Planned Observing |
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Observing Reports |
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(-) 20 Apr 2018 Lyrids - (from Cookham Dean)
Friday 20 April - Observing Lyrids 2018 from Cookham Dean
Report by Percy K
Just a quick account of the Lyrids meteor watch from our regular observing site at Winter Hill. Matt, Des and myself attended the site. Des had brought along his 4"refractor and some binos. Matt brought his binos with him. I brought along my trusted 6" refractor on a Sky Tee mount, and some 7x50 Japanese
binos (Revue brand).
Our objective was to count as many Lyrids meteors ( C/1861 G1 Thatcher), and observe some DSO's. The sky condition was not perfect. In fact it was clear but milky across the entire sky.
Lyrid report is very simple. We observed 2 between Matt, Des and myself. They were not very bright, at around +3 magnitude. Meteor were very scarce indeed, even 1 night before maximum.
Deep sky objects (DSO) observed as follows;
Planet Venus presented itself in the western sky, perched beneath the Pleiades ( Seven Sisters). It was at a almost full phase illumination.
Pleiades was a lovely sight in the 6" refractor and binoculars.
M35 open cluster in Gemini was jewel like. The fainter NGC 2158 cluster was just visible as a faint glow.
M67 open cluster was prominent in the 6" scope. Beehive M44 was a was outstanding in both refractors. Lots of little triangles formed by stars within the cluster.
Triangles can be found in any cluster. More obvious in the Beehive.
M65 and M66 galaxies in Leo were observed. Sky conditions did not allow a good contrast as the galaxies were a bit fainter than the open clusters observed earlier.
A drop down into Corvus and looked at M104 (NGC 4594 Sombrero galaxy). It was a 8.3 mag galaxy and of a small angular size, thus making it difficult to get a lot of detail out.
Jupiter was above the tree line in Libra and lots of detail was observed. Ganymede, Callisto and Europa were clustered on one side of the giant planet. Whilst Io was on the far side .As the planet climbed higher into the sky, more wealth of detail was visible in both telescopes.
Messier 13 (the Great globular cluster) in Hercules cleared the trees and was on full display. The stars sparkled like jewels.
Messier 57 (the Ring Nebula) was a lovely sight in the big scope.
NGC 457 (the Owl cluster) was standing upright and looking right back at our telescopes. A lovely site indeed.
NGC 884/869 ( the Double cluster) in Perseus was a joy to look at. Some of it's Red Giants were clearly visible.
Messier 37/36/38 (NGC 2099 / NGC 1960 / NGC 1912) were also observed and were a lovely sight of open clusters.
Some lovely double stars were observed in Des and my refractors;
Castor in Gemini
Lyra epsilon 1 and 2
Mizar and Alcor in Ursa Major
Izar in Bootes.
The moon presented a lovely 1st quarter phase. Lots of craters and sea floors were viewed.
We even spotted a couple of very bright Irridium satellites tumbling through space.
As a group we decided it was a good night of observing all manner of objects and looked forward to our next outing.
Signing out.
CLEAR SKIES
Percy
This note last modified: 26th May 2018 10:51.