Gremmy's Messier 30

[thelostboson]

Thank you:-). I used to think that I live in a red zone, but after I saw the list of stars you can make out with naked eye, I'm now demoted myself to be in the white zone. During the past month, I barely see even Ursa Major Polaris is very difficult to make out from the background sky.

[BABOafrica]

I live in a red zone...
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.

I liked this list. I matches my own experience (except for the latitude difference). I also live in a Bortle 7 Red Zone.

I like to get out to a Bortle 5 zone whenever I can to catch faint glimpses of the Milky Way. But nothing beats get far, far from the city.

Clears,
Joe

[gremmy]

The skies were absolutely fantastic tonight. This may have been my best night since getting my scope several weeks ago, not in terms of how many Messiers I snagged (I've already exhausted the easy targets in Saggitarius so the easy hunting is over), but merely in terms of the darkness and stillness of the sky. I saw so many more stars tonight than I usually do.

Here's what I caught:

Object: M31
Date: 7/15/2012 Time: 1:05am CDT
Description: I was excited to snag my first galaxy, but to be honest, at first I thought I had found yet another glob because in my scope it looked about the same. However, it was in the right spot to be Andromeda, so I let my eyes adjust and saw that it was more elongated than a glob. I still can't say that it looked precisely like I imagined a galaxy would look, but according to my star atlas, there's nothing else in that immediate vicinity.

Object: M52
Date: 7/15/2012 Time: 1:10am CDT
Description: open cluster of bright blue and yellow stars surrounded by a field of dimmer stars.

Object: M71
Date: 7/15/2012 Time: 1:25am CDT
Description: Looked like a little puff of cotton. A faint, relatively small globular cluster.

Object: M27
Date: 7/15/2012 Time: 1:40am CDT
Description: A big, elongated blur in my 30mm. With averted vision, the dumbbell shape became more obvious. It sort of reminded me of a long, gray mushroom cloud. It was easily distinguishable from a glob because it was so much longer than it was wide.

Object: M39
Date: 7/15/2012 Time: 2:00am CDT
Description: I snagged this one in my Orion 7x50 binocs. It is a large peppering of stars off the tip of Cygnus. Very pretty.

Unless otherwise noted, all of the above observations share the following characteristics:

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 Zone, but skies seemed darker and more clear than usual. I might have actually seen a faint hint of the Milky Way for the first time. All in all, great viewing conditions.

[gremmy]

I collected my 30th Messier tonight!

Is there something special I need to do to collect my cert? Like, do I need to present the information in a format other than what I have already posted in the thread? If so, please let me know.

Here are the final 5.

Object: M5
Date: 7/16/2012 Time: 10:00am CDT
Description: like a fuzzy puff of cotton in the sky

Object: M10
Date: 7/16/2012 Time: 10:20am CDT
Description: Another glob, bigger than the nearby M12 and more distinct as well.

Object: M12
Date: 7/16/2012 Time: 10:25am CDT
Description: A very faint glob with a box-shaped grouping of dim stars in the foreground.

Object: M4
Date: 7/16/2012 Time: 10:30am CDT
Description: Somebody buy me a cookie or something! I hunted for this glob for days. I know, know... according to the star charts it's supposed to be right there next to Antares. But try as I might, I just could never find the thing. And tonight I figured out why. This glob is very faint, possibly because it is nearly washed out by the LP. Also, it seems more sparse in the interior than most globs (not sure if this is an effect of the LP or not). Anyway, I found it!

Object: M3
Date: 7/16/2012 Time: 10:45am CDT
Description: Sometimes things just work out. Call it luck or whatever, but all I did was line my Telrad up equidistant between Arcturus and Canes Venatici and then looked directly into my EP, and wouldn't you know it, M3 was staring back at me. This never happens! M3 was big and bright, but when I put the 9mm on it and used averted vision, I still couldn't really make out individual stars.

So there you have it. 30 Messiers collected in a couple of weeks. I'll be on my back deck with a frosty cold beverage waiting for my nifty M30 cert to appear.

[LEDHead]

I just earned my M30 as well.
You have to send a pm to both dmbryan and jimt with a link to this thread. Then they would like you to send an xls file of your observations.

[BABOafrica]

>>Is there something special I need to do to collect my cert?<<

Sit back and relax!!!

And get ready for some more Messier objects!!!

Congrats!!!

Clears,
Joe

[gremmy]

I just earned my M30 as well.
You have to send a pm to both dmbryan and jimt with a link to this thread. Then they would like you to send an xls file of your observations.

I sent the PMs. Will they give me the xls file to complete or do I just put the data into my own? If the latter, what's the format?

[gremmy]

Disregard the last post. I borrowed an xls format from the wall of fame.

[gremmy]

Here is my attempt to attach my xsl file:

[dmbryan]

Great work. congrats!!!