Last night's observing turned out to be somewhat frustrating with a lot of "did not finds". We had a fairly bright sky with poor transparency, seeing was not that good and some scattered clouds moved in. I was able to adjust my observing to avoid the clouds.
I started out hunting around in CVn at 40X for M51 and M94, but I couldn't find either.
My daughter came out, so I moved to Saturn. We did see a nice 3D effect due to the shadow of the planet on the rings.
At the Pleiades my daughter noted many doubles and triples. She described a "river" of about 7 dimmmer stars in a bent line toward the southwest.
We moved to M42 but weren't able to trace it very far because of conditions. My daughter finally picked out the Trapezium and also saw M43. The brighter double near Iota Ori was clear at 40X. At 80X, both the brighter and dimmer doubles were easy to see.
At 40X We were able to see Sigma Ori as a bright double, with a wider, dimmer double close by. At 80X we could easily see the third star in Sigma. Nice star grouping.
I moved to CVn again and searched at 40X for M51 quite a while, but no joy. Is that thing really there, or are you guys making it up? Actually the bright skies and poor transparency smoked it.
I aimed at Mizar and Alcor in UMa. My daughter was not aware of the naked eye double in the handle of the Big Dipper. She thought that was pretty cool. But she also saw that Mizar is a very bright double itself in the scope.
Went back to CVn and searched for M94 some more. I finally found a small dim smudge of nucleus at 40X. But I could not recover the galaxy when I switched to 80X due to the poor transparency. I found a nearby asterism that I will call the "fish" or "kite". It is diamond shaped with a single star for a tail, with all the stars about the same magnitude. There is a nice double at the top apex. I will use this in the future to help find M94.
While searching for M94, I discovered that Alpha CVn is itself a nice bright double. It reminded me of Mizar, although it's not as bright. It has a similar separation and difference in brightness between the primary and secondary.
My daughter and I spent time looking at the Messier open clusters in Aur and Gem. Even these were a little affected by the deteriorating seeing.
I guess the lesson I should take is to forget about DSO's on marginal viewing nights.
Rick Wiseman
90mm refractor
I started out hunting around in CVn at 40X for M51 and M94, but I couldn't find either.
My daughter came out, so I moved to Saturn. We did see a nice 3D effect due to the shadow of the planet on the rings.
At the Pleiades my daughter noted many doubles and triples. She described a "river" of about 7 dimmmer stars in a bent line toward the southwest.
We moved to M42 but weren't able to trace it very far because of conditions. My daughter finally picked out the Trapezium and also saw M43. The brighter double near Iota Ori was clear at 40X. At 80X, both the brighter and dimmer doubles were easy to see.
At 40X We were able to see Sigma Ori as a bright double, with a wider, dimmer double close by. At 80X we could easily see the third star in Sigma. Nice star grouping.
I moved to CVn again and searched at 40X for M51 quite a while, but no joy. Is that thing really there, or are you guys making it up? Actually the bright skies and poor transparency smoked it.
I aimed at Mizar and Alcor in UMa. My daughter was not aware of the naked eye double in the handle of the Big Dipper. She thought that was pretty cool. But she also saw that Mizar is a very bright double itself in the scope.
Went back to CVn and searched for M94 some more. I finally found a small dim smudge of nucleus at 40X. But I could not recover the galaxy when I switched to 80X due to the poor transparency. I found a nearby asterism that I will call the "fish" or "kite". It is diamond shaped with a single star for a tail, with all the stars about the same magnitude. There is a nice double at the top apex. I will use this in the future to help find M94.
While searching for M94, I discovered that Alpha CVn is itself a nice bright double. It reminded me of Mizar, although it's not as bright. It has a similar separation and difference in brightness between the primary and secondary.
My daughter and I spent time looking at the Messier open clusters in Aur and Gem. Even these were a little affected by the deteriorating seeing.
I guess the lesson I should take is to forget about DSO's on marginal viewing nights.
Rick Wiseman
90mm refractor
8" Zhumell Dob
90mm f11 achro refractor
4-1/2 f4 rich field newt reflector
