Astro Session 3/12/2010

This past Friday night was fantastic. Clear skies, 3/5 seeing and 5/5 transparency. I drove out to the Canyon of the Eagles observing site in Central Texas with my two scope setups; my Meade 12" Lightbridge and astrophotography rig. Packed with star charts, cokes and snacks, I was set for a big night. I got there well before sunset, set up all my gear and ate dinner as the sun sunk below the horizon. Not a cloud in sight - excellent!

I had two goals for the evening. Firstly, to try and tackle some astrophotography. I wanted to shoot the M81 and M82 galaxy group. I set up my guide camera with PHD Guiding and was happy to see that my laptop recognized the CGEM mount without any issues at all. It took about four minutes of so for PHD to get its guiding all sorted, and then I was ready to shoot away. I was taking ten minute exposures, so shot from about 9:15PM to 11:15PM. After that, I shot about six 10 minute exposures of M51 just fro grins.

While my camera was working away, I used the Lightbridge throughout the night to get ahead of my abysmal attempt on the Caldwell Catalog. Dad was ahead by two objects and I wanted to be the leader ;-). I have to say, 90% of the objects in this observing list are VERY hard to find, even under some pretty dark skies. I was going full manual too, just using a star chart, binoculars, my 8*50 finder and Lightbridge. In three hours I found six new objects, which I jotted down in my observing guide. One object, C25 (NGC2419) was a particularly difficult globular cluster (Magnitude 10.4) which I really struggled to find. I did so after an hour, but GOLLY it was hard! I was glad to finally find it, though. A few other objects I was able to find by binoculars. So, it was good to add to our list and get the momentum going again.

I am processing data for my captures and will post them here once I am satisfied with the results. The M81 & M82 snaps are hard to post-process without inducing noisy resulting images. I did take flat files but they came out rather rubbish-like so have decided not to use them. So, if I get decent results, I'll post them here.

A great night out in any case!

Caldwell Catalog Update

A couple of months ago, I indicated that I would pursue the Caldwell Catalog with the assistance of my father down in Australia. I am tackling the Northern Hemisphere objects, and dad, obviously, will tackle those in the Southern Hemisphere.

So, we both have slowly hit the list and we're off and running. We're both using our Dobsonian reflectors with the aid of just star charts. No GOTO allowed! Admittedly, my going has been a tad slower because I have been more focused on imaging as opposed to visual observations. Dad has been plagued by bad weather down under, but he's moved ahead two objects!

Phil:

Caldwell 8 (NGC559)
Caldwell 10 (NGC663)
Caldwell 14 (NGC869, NGC884) Double Cluster

Phil's Old Man and His Dob:

Caldwell 80 (NGC5139) Omega Centauri
Caldwell 94 (NGC4755) Jewel Box
Caldwell 96 (NGC2516)
Caldwell 97 (NGC3766)
Caldwell 102 (IC2602)

It's a modest start, but it's a start nonetheless. We'll try and get this completed by the end of the year...

Attempting the Caldwell Catalog - a Joint Venture With My Old Man and His Dob

It's been AGES since I have the chance to get a decent night of viewing in. Due to work, family and travel, I really have had ZERO opportunities to get out there. Looking ahead at my calender, I have a whole lot of nothingness in there and I am going to try to keep it that way. Cold winter nights under clear skies here we come!

Something I am going to attempt over the next several months is a joint venture with my dad down in Australia. He owns a ten inch Dob, and with the Aussie skies gets great viewing conditions even though he lives close to the large city of Melbourne. When I was last there, we scouted out a great dark sky spot about 20 minute's drive from his house.

So, he and I are going to attempt the Caldwell Catalog. This listing of deep sky objects was compiled by famed astronomer and xylophone player extraordinaire (!) Sir Patrick Moore in the mid-1990s, and contains about 109 objects that can be seen from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. I am going to tackle observing and documenting the Northern Hemisphere objects, and dad will take on hunting down the Southern Hemisphere objects. Betweem us, we'll aim to get the entire catalog nailed down.

I've grown a bit tired of using my only real astro time for imaging, and miss the excitement of visual astronomy, including hunting down deep, faint fuzzy objects. Additionally, Dad hasn't been motivated to get out much lately, and a joint venture like this might be enough to kick him into gear again.

Incidentally, as a 13 year old boy my grandparents arranged to have Patrick Moore write me a letter to encourage my interests in the field of astronomy. That letter is floating around the folks' house back in Australia somewhere, and I must remember to track iot down next time I am there. Anyway, it was a great way to get motivated back then.

So, from time to time I'll use this blog to track our progress. Should be fun!

More info about the Caldwell Catalog can be found here.