. During a typical transit considering poor seeing Io would be lost against the Jupiter glare. But this was not a typical transit. Io was transiting on top of the Great Red Spot (
I have watched for another few minutes until the sharp, black, little disk of Io’s shadow slid on the Jupiter disk. It was my first moon transit for 2023 Jupiter season, and it was a unique one! Here is my artistic interpretation of the event.
