Posts Made By: Darren Crooks

Thanks, Ed. I couldn't see the other moon (Io). Not dark enough, I suppose? It really did look like two shadows. So I figured the first one must have been Io, because the shadow was so close to it.

Interesting confluence of events. I bet it's not often that two moons are passing across the face of Jupiter at the same time!

So when one of the outer moons transits Jupiter, I'm assuming that the shadow does not become visible for some time thereafter, because I never saw Callisto's shadow, just Io's.

Do you have a URL for Java Jupiter?

Thanks and clear skies,
Darren

According to "Turn Left at Orion", Galileo's original observations of Neptune predate this by over 200 years. (Mind you, he didn't know it was a planet he was looking at.)

Wow, we've got some purists here. Cut the guy some slack. What he said in his original posts is that he's bored to tears looking at galaxies. That would indicate to me that he's seen the Virgo cluster several times before. Maybe done the Messier list once or twice. And under suburban light-strewn skies, the view of faint galaxies is not spectacular, admit it.

I view galaxies not for what they look like but what they represent: quite literally the largest objects in the universe, and also the most distant. Their mass and distance from us is incomprehensible. I still remember the feeling I got viewing the faint, ghostly glow of M31 for the first time in a 60mm DS refractor. It was chilling, almost ethereal. Here I am, seeing with my own eyes the combined light of 300 billion suns that is so far away, I'm actually looking two million years into the prehistoric past. This is what M31 would have been like before the first human looked up into the sky.

However, all I saw in my eyepeice was an elongated smudge, a little brighter in the centre than at the edges. Hardly a breathtaking sight. My current instrument is a 4.5" Newtonian reflector, and through it, I can see sights much more astonishing - transits of Jovian moons, the Cassini Division, the Trapezium, ... the list goes on and on. Jupiter, with its constantly shifting moons and features, is a light show all by itself in comparison to faint fuzzies in Virgo. And unless I get yourself a 16" truss Dob or something, a faint fuzzy is all it will be.

So maybe the poor guy can be forgiven if he doesn't find the Virgo cluster as exciting as you do.

Just my $.02,
Darren

I agree. The one time I got to observe at a really dark site last April, I stayed up until 2:00 AM local time just to see the Messiers in Scorpius and Sag. You could just about point your scope anywhere in the area and you'd see a beautiful DSO in the EP. One can easily spend an entire evening in the region and not exhaust all its treasures.

Clear nights ... dark sites,
Darren

Yeah ... just takes your breath away, doesn't it? I was down at my buddy's dark sky site (check out my post below), and the Milky Way is so bright you can actually see the classic spiral galaxy shape. I spent as much time in a daze just looking up at the sky as I did at the eyepeice.

Clear nights ... dark sites,
Darren

Yes ... it was great.

I had the telescope out cooling by 9:00 PM local time (0100 UT). Set it up on my front lawn, and offered the neighbours terrific views of M22, M13, M11, Albireo, Mars, and the moon. What a night.

Clear nights ... dark sites,
Darren

Hi Tom,

About what time does Saturn rise? It can't be much before 3:00 AM EDT (0700 UT) at this time of year.

I'll probably wait until the end of September before trying to view Saturn. I have to sleep some nights

Clear nights ... dark sites,
Darren

I can't agree with you Mike. Perhaps it depends on what sort of scope you're using. I was at an excellent dark site with great seeing a month ago (July 19 to be exact). Even through my buddy's 8" SCT, surface features other than the SPC were faint to non-existent. But two nights ago (Aug. 23) and Aug. 18, I got terrific views in my 4.5" Newt. Surface features were clear and dark. Just my $.02.

Clear nights ... dark sites,
Darren

Observing Report 08/23/03 (cont'd)
====================================================

Having squeezed out as much detail as I was going to on Mars, and not wanting to waste such good conditions, I ventured over to the summer triangle to drop in on some old friends. I found M11 pretty easily, resolved into scores of stars at 90x. THen went hunting for the Ring, which although easy to find, is quite literally a pain in the neck when near the zenith. Squatting down on all fours to line up the OTA is a part of this pastime that I wouldn't miss terribly. But I found it quite easily. Its brightness was surprising at 90x, considering my suburban location, and the ring structure was definitely visible.

Decided to go looking for the Dumbbell, which I'd found once before by accident, and found the view so indifferent as to rename it the Smudge Nebula. But that was under a bright moon, so I didn't expect much. Every effort to locate it since then had proved fruitless. So I didn't expect much.

And I was right. I lined up the scope, skewed about a bit, and found it. "Why it's decidedly ... ", I mused, "Er, distinctly ... almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a dumbbell." It was, in fact, quite round, bright near the center, and fainter at the edges. I replaced the 20mm with the 10mm, and it was even less Dumbbell-like (if possible) than before. It was roundish and grainy. Hmmm. Got on all fours again, and checked the scope. Oops. Lined up about five degrees from Albireo all right, but on the wrong side. Instead of pointing towards Sagitta, I was pointing towards Lyra. (Later on, I checked my handy Peterson's and discovered that this object was M56.)

I berated Heep for his inattentiveness and tried again. This time, found it within a couple of minutes.

WOW.

It really did look like the pictures. It was a perfect little dumbbell shape. After putting the 10mm EP in, it looked even brighter, if that's possible. The southern end was decidedly brighter than the northern end, and showed a wispy, thin arc. The middle had two clearly defined dents in it, giving this little beauty the classic hourglass figure. Did I say little? At 90x, it filled almost half the eyepeice.

Eyelids getting heavy, I took one quick look at the Pleiades in my bino's before going to ground. The fall and winter lines will soon be paraded down the runway, guys ... hope you're ready.

Clear nights ... dark sites,
Darren

Spectacular image. Quite as good as the ones you see in the glossy astronomy books. I'm glad there's someone who hasn't forgotten there are other things in the sky besides Mars!