Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

Clouds were kind, so managed to see the Werner X formation on the moon last night

There is a formation of four craters that when illuminated "just so" forms a fairly distinctive X on the moon's terminator. I'm trying to find out how often it's visible, don't think it's every month.
http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Lunar+X

Anyway, it was pretty cool seeing it appear. I started looking about 19:15GMT and could see two of the legs of the X, at 19:45 the others were barely visible. After tea, it was very clear, although the dew had come down and fogged up my eyepiece somewhat. What was most cool was the undeniable fact that I was watching the effect of the sun rising on the moon, at about 1/28th the rate on earth. Not quite as impressive as the time I saw the dark edge of the moon suddenly blot out a star as it passed in front. That really gave me a sense of how things are moving up there.

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Sunday, 14 March 2010

Good haul of fuzzies spotted tonight

Reasonably clear night. Managed to spot a good load of new galaxies. Decided to concentrate on Leo and Virgo. Easily found M65,M66 and NGC3628 in a very nice triplet. Never as pretty as the pictures, of course, but in cleaner skies I suspect not too far off. I must go and find a better site. Then swung the scope westward to find M95 M96 and another unidentified fuzzy.

Further East, I thought I'd take my first real look into the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Too many to pick out an individual to aim at, so scanned a line from ε-virgo to ν-virgo. Found eight clear fuzzies along that line (with a ~1degree field of view.) Clearly lots more to find in there.

Also had to have a look at Saturn and it's myriad moons. Very pretty. Spotted Hercules has popped back into view. A welcome return as it was one of the first new constellations I learnt last summer. 

Posted via email from Graham's posterous