A Night of Several Failures

So, after posting the previous blog entry on my new finderscope I noticed that it was pretty clear outside so decided that I would get outside and test out my new toy. Using the joys of google I looked up a few double stars in Ursa Minor that I would try and locate and also decided to see I could catch the transit of Europa’s shadow as it crosses the disc of Jupiter which was occurring that very night.

I quickly got everything set up outside and started aligning the scope; it was at this point I found out that my new RACI finderscope is brilliant at helping align the scope when dealing with some light cloud. So all I can say is that I am more than happy with my recent purchase which was probably the one success I had last night.

My first task was to turn my telescope on Jupiter and I managed get some good clear views of the planet and the Galilean moons with both my 25mm and 8mm eyepieces. Whilst I did make out the banding and colouring on the planet I couldn’t make out the moon’s shadow which was a bit disappointing as it been my main target. I suspect that I was just too late in getting outside and missed the transit but I believe there is meant to be a double shadow transit in March that I will hopefully get to see.

After this I decided to try and get a view at some double stars in Ursa Minor with Struve 1840 and Struve 1841 being the stars of choice as they had some reasonable separation between the components and should both be visible in the same field of view when using my 25mm Eyepiece. Whilst I did locate the stars I seemed unable to make out either of the companions even though they shouldn’t have been too dim for my telescope to pick up. I suspect the problem is that I was suffering from a light layer of cloud which was present for most of the time I was outside.

The cloud soon got worse and it even started lightly raining so I decided to cover up the scope and wait for it to clear. Sure enough it did clear up and thirty minutes I was out again but within about 5 minutes the clouds were back again and this time some rain drops got on my eyepiece and spoilt the view. At this point I finally threw in the towel and went inside feeling rather grumpy that I hadn’t managed to see anything to the detail I wanted to.

This feeling of grumpiness got even worse when I found out I should have been able to see the Aurora as well had I tried to look for it. It is quite rare for the Aurora to be this far south and I still don’t get how I didn’t see it! I guess I just wasn’t looking in the right direction at the right time and the sporadic clouds didn’t help. However, I did find out that someone only 2 miles away got some nice photographs and a work colleaugue called Mark Slater managed to get the photograph from East of Edinburgh which is shown on the right.

Overall, it was a highly unsuccessful night but I will be out again the next chance I get and I will find a way to view both components of Struve 1840 and 1841!