GlennFrazier.com

Much better views of Messiers 35-38.

Wasn't sure the clouds would clear, tonight, but sure enough at 1am they did. Spent from 1 to 2am at the scope out back. Gave those four clusters I've been hunting each a real look this time. Finding the Auriga Messiers (M38, M36 and M37) was much easier, this time, with clear skies, proper attire, etc.

I liked M35, but I have to say I wasn't deeply impressed with it. Failed to spot the orange star.

Spent a little bit of time hunting down the oft-ignored emission nebula in Orion, M78. Thought I had it for a moment, but it was a false alarm. Clouds started to come in and I was getting cold (and it's getting late!), so I packed it in after only a few minutes in Orion.

It's interesting, but after spending an hour looking at open clusters, it's kinda hard to mentally adjust your eye to spot faint nebulae.

At the end of the night, while packing up, I got a surprise visitor: one of the neighbors' cats was standing in my living room, wondering where the food was meant to be. It must have got in during the brief time the door was open while I carried my Dob's base into the basement. (I keep the base down there, as it's a bit of a heft to carry around, and the basement stairs are right off of the entrance to the kitchen from the outside.)

Next on my list: M78, a revisit of M42 and M43, and then perhaps a trip to Monoceros, Canis Major, or maybe one of the other neighbors. Weather forecast doesn't look good for the coming week, but we'll see.
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Posted by Mac at 2:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out the fun transparency forcast graph at the top of this page. It's a doohickey put together by the very helpful Atilla Danko using some great data and images from the Canadian Meteorological Centre.

How's it work? Well, there are more details elsewhere, but the short of it is you look at the top row of boxes for an hour-by-hour view of cloud cover and the bottom row for overall transparency. The one on this page is keyed to the NE Philly Airport. That's not quite where I'm observing from, but it's close enough, I suppose. Note that it does not take into account transparency issues due to light pollution, and the like; it's only a quick snapshot forecast of moisture levels. The red lines mark off days (divisions between midnight and 1a), and the forecasts generally look forward only a day or two.
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Posted by Mac at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, I know this page has gotten ugly. I'm committing the cardinal sin of fiddling with the live version.
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Posted by Mac at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My fingers are numb so I'll make this quick, and maybe edit it tomorrow.

Saw Messiers 35, 36, 37, and 38, tonight. Instrument was a pair of 7x50 binocs frozen to shaking hands. Transparency was really good, tonight, but the temperature is crazy cold. No way I'm hauling my scope out tonight, especially as late as 11pm. Besides, Auriga is directly overhead, and that's a real pain with a dob mount. If it were warmer, I'd be there, though. Great transparency, like I said.

They were all blobs, as far as I could see, but I wasn't really out there that long, and holding binocs steady when they're pointing straight up, the temperature is freezing, and you're not sitting down and not wearing gloves...well, it's just not that likely. I could've dressed better, put on some gloves, and all that, but I really only popped out on a whim to catch a quick glimpse before going to bed.

Also saw the double cluster...very briefly.

Anyway, I'm amazed at my confusion the first time I went hunting for the three Auriga Messiers; then again, I was trying to hunt them through pretty thick haze and outright clouds at times, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

Weather forcasts for the next few days are not promising.
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Posted by Mac at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Went hunting for Messiers in Auriga tonight. It was not a very clear night, with thin haze throughout, occasionally interrupted by streaks of thicker cloud. Still, M38, 36 and 37 are open clusters, not fuzzies, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Found M38 without too much difficulty. Looks more like a star than the letter 'pi', to me.

I then fumbled around for some time looking for M36. Eventually I found a compact open cluster about where I expected to find M36, but on reflection, now, I may have had my bearings crossed. Star-hopping in tonight's sky was very difficult, and Auriga is so densely packed that I may have overshot M36 and instead seen M37.

Two things cause my suspician (well, three things):

1.) The diameter of the mystery cluster seemed larger than I expected, and looked a lot closer to the diameter of M38 than I imagined. (Both M38 and the "supposed M36" fit nicely in the field of my 10mm Plossl.) M36 should be a lot smaller than the other two, if I recall correctly.

2.) I checked some photos of the three clusters on line, and what I saw looked a tiny bit more like M37 than M36. Of course, I'm not positive about this.

3.) After thinking I had found M38 and M36, I went looking for M37, supposedly the "showpiece" cluster in Auriga, the "Winter Salt and Pepper". Now, my feet were going numb from cold, and the cloud cover was getting worse, and I was thinking about when I had to get up the next morning (I started observations around 10.30pm local time, and only just ended a little after 1 this morning), so my patience wasn't what it might be. I eventually gave up. It seemed strange, still, that I had found the other two, and yet had no luck finding the "showpiece" one. Yeah, I didn't give it the same effort, and I was tired (am tired), but I did kinda expect it to be a bit easier to find.

Anyway, I'm not counting this as "seen". So for tonight, I can only really claim to have seen and identified M38.

Since this blog is not as old as my hobby (which only got serious last August), I'll do a quick Messier recap:

* Andromeda Galaxy through 7x50 binocs, and through a 6" f/8 dob (25mm and 10mm plossls).
* Pleides naked eye, 7x50 binocs, and through the dob w/ the 32mm plossl (both with and without LP filter, looking for the nebulosity and eventually seeing it).
* Orion Nebula through the binocs and through the dob (32mm, 25mm, 10mm, plus all with and without the 2x barlow, both with and without broadband filter).
* Ring Nebula through the dob (32mm, 25mm, both with the 2x barlow, plus the 10mm, all with and without the filter).
* Crab Nebula (just barely!) using the dob (32mm, 25mm, both with the filter).
* M38 using the dob (32mm, 25mm, 10mm).

Of course, I've seen a bunch of other things, many before I knew what I was looking at. Especially liked the double cluster, Jupiter (best when a moon's shadow crossed it), Saturn and the Moon.

I'm in no real rush, and I don't get to go out and look up that often, plus the light-pollution here is terrible. I'd kinda like to ID about a dozen Messiers between now and March. During those months I'm wandering about Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, Orion, Canis Major, Puppis, Monoceros, and Lepus. Oh, and Lyra, I suppose. I caught the Ring Nebula, there on a very rare, clear evening in which the kids had finished dinner very early and had an hour before bedtime or so. I'd like another such chance to go after the other Messier in that constellation, but we'll see.

Time for bed.
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Posted by Mac at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yep, here it is: a place to stick my astronomical observations, musings, etc., where they won't clutter up, wash out, or otherwise overrun my more random and general-purpose ramblings over at my "other" blog.
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Posted by Mac at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)