Locale: La Barriere Park, 9 km south of the city
Conditions: Excellent transparency, average seeing,
Equipment: XT10 with assorted EPs and the good ol Paracorr; Nikon D90 and 10mm Rokinon lens
Time: 10:19 pm to 12:30 am
The skies were beautifully clear all day, so I mowed the lawn, cooked some dinner for the family and packed up my gear for a farm trip. On the way out, I decided to give my luck a try for the South and Western skies – cut my travel time and simply set up shop in a rural park (“La Barriere” eg, Barrier park - named after an event in the mid-1860’s wherein a local blockade of Metis led by Louis Riel stopped entry of a Canadian governer (McDougall) from entering Winnipeg. This bloodless event indirectly led to the incorporation of Manitoba as another Canadian province in 1870).
Anyway, I found a dirt service road and used the truck to blaze a path along an adjacent field, and parked up next to the main field within in the park, occupying about 20 hectares of open space. Perfect, I had the whole place to myself! I found a tamarack tree and set up shop.
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I began by warming up on Izar, splitting the double through progressive increments in power. I found Arcturus and Spica and allowed a two-star alignment of the computer for push-to fun.
I saw Jupiter beginning to creep up in the East, and with it, Collinder 302 carried its stellar baggage westward. Good old Dshubba, I haven’t laid eyes on this star for quite a while. Nice to see this part of the sky and from my vantage, nice and dark and away from the nuclear bomb of
M80 – globular cluster in Scorpius – found by simply hopping up from Antares, and slightly to the northwest of Omicron Scorp. Obvious in its globular beauty, nothing to rival M3 or M13, but a respectable old friend nonetheless.
I took a few images of the skyscape and then jumped over to Arcturus to pry M3 from her nest. Beautiful, big and overall a magnificent globular cluster. The transparency is good despite my location so close to the city.
Back down south to Ophiuchus. M9 was waiting for me there, with a gathering of lesser faint globs in the vicinity. This
Jupiter – I could only see three of the major moons this evening.
Moving over to Leo, I found M95, M96 and M105 to get my bearings. Again this part of the sky was fine – transparency was excellent and the
Virgo
I made it home by 1:00 am and packed my stuff inside, crawled into bed and woke up 6 hours later for work.
Thanks for reading,
Ian
