Gremmy's Messier 30

[looie_loober]

Gremmy,

Congrats on M13. Next, go for M57 in Lyra. For an 8" with the moon, I'd say 100-150x, after finding the field with your lowest power EP. The moon is definitely a hard mistress on Messiers. Particularly on galaxies. Even with the moon gone, streetlights, neighbor's houses, and nearby trees are very frustrating. I go to Broemmelsiek, or else to Danville. If you have not yet joined the STLAstronomy Yahoo group, I encourage you to do so. It is free. Usually we post when we go out. (STLAstronomy : Astronomy discussion group focussed on St. Louis, Missouri then "join"). It gets used by a broad community around St Louis, not just club members.

For a list of good starter M's, I'd recommend that you download the monthly PDF star map from Skymaps.com - Publication Quality Sky Maps & Star Charts. Other 1sts you should try for besides M13 and M57: Albireo (beta Cygnus), M11 in Scutum (at the bottom of the 'curl' of stars), M8, M22. Galaxies can be tough, but globular clusters are easier to find and you know you found it when you see them. M13 is the biggest and best-defined in our latitude, although M22 is arguable.


Jim T.

[gremmy]

Big night tonight. The southern sky finally cleared up and I had good views of Sagittarius for the first time in several weeks. I caught several Messiers tonight. All observations recorded tonight share the following characteristics:


Location: Saint Charles, MO
Scope: AD10 DOB
Eyepiece: 2", Superview 30mm, 68 degree FOV, Eye-relief=22mm
Filter: None
Conditions: LP Red. Scattered clouds. Moonglow not significant.

Object: M57
Date: 7/09/2012 Time: 09:40 CDT
Description: Faint circular smudge in Lyra. The hole in the middle visible only with averted vision.

Object: M7
Date: 7/09/2012 Time: 12:23 CDT
Description: Mesmerizing and bright. Widefield scattering of stars, bluish and/or yellowish for the most part. The butterfly pattern was visible but inverted in scope and so difficult to identify at first.

Object: M6
Date: 7/09/2012 Time: 12:23 CDT
Description: Another bright smattering of stars. With a bit of imagination, this sort of reminded me of a 5-legged octopus, each of its 5 legs squiggling outward from a central spoke. Very pretty.

Object: M8
Date: 7/09/2012 Time: 12:50 CDT
Description: Although the nebular cloud was not visible at my EP, the star pattern very clearly matched pictures of the Lagoon Nebula that I have found on the Web. To me, the pattern of stars looked a bit like an hour glass where most of the sand has sifted through toward one end. Given how bright this is in my binocs, I thought it would be more impressive in my scope than it turned out to be.

Object: M20
Date: 7/10/2012 Time: 1:00am CDT
Description: No nebular clouds visible, but very clearly saw the bright smattering of stars. In the same field of view with M21.

Object: M21
Date: 7/10/2012 Time: 01:00am CDT
Description: Open cluster of stars in the same field of view with M20.

Object: M24
Date: 7/10/2012 Time: 01:05am CDT
Description: Very large impressive scattering of stars.

Object: M22
Date: 7/10/2012 Time: 01:07am CDT
Description: Bright globular cluster. I really wanted to view this under higher magnification but I ran out of time; a big cloud rolled over it.

Object: M28
Date: 7/10/2012 Time: 01:00am CDT
Description: Globular cluster, slightly more faint than M22.

[gremmy]

Caught one last Messier before packing it in for the night.

Object: M45
Date: 7/10/2012 Time: 04:40am CDT
Description: Easy to find with the naked eye, directly above Jupiter, which in turn was directly above Venus. In the scope, M45 contains many more stars than are visible to the naked eye. I preferred low power views. In fact, I think it was most interesting in the finder scope, wherein the seven sisters were clearly distinguishable.

NOTE: In the post immediately preceding this one, a few of the observations (those after midnight) should have been dated on the 10th instead of the 9th.

[gremmy]

I had high hopes for tonight, but it turned out to be too humid (glasses kept fogging up, limited visibility, etc.) so I only bagged three.

All observations shared the following parameters:

Location: Saint Charles, MO
Scope: AD10 DOB
Eyepiece: 2", Superview 30mm, 68 degree FOV, Eye-relief=22mm
Filter: None
Conditions: LP Red. Very humid. (lenses kept fogging up and seeing was somewhat poor). Moon below horizon (or at least below treetops) so not a factor.

Object: M80
Date: 7/11/2012 Time: 10:50am CDT
Description: It may share the same name with an explosive firework, but it wasn't particularly explosive in my scope. It was a faint blur. Not the best looking globular cluster. Poor seeing may have impacted my results.

Object: M11
Date: 7/11/2012 Time: 11:15am CDT
Description: An unimpressive scattering of stars. Again, poor seeing may have impacted the quality of view.

Object: M26
Date: 7/11/2012 Time: 11:15am CDT
Description: Small cluster of stars.

[gremmy]

I had a really good night tonight! The skies were the best we've had in this area in several weeks. Humidity kept condensing on my eyeglasses but I developed a routine to keep it at bay. Here's the list of what I caught tonight. First, the universal conditions.

Location: Saint Charles, MO
Scope: AD10 DOB
Eyepiece: 2", Superview 30mm, 68 degree FOV, Eye-relief=22mm (unless noted otherwise)
Filter: None
Conditions: LP Red, but skies seemed darker than usual. Some humidity/dew. Moon not a factor. Good conditions overall.

Object: M23
Date: 7/12/2012 Time: 11:05am CDT
Description: Very pretty orb shaped open cluster of stars.

Object: M18
Date: 7/12/2012 Time: 11:10am CDT
Description: Small, tight cluster of stars with more diffuse pattern of stars nearby.

Object: M17
Date: 7/12/2012 Time: 11:15am CDT
Description: Bird shaped grouping of stars with a very faint nebular cloud visible even with my Red LP zone. Very Pretty! In fact, of all the nebula I've seen, this one provided the only obvious cloud structure in my scope.

Object: M16
Date: 7/12/2012 Time: 11:25am CDT
Description: LP washed out the cloud structures that I know must be there, but the visible stars formed a very nice figure eight type shape, more dense at one end than the other.

Object: M25
Date: 7/12/2012 Time: 11:45am CDT
Description: Diffuse and wide field of stars.

Object: M92
Date: 7/12/2012 Time: 11:55am CDT
Description: After hunting for several nights I finally found this glob positioned halfway between Hercules and Draco. The star atlas says this one should be smaller and dimmer than M13, but that certainly was not the case in my scope. I'm not sure why, but I'd say this one is at least as nice as the famous M13 through my EP. It appeared in my scope as a bright globular cluster. When I switched to the 9mm and used averted vision, many individual stars were visible and it was quite inpressive!

[gremmy]

20 Messiers tagged! 10 more to go! Woot woot!

[Crawdaddyjc]

Great list so far! Almost there!

[LEDHead]

Gremmy, way to go! You are making much faster progress than I am. I was out last night as well, but only have 5 to report on.

[thelostboson]

Impressive! May I ask what the light pollution is like under your observing site? your list of Messier's objects really inspire me to get a bigger scope to combat with my LP situation (at least, that's what I have heard to help).

[gremmy]

Impressive! May I ask what the light pollution is like under your observing site? your list of Messier's objects really inspire me to get a bigger scope to combat with my LP situation (at least, that's what I have heard to help).

I live in a red zone, but some nights are definitely better than others. During the recent Heat wave I couldn't see anything as the sky seemed to be full of high altitude funk, especially down low. There is quite a bit of LP near the horizon in all directions on most nights, including last night, which is why I think I have a hard time making out the cloud structures in Nebulae (the Swan was an exception). But I can see the stars in most of them just fine.

With the naked eye, right now I can make out the following stars/constellations (to give you an idea of visibility in my area):

1) The plough in Ursa Major
2) Polaris and the two top stars at the far end from Polaris in Ursa Minor (the rest of Ursa Minor is invisible, even with binocs).
3) Most of Draco, but it's FAINT.
4) The keystone and limbs in Hercules
5) Spica and maybe one other star are just about all I can see in Virgo
6) All of Lyra looks great when it's overhead, but near the horizon everything but Vega gets lost in the haze
7) Altair and its left/right companion stars in Aquila.. and on some nights I can make out the bird's long neck.
8) The teapot in Sagittarius (but the rest of Sagittarius is not visible naked eye)
9) All of the main stars in Scorpius
10) The rear haunches of the lion and the sickle in Leo were more clearly visible earlier in the season, but now it's usually washed out by LP.
11) Deneb and the other main stars in Cygnus, although the head star is VERY faint and sometimes washed out.

So I have lots of stars to hop from when the skies are above average.