19.9.12 - Wednesday

Although this is called the Photo Journal, there is no reason to make it exclusively so, so here is a text report on an activity taken by me, Peter Smith.

The sky was clear(ish) so joined Brian at Austerfield at about 9pm for an evening of just looking. I used Geraldine, the 14" Meade with the Meade 40mm SWA 2" eyepiece and the 26mm 1.25" eyepiece. 

First a quick check of Alberio to judge the seeing, good, with nice gold and blue shining high in the sky.

Then a  broad look around using the lists on the wall of the dome. 

Not necessarily the order in which I looked:

M31 The Andromeda Galaxy was beautiful – clear, bright and wide.

M57 The Ring Nebula -  nice blue doughnut.

N 6826 The Blinking Nebula, winked at me( in blue).

M76  and M27 The  two Dumbbell nebulae were quite visible, but difficult to make out the shapes clearly.

N6543 Cats eye nebula – I was definitely being looked at! Very clear.

N7662 The Blue Snowball – blue  but small.

N404 Mirach's Ghost faint but visible  - if you move Beta  Andromedae (Mirach) out of the eyepiece view (it's very close).

N7027 The Magic carpet nebulae – very small.

M52 a pretty cluster.

ET Cluster  (phone home!) - Beautiful

M29 a nice, small open cluster.

Neptune – very small but greeny blue.

M45 The Pleiades – although I need  binoculars – too big for Geraldine. 

At 11.30 we broke for Tea. When we returned it was still clear but clouds threatening.

Tried for Uranus – low and in haze so went for Jupiter.

Jupiter very nice, but as I was  sorting eyepieces and filters to play with, the cloud god appeared.

So, we called it a night and went home.

Peter.