Clouds held off, so saw Mars, M36, 37 and 38

Probably the best views of Mars yet. Didn't bother with filters, just kept staring and occasionally the air would hold steady enough to see not only the polar cap, but a dark area toward the other pole, shaped like Africa. Also darker halo around the ice cap. Colour was pretty too.

While I was waiting for the scope to cool and the wind to die down I had a good look around Auriga, and a good long stare at M36, M38 and M37, the latter being by far the most impressive. A rich cluster of evenly bright stars. Also found the very variable Epsilon Auriga, at about mag 4.

Finished the night with a quick look at Saturn. Although low in the sky, the rings looked great and could see their shadow cast on the planet surface. Nice.

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Got a good view of Mars last night, could see the polar cap and a few dark patches.

Despite the clouds, I managed to get a good few glimpses of Mars last
night. The polar cap was pretty obvious and some of the darker surface
features easily visible, bizarrely better when looking through the
clouds. Don't know if that means my scope need stopping down a bit -
filters didn't seem to help. The colours were also pleasingly
distinct. No pictures though, I couldn't be bothered with setting up
the webcam.

I was pleased to have caught this glimpse now, as it has been cloudy
for weeks on end, it seems, and in couple of days Mars will be at its
closest until 2014 (see
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/mars/appends.htm).

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Found the triangulum galaxy and the wild duck cluster just now.

It was a surprisingly clear night last night, despite the wind. At least that kept the dew at bay. Managed to find something down the bottom of Aquila, a nice cluster with easily resolvable stars. I think it was the Wild Duck Cluster, M11. Also had a look for M33, the Triangulum Galaxy (or confusingly sometimes the Pinwheel Galaxy.) I found it relatively easily in the finderscope, in fact it looked brighter there than through the main scope. Not much detail, only a feint hazy area. I hopped down from Mirach in Andromeda, where I start to find the Andromeda galaxy too.

It's getting interesting now the nights are drawing in. Starting to see new areas of the sky than the summer when I started on this. The summer triangle and Hercules are disappearing earlier every night.

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Ubuntu Jaunty Deskbar Tracker

In ubuntu jaunty, the tracker plugin wasn't installed by default, so
wasn't available in the deskbar. It wasn't even available as a module
to add. Just not installed at all. Quite why, I don't know. Fixed with
"sudo aptitude install" libdeskbar-tracker, then it became available
to select in the deskbar preferences.

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Found the Andromeda galaxy using the new kit last night.

In the couple of clearish hours last night between clouds, I set up the 'scope with the new finder and wide-angle eyepiece (a Baader Hyperion Aspheric 31mm). The finder is great. So much easier than using the straight-through finder-scope. It projects a pair of concentric circles up to the viewer which, due to some clever optics, remains steady relative to the stars regardless of how you move your head. I didn't bother with the finder-scope at all last night so the scope wasn't too top heavy.

The first thing I did was point towards cygnus's rear end, to drink in the multitude of stars in the milky way. Pretty awesome in the 1.8 degree field of view and a mere 40x magnifiation.

Next I thought I'd find the Andromeda Galaxy. It wasn't hard to find, once I'd worked out how huge the Andromeda constellation is. The core was nicely visible as were two companion galaxies, all in the field of view at once. Despite the light sky, it was possible to see the orientation of the disc, a hazy elongated ellipse stretching out of view either way. Nice.

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Found the Dumbbell Nebula

Just come in from a moonless and surprisingly clear sky. Found the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), which was bigger that I was expecting. Couldn't see any detail, just a hazy blob with a slightly darker band round its middle. Could see stars through it, or in front of it. Also found a little cluster nearby. Not sure what it was. Pleased my star-hopping is getting better, but I need another finder to complement the straight scope.

Jupiter was looking very neatly flanked by a pair of moons either side of it. The atmosphere was quite stable, so I could use highest magnification (about 300x currently) and really get a good look at the banding.

Posted via email from Graham's posterous

Created a pathetic image of jupiter too

Jupiter is that tiny striped blob! So this is my first real attempt at using RegiStax to combine more than one frame in an image. Given the raw material, it's done a reasonable job. It was pretty hazy and the moon was almost full too. Jupiter's moons are too dim to be seen in theis shot (apparently Io was in transit during the exposure.)

Posted via email from Graham's posterous