March 8th, 2010
Finally a good night to check out my new scope, shortly after 6pm I headed up to Killylane. I was first to arrive and was able to quickly get unpacked and setup. The new scope goes together almost as fast as the old one with the exception of the OTA which is a bit ’scary’ as I am unused to having to fit the dovetail. Once levelled I tried out skyalign using Mars, Venus and Sirius, alignment success, a nice feature.

Next to arrive was Jonathan and the observing began. I started with M42 and that was to become the focal point of the evenings observing for me. It was as if I was using a filter, everything just ‘popped out’ the detail and clarity were stunning. Shortly after Stevie arrived and last but by no means least was Derek. Items viewed by myself included:
M37 an open cluster in Auriga
M38 another open cluster in Auriga
M32 (also known as NGC 221 and Le Gentil) a dwarf elliptical galaxy
M31 the Andromeda Galaxy
Eta Cas a lovely binary
M101 the Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy
Gamma Ari another lovely double
M81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode’s Galaxy) a spiral galaxy
M82 (also known as NGC 3034 or the Cigar Galaxy) the prototype nearby starburst galaxy
Saturn
Mars
Venus
the ISS made an early and very bright appearance too.
A few other objects were observed, but then Stevie lent me his Wilson optical diagonal and we tried it with his Hyperion eyepieces and Dereks Panoptic, although we moved around a bit we usually ended up back at M42. Eventually the old and the prospect of an early rise got to us and we started to pack up, only then did I notice a layer of dew on the front of my scope despite a shield, and a thick coating of ice on almost everything else
. It had dropped to -3c whilst observing!
one other useful kernel of knowledge gleaned from stevie was the use of ‘precise goto’ on my scope, a very good feature.
Posted in Astronomy, Social | No Comments »
February 20th, 2010
A final? outing for the Nexstar 5 as its successor wings its way to me and I wanted to achieve 40 of the nexstar50 list before retiring it
that left me 4 objects to go.
NGC4565
NGC7510
M100
24 com.
The skies were gorgeous on my arrival about 19:30 and on setup I cleared 3 of the objects within the first 30minutes. next to arrive was simon and the pair of us settled into a nice viewing session visiting old favourites and finding new ones in the crisp and clearing winter/spring sky. Along the way M100 fell under my gaze confirmed by Simon as I had to drop to 30mm and avert to see it.
galaxies were plentiful and sitting out proudly from a deep backround, especially nice were the globular clusters!
Later stevie arrived and once he was setup I shortly departed as had been my plan. My equipment was coated in ice but what a great night. I hope Simon and Stevie enjoyed the rest of their stay
Posted in Astronomy, Social | No Comments »
February 11th, 2010
A great night, almost made the break worth while, I arrived at Killylane at 19:20 and Stevie and Derek were not long after, I hit an incredible list of firsts for me. I was maybe a bit hurried but they all got a look and some of the more doubtful ones got confirmed by Stevie (2nd there he was ‘unlucky’ to set up beside me). My eye is slowly getting used to my scope and picking up on fuzzies that this time last year I would have missed, what also helped was that my alignment was pretty spot on and even when i left the 12.5mm eyepiece in objects appeared in the field of view when gone to (my normal ‘goto’ ep is my 25mm).
Some objects were barely discernable, like M101 and NGC2392, others like a lot of star doubles were beautiful and readily split by distance and colour.
The Orion Nebula was clear and got better as the night went on, early in the evening Derek showed me it through his scope with the filter in and it really popped out.
Eventually about 10pm the cloud cover started to move in eventually covering most of the sky by 10:30pm when we decided to pack up and leave, though even then saturn was trying to show itself. My toes were almost painful for the first half of the drive home as they warmed up, and some of my static kit on the table was covered in hoar frost (left out of its boxes its dried overnight.
Without further ado the list
!
1/ Messier 67 (also known as M67 or NGC 2682)
2/ Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode’s Galaxy)
3/ NGC 7662 otherwise known as the Blue Snowball Nebula
4/ The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224
5/ Eta Cassiopeiae
6/ Messier 35 (also known as M 35, or NGC 2168) an open cluster
7/ Messier 46 (also known as M 46 or NGC 2437) an open cluster
8/ Gamma Andromedae the third brightest star in the constellation of Andromeda. also known by the traditional name Almach
9/ The Double Cluster common name for the naked-eye open clusters NGC 884 and NGC 869
10/ 30 Arietis a 6th magnitude binary star in the constellation Aries.
11/ Messier 34 (also known as M 34 or NGC 1039) an open cluster
12/ 32 Eridanus
13/ Messier 38 (also known as M38 or NGC 1912) an open cluster
14/ The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A)
15/ Open Cluster M36 (also known as Messier Object 36, Messier 36, M36, or NGC 1960)
16/ Messier 37 (also known as M37 or NGC 2099)
17/ Messier 41 (also known as M41 or NGC 2287) an open cluster
18/ 38 gem
19/ h3945
20/ The Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392)
21/ Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034 or the Cigar Galaxy)
22/ Messier 65 (also known as NGC 3623) an intermediate spiral galaxy
23/ Messier 66 (also known as NGC 3627) an intermediate spiral galaxy
24/ The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) a face-on spiral galaxy
25/ 24 com
26/ Gamma Leonis (γ Leo / γ Leonis) a binary star system in the constellation Leo. It has the traditional name Algieba or Al Gieba.
27/ NGC 2903 a barred spiral galaxy
28/ Messier 105 (also known as M105 and NGC 3379) an elliptical galaxy
29/ Messier 95 (also known as M95 or NGC 3351) is a barred spiral galaxy
30/ Messier 96 (also known as NGC 3368) an intermediate spiral galaxy
31/ Cor Caroli (α CVn / α Canum Venaticorum / Alpha Canum Venaticorum, originally known by the more elaborate Cor Caroli Regis Martyris) the brightest star in the northern constellation Canes Venatici.
32/ The Beehive Cluster (also known as Praesepe (Latin for “manger”), M44, NGC 2632, or Cr 189) an open cluster
33/ Messier 46 (also known as M 46 or NGC 2437) an open cluster
34/ Mars
35/ The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) a diffuse nebula
I think thats it all, and thats just through my scope. there were some awesome views through Stevies and Dereks too
Posted in Astronomy, Social | No Comments »
February 9th, 2010
Have added scripts to take all the images captured by the weather/skycam (it stores one a minute) from the previous day and compile them into a video. These are made available online on the weather section of my site.
You can see the completed videos here.
Posted in Technical, Weather | No Comments »
February 2nd, 2010
well i wrapped up and set up the scope in the back garden, started ok but very rapidly the seeing got very poor due to scummy high altitude cloud. However I did manage to take in Mars, M42, M81 and M31. A quick glimpse at mizar and pleiades and I had had enough
Posted in Astronomy | No Comments »
January 26th, 2010
want to see what the weather is like in my room and back garden? just click on the My Weather site link on the right. There may be a few bugs as I am setting up and the system will only update while my main pc is up and running but there ya go

Posted in Astronomy, Domestic, Technical, Weather | No Comments »
January 21st, 2010
Another 4 issues of my orbiter magazine arrived, I think that means there’s only 5 left \o/. A little building ensued and the Tellurian / Orbiter has been updated.

click on the pic to see more.
Posted in Technical | No Comments »
January 20th, 2010
As the model shop is beside the jewellers I use to get watch stuff done I waited until one of my watches was back from repair to get paints needed. So I have my speedmaster back and my apollo command module is nearing completion.

I had a lovely walk in the rain this morning apart from the asshole in a tonka toy that tried to drown me, was probably a 5′ tall girl at least thats who seems to drive them mostly.
Posted in Social | No Comments »
January 6th, 2010
Not just a brief flurry but proper walk in and leave tracks snow

I haven’t had to drive too far in it but as usual off the beaten track care is needed. The back garden looks almost pretty and the fountain and waterfall are keeping the pond liquid

Posted in Domestic, Social | No Comments »
December 29th, 2009
Had a great holiday
more importantly I think the rest of the family had fun too

lots of whiskey appeared too

I was on call over the xmas week so had to be well behaved, but now I’m off over New years so I can sample some of the goodness that is whiskey and whisky
Click on the images to see the relevant galleries
Posted in Domestic, Social | No Comments »