First Light with the Sky-Watcher 80ED Pro

So only a few days after moaning about the bad weather, we actually had a couple of nights with clear skies. It was also about -5ºC across the two days so I felt a little bit cold when I was out trying to use my new Telescope and Camera.

As it was my first night out I decided to be boring and pick everyone's favourite target, M31, aka the Andromeda Galaxy.

So after setting everything up and getting on target (which took about 2 hours) I was ready to start imaging! I basically took 16 x 90 second subs at ISO 800. I failed to get any Darks or Lights as I was beginning to feel the cold and just didn't have the dedication to stick it out any longer.

I processed the image in Photoshop and whilst I know I lost a bit of data in the processing, I am happy enough with this first attempt.

You may notice there are some issues with the focus on the stars along the left hand side of the image. This is because I believe I had some issues in the optical train which resulted in my DSLR sensor not being square to the optical path. The reason was that I struggled to get focus so ended up setting up a very badly held together "botch" job.

Since taking this image however I have found a little extension tube in my telescope case which states "DSLR Adaptor" rather obviously on the side of it. This would have given me a much more firm extension system to help achieve focus. I probably should have checked it out first but I was just a bit keen!

Widefield Imaging with an Equatorial Mount

Since I bought my HEQ5 I have been waiting for the chance to try it out with my DSLR and so one clear night in early September I decided to finally test it out. I decided just to use my camera directly mounted with a standard 55-250mm Lens and aimed it at two of my favourites galaxies to look at, Messier 81 & 82.

The image below is a stack of 15 x 120 second exposures which I was pretty chuffed with considering it was the first time I was properly testing my Polar Alignment skills and I didn't have any guidecam.

I can actually make out two additional galaxies in the image, NGC 2976 & NGC 3077 although they are pretty much just small fuzzy patches. In order to show off the galaxies a bit more I cropped the image which is shown below.

A bit noisy but not unexpected at that level of crop, overall I am pretty happy with what I have achieved here and look forward to trying the DSRL with my 127 Mak next.

Perseid Meteors

So back in August, just as the Perseid Meteor shower was peaking the cloudy Scottish weather decided to clear. I didn't need much persuading but was soon in my car and heading off to a Harperrig reservoir to see what I could spot.

Quite simply it was superb as I must have seen more than 100 meteors although I didn't capture many of them on camera. I did at least capture a couple, one of which I have cropped and is shown below.

Not that exciting but it is nice to at least capture something and after capturing this one I decided it was time to try and image the Milky Way which was clearly visible in the sky.

It is a shame the light pollution in the bottom right corner detracts somewhat from the image but I am still quite proud of this as it is only one 30 second sub.

Some Widefield Fun!

So a couple of nights ago the skies cleared and I had the chance to get out and observe the skies. Unfortunately it was quite windy so I struggled to get any decent time with my telescope. However my DSLR and Red Snapper tripod wasn't really affected which meant I had the chance to take some nice widefield pictures.

First up for me was a quick single shot of Venus and Mars just before they moved below the viewing horizon. Not that inspiring an image but it was nice to capture both of them together. They will be even closer over the next few days and hopefully I can get another shot when there will also be a crescent moon to join them.

My next shot is a stack of 21 x 8 second exposures of my favourite constellation, Orion. I can only get the main body to fit in my Olympus 50mm lens but it still looks lovely with the nebula nicely showing up along with some lovely colour in the stars.

After this I moved onto the area of comet Lovejoy C2014 Q2 which was in part of the sky where I could take a picture of it with the Double Cluster or Andromeda. In the end I decided to image it with both of these famous deep space objects, the Double Cluster with 12 x 8 second exposures and Andromeda with 11 x 8 second exposures.

Finally, as I was packing up my friend mentioned the fuzzy patch in the sky near Jupiter and I realised that this was the Beehive Cluster. Never shy to grab an opportunity I took 11 x 8 second exposures of this target although the very bright Jupiter does overwhelm the image a little.

My first image of the Milkyway

So with my new Canon 700D & 14mm Samyang Lens I decided to try and see if I could pick up the milky way from my heavily light polluted back garden.

I will be honest and say my initial images were horrid, they were basically yellow! However, I took 10 x 30 Second ISO 3200 subs and used DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop & PixInsight to actually pull out an okay image with the Milky Way actually reasonably visible.

I am looking forward to taking the camera out to some actual dark sites as well as plugging it into my telescope but for now I am happy with what I have managed so far!

Some Widefield Imaging of Andromeda

For Christmas I am getting a DSLR so I can make an attempt at really getting involved in astrophotography. I decided to search Ebay for some cheap prime lenses  in preparation for getting my hands on the camera and I came across an old Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Lens which was only going to cost me about £6. At that price I couldn't resist it even if I did also have to pay another £3 for a converter so I could fit it to Canon DSLRs.

After it arrived I quickly borrowed a friend's camera and put it to work on an easy target, namely the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31). I basically took 10 x 8 seconds subs at ISO 1600 and then used DeepSkyStacker to stack them before undertaking a fair amount of processing work in Pixinsight & Photoshop. There was a lot of processing required as the image showed a lot of coma as I had the lens set to wide open and therefore I had to crop out a large chunk of the image and then try to remove the coma that remained. In the future I will probably need to step down the lens to get a wider view although this will reduce the amount of light I am capturing, I suppose an EQ mount of some sort will need to be procured at some point to help me extend the sub length. Anyway, despite this I am actually quite happy with the image I took which I have attached below.

My favourite aspect of the image is that you can actually make out M110 & M32 as well although they are rather small!

The Andromeda Galaxy - My First Deep Space Object Picture

So in my last post I had implied that I was going to try and image Messier 34 (The Spiral Cluster) once I got hold a T Ring and a friend's DSLR. Unfortunately I managed to fail quite hugely at trying to find that cluster when I had a camera attached to the telescope. However, one DSO I always know how to find is Messier 31 (The Andromeda Galaxy) as it is pretty clear in my finder scope even if I couldn't see it on my laptop screen and so it turned out that the first DSO I would ever image was that instead.

However, I am probably getting a little bit ahead of myself here and should probably try and explain to you what equipment I was using to get the photograph. Basically, I had a Canon EOS 1100d DSLR which I borrowed from a friend, I then used an EOS-T2 Adapter which enabled me to attach the DSLR to the back of my telescope. To control the camera I used the laptop and some software called "APT - Astro Photography Tool" which let me alter the exposure times, view the camera image via the laptop screen, conduct focus calculations on the image to ensure I had the focus as tight as possible and finally it allowed me to take a photograph without touching the camera itself.

Whilst the above sounds great I was actually using one piece of equipment which not suited at all to astrophotography. Namely my Alt-Az mount which isn't the most stable, doesn't have the smoothest tracking and doesn't track the movement of the skies exactly so you can get field rotation. So this is my excuse for why the images I am going to show below aren't the best!

Now it is time for me to actually show the pictures, the first is basically a single 25 second sub which has had 10 Dark Frames and 20 Bias Frames applied to try and help the noise issues.

As you can see all I have gotten here is a rather small patch of fuzzy light in the center although I also managed to get the satellite galaxy Messier 32 in the bottom right of the frame as well which was unexpected. My next step was therefore to try and stack a few subs together and whilst some of the images I took weren't very good due to mount movement etc. I did manage to at least get enough shots to enable me to stack 4 off 25 second subs together which I then processed with 10 Dark Frames and 20 Bias Frames which is shown below.

I got a much brighter and larger object here because the improvement in signal to noise ratio from stacking enabled me to pull out more data without increasing the noise as much. I think Messier 32 is even clearer here as well and obviously looks different to the stars that in the field which should be expected as it is a small galaxy.

Overall I am actually quite happy with the images and suspect that I could get some nicer images in the future even with this limited set up once I get better at using the equipment and processing software.

Clear Skies Keep on Coming

So another clear night meant I was out again in the back garden but this time I had a work colleague with me who at one point actually went in and made us both a cup of tea which was greatly appreciated. Although looking at the kitchen floor afterwards it appears that trying to make tea with just a red light isn’t the cleanest process.

Anyway on the whole I covered a lot of the same targets I seen the previous night with me once again enjoying the views of objects such as the Double Cluster (C14), the Owl Cluster (C13), Eta Cassiopeiae, Albiero, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) & its satellite (M32). I also enjoyed looking at my old favourites the Cigar Galaxy (M82) & Bode’s Galaxy (M81) which fitted wonderfully together in the 32mm Eyepiece and were reasonably visible even though they were sitting in a fair amount of light pollution.

However, I am pleased say that for some other objects I managed to improve on what I had seen previously. The first of these objects was the Ring Nebula (M57) which I had seen the previous night but I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t really make out any darker central region which would have given it a ring shape. However, this time I spent a fair amount of time looking over the nebula in both my 32mm and 25mm Eyepieces and actually managed to see a darker centre which resulted in the famous ring like shape being visible. I still think a UHC filter might enhance the view a bit more but I think that can wait until next Summer’s buying spree!

The next object that I managed to improve on was Iota Cassiopeiae which is a multiple star system that I only managed to spot 3 out of 4 components when I last looked at it. This time however I sat staring at this little point of light for ages in the 8mm Eyepiece and at this magnification I managed to finally spot the B component which has about 2.8” of separation from the A component. It was a struggle to see initially but once I located it sitting within the primary’s glare I then managed to find a viewing angle that clearly showed it. I can now happily say that I have seen all 4 components of the Iota Cassiopeiae system. An interesting titbit to mention here is that 2.8” was the lowest separation I had actually managed to split at that point although I was about to beat it later on that night.

So after this success I decided to try and look at a few other items in the night sky that I hadn’t seen before which I have detailed in the image below:

Messier 29 / The Cooling Tower
RA: 20 24  Dec: +38 31
Type: Open Cluster
Magnitude: 7.1

Messier 29 is an open cluster in the Cygnus constellation that I had actually tried to find it previously but had failed in the attempt. Basically, at the time my alignment wasn’t good enough and that part of the sky is so crowded that I struggled to confirm its location. This time however I had some good alignment and I had looked up the area of Stellarium to make sure I knew where to adjust the telescope if I was out by a little bit.

The name of the cluster is derived by the fact that the brightest stars form a shape which resembles a hyperboloid-shaped cooling tower. This shape was actually pretty clear to me and I do wonder how I managed to miss it last time. As with nearly all open clusters that I look at from my back garden I didn’t really notice any background light from other stars in the cluster and it was only really the bright stars that I saw.


Epsilon Lyrae / The Double Double / STF 2382 + 2383 (HIP 91919 / SAO 67310)
RA: 18 44  Dec: +39 40
Magnitudes: 5.15, 6.1, 5.25, 5.38
Separation: 2.3”, 207.9”, 208.7”
Position Angle: 346, 171, 172

So I had previously heard about The Double Double but had never actually seen it so I decided that tonight would be the night. The system itself was pretty obvious to locate as the AB & CD elements were nice and clear in the finderscope and had a good deal of separation between them. The real challenge though was in trying to separate A from B and C from D and as the distances were 2.3” and 2.4” respectively which was closer than anything else I had managed previously.

I therefore pulled out the trusty 8mm Eyepiece which gives me about 188x magnification and sat staring at these two bright points of light for a fair amount of time. I could feel my eyes watering as I sat staring through the eyepiece but in amongst the glare I managed to split both the AB and CD components. The fact it was a double double actually made it easier to do as I could concentrate on the space between the two doubles and let averted vision do the rest. I didn’t see any colour in the stars but that didn’t matter as it was still a brilliant sight to see and I felt pretty chuffed I had managed to split stars that had separation as low as 2.3”.

Messier 56 
RA: 19 17  Dec: +30 11
Type: Globular Cluster
Magnitude: 8.3

Messier 56 is a globular cluster in the constellation Lyra and is about 32,900 light years from Earth with a width of approx. 84 light years. With the brightest stars in the cluster only being of 13th Magnitude it was no surprise to me that I really struggled to see it. With my telescope in my back garden it was a very faint fuzzy patch that I had to employ averted vision to see consistently. It was actually a bit disappointing when I compare it to the much brighter Messier 3 globular cluster in the constellation of Canes Venatici.

Messier 13 / The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
RA: 16 42  Dec: +36 28
Type: Globular Cluster
Magnitude: 5.8

So after the disappointment of Messier 56 I decided that I would try and find a more impressive Globular Cluster and as Messier 13 is called The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules I was sure that it would fit the bill.

Messier 13 is about 145 light-years in diameter and is approximately 25,100 light-years away from Earth and when I looked at it through my telescope it appeared exactly as I expected it to. I saw a lovely bright patch of light that was clearly a circular shaped cluster of stars. I didn’t managed to resolve any individual stars as I looked at the cluster but I wasn’t expecting to as I have gotten used to that from looking at other Globular Clusters.

Messier 34 / The Spiral Cluster
RA: 02 42  Dec: +42 46
Type: Open Cluster
Magnitude: 5.5

My final target of the night was Messier 34 which is an open cluster in the constellation Perseus.and is sometimes known as the Spiral Cluster due to stellar arcs visible under low power. Personally, I couldn’t really see the reasoning for the name but I may as well mention it.

Anyway, the cluster is located approximately 1,500 light years away, contains an estimated 400 stars and is 7 light years wide. To be honest, for it containing so many stars I can’t see I saw that many more than some of the clusters than contain only 100 or so stars. Then again, I am becoming a bit wary about the “facts” I dredge up about these various cluster as many of them have disagreeing comments in regards to aspects like the distance from Earth or the quantity of stars that are members. Despite all this, what I did see was actually quite an attractive cluster. Most of the bright stars in the cluster almost appeared to be paired off so it looks like a collection of double stars. For someone that enjoys hunting double stars it was really nice to see and it is possible that some of them really were doubles, I just need to do some more research into it.

As a final note, I am hoping to get a T ring in the next day or so which will enable me to borrow a friend’s DSLR and attach it to my telescope. This Cluster is going to be my target mainly because it is currently low down in the East, reasonably bright and should hopefully fit in the image frame. This means I may have at least a small chance of getting an okay image out of my Azimuth Mount. So hopefully in a few weeks or so I might be able to show my first DSO astroimaging attempt even if I am not using the best equipment for the job.

Stargazing with my parents

Whilst I have shown my parents the odd sight through my telescope from the back garden I was actually quite surprised when my father asked about me taking both my mother and him out to Harperrig Reservoir to see what we could see from a darker site. I was more than happy to oblige as it would mean I would have company if no one else was out there. It turned out that this was a pointless worry as a fair amount of people from the Central Scotland Observers Group forum were there.

Anyway because I was showing off things to my parents I actually scanned a fair amount of the sky but from a personal point of view I saw my first sights in Cancer and Gemini constellations which I have highlighted in the image below.

Messier 44 / Beehive Cluster
RA: 08 40.4 Dec: +19 59
Type: Open Star Cluster
Magnitude: 3.7

The Beehive Cluster is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer that I had seen through other telescopes  so it was nice to finally get a look at it through my own scope. The Beehive Cluster appears as a nebulous object to the naked eye and has been known since ancient times, in fact it was one of the first objects that Galileo looked at through his telescope.

The cluster is around 520-610 light years away and the title of Beehive Cluster is supposedly due to it supposedly appearing like a swarm of stars in a dance of activity. Personally it didn't really strike me as being much different that many other open clusters. Either way it was still a nice view in the lower power eyepiece although I think there was still a little bit to much magnification.

Messier 67 
RA: 08 51.4 Dec: +11 49
Type: Open Star Cluster
Magnitude: 6.1

Messier 67 is another open cluster in the constellation Cancer although this one is dimmer that the more famous Beehive Cluster. The interesting thing about this cluster is that it is actually the oldest one in the Messier list at between 3.2 and 5 billion years old. This could explain why it isn't the brightest of clusters as beyond the odd blue stragglers there are no bright blue stars left in the main sequence stage.

Overall, it was quite a nice cluster to see as there are a lot of stars present and it easily filled up my field of view and there are some nice reds and yellows present.

Messier 35 
RA: 06 09.1 Dec: +24 21
Type: Open Star Cluster
Magnitude: 5.3

The third open cluster of the night was Messier 35 which sits in the constellation Gemini and is around 2,800 lights years away. With several hundred stars present it is quite a nice sight to see although I suspect I could barely see more than sixty myself but even that was an enjoyable view. The interesting thing I noted about this cluster is that it didn't appear to have any core region where stars are condensed  together.

NGC 2392 / Eskimo Nebula 
RA: 07 28 10.8 Dec: +20 54 42.5
Type: Planetary Nebula
Magnitude: 10.1

It was great to finally look at something that wasn't an open cluster although with a magnitude of 10.1 I can't say NGC 2392 was the easiest object to see. The nebula which is named the Eskimo Nebula or Clownface Nebula supposedly resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood although to me it just looked like a tiny faint nebulous region more akin to a fuzzy star. I suspect on a darker night I may have tried to up the magnification to see if I could get a better look but I knew there was little point at the moment due to the spring night quite simply not being that dark at the time I was looking.

One additional object I want to highlight in addition to those I saw within Cancer and Gemini is the Whale Galaxy (Caldwell 32) which is an edge-on spiral galaxy within the constellation of Canes Venatici at RA 2 42 8.0 & DEC +32 32 29 and is is approximately 30 million light years away. I had previously tried to see this magnitude 9.8 Galaxy but hadn't managed to pick it up so I was pretty happy when I slewed to its location this night and was able to make out a very faint elongated shape that reminded me of the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82). Of course I couldn't make out its tiny companion, NGC 4627 which is as dwarf elliptical galaxy with a magnitude of only 13.1

Besides the objects above that I have highlighted I also showed off a few of the usual targets such as the aforementioned Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82) along with Bode's Galaxy (Messier 81), Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51), Messier 3 Globular Cluster, Caldwell 21 Galaxy, Mars, Almach and Mizar. I have to be honest and say that most of the Deep Space Objects were a bit washed out as it just wasn't dark enough for my scope to capture them. However, due to the Cigar Galaxy and Bode's Galaxy being pretty much at the zenith they came out superbly. I even managed to get both of them in my field of view at the same time and was quite impressed.

Overall this was actually a successful night with me seeing a target in Canes Venatici I had failed to see in the past and seeing a few new deep space objects in both Cancer and Gemini. Very soon the astronomy season will be over due to the long summer days but I want to try and get out like this as much as possible for the time being.

Canes Venatici Messier Hunting

The 23rd of March was a lovely clear and cold night so I couldn’t resist heading along to Harperrig where I met up with 4 other people from the Central Scotland Observers Group. I turned up without a plan but very soon I decided that with the lack of a moon I would try and at least tackle all the Messier objects in a constellation. My constellation of choice was Canes Venatici and I can happily say that it was a complete success with me managing to see all 5 Messier objects there. In additional I also bagged a Caldwell object, an interesting star called La Superba and a further galaxy that isn’t in the Caldwell or Messier lists but is one of the Herhsel 400 objects. You can see the location of all the objects I saw in the image below.

For those of you unaware of Canes Venatici I shall give you all a little background information. It was created in the 17th Century by Johannes Hevelius out of some faint stars which up until then had been included within Ursa Major and its name in Latin means "hunting dogs". The constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the Herdsman, a neighbouring constellation to the east. Its other neighbouring constellations are Coma Berenices, and Ursa Major.

So now that I have dispensed with that bit of trivia I will get down to the nitty gritty of explaining what I saw!

Messier 3
RA: 13 42 11.62 Dec: +28 22 38.2
Type: Globular Star Cluster
Magnitude: 6.2

I had actually previously looked at this DSO before and on the whole it had looked like a prominent blurry cloud of light. With it being a bit darker tonight I was hoping to maybe see a bit more. What I saw was a much brighter and clearer patch of light in the sky but I still found it hard to resolve any specific stars in the cluster without using averted vision. I don’t know if maybe this is the best I can get visually with my telescope or if I need to just spend more time observing the cluster to get more out of it.

It is still quite an amazing object to look at anyway and I am sure I will be back again in the future.

Messier 51 / Whirlpool Galaxy (+ Companion Galaxy NGC 5195)
RA: 13 29 52.7 Dec: +47 11 43
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 8.4 (NGC 5195 - 10.5)

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy estimated to be approximately 23 million light-years away from the Milky Way. An interesting aspect of Messier 51 is that it has a companion galaxy known as NGC 5195 that it is actually interacting with.

To be honest, I have actually tried to see this galaxy a few times from the back garden but have never managed to see it so I was very happy when I finally managed to spot it. In addition, I even managed to see the companion galaxy which I wasn’t actually expecting to see.

Whilst I struggled to see any of the spiral arms via my 127 MAK I did get the chance to look at it through a 12 inch Dobsonian scope which did show up some of the spiral structure. It was still a nice enough sight in my own scope and with averted vision it is possible I might be able to pick out some more of the galactic structure in my own telescope.

Messier 63 / Sunflower Galaxy
RA: 13 15 49.3 Dec: +42 01 45
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 9.3

The Sunflower Galaxy is a spiral galaxy estimated to be approximately 37 million light-years away from the Milky Way. Supposedly the spiral arms are meant to resemble the petals of a flower which explains the name but to be honest I couldn’t make out much structure at all in this galaxy so I have no idea if it is true. In fact at times I could barely even make out the core and so averted vision was my saviour as it did help make it more obvious. To be honest this galaxy was probably the hardest to see out of everything I looked at during my tour of Canes Venatici.

Messier 94
RA: 12 50 53.1 Dec: +41 07 14
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 9.0

Messier 94 is another spiral galaxy, but this one is estimated to be approximately 19 million light-years away from the Milky Way. What I noticed about this galaxy was that it has quite an obvious bright core that I could see without any issues. However, once I moved away from the core I didn’t really pick up any sort of structure at all. It was like the bright core was overpowering everything else which resulted in this galaxy looking more like a globular cluster than a galaxy.

Messier 106
RA: 12 18 57.5 Dec: +47 18 14
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Magnitude: 9.1

My final Messier target of the evening and unsurprisingly based on what I had seen so far it was another spiral galaxy! Anyway The Messier 106 is estimated to be approximately 23 million light-years away from the Milky Way. The view in the eyepiece was quite nice with a central core being clearly surrounded by a dim halo.

Caldwell 21
RA: 12 28 11.9 Dec: +44 05 40
Type: Irregular Galaxy
Magnitude: 10.0

The one Caldwell I viewed actually turned out to be an irregular galaxy which was nice considering I was beginning to suffer from spiral galaxy overload by the time I looked at it. The galaxy is estimated to be approximately 12 million light-years away from the Milky Way and it was therefore the closest galaxy I viewed during my observing session.

When I looked at this galaxy it was obviously different to the spirals I had already seen as it had an obvious box like shape. I actually enjoyed seeing this because it did look different and I think in the future I will try and study this more along with all the other Caldwell objects in Canes Venatici.

La Superba (HIP 62223 / SAO 44317)
RA: 12 28 11.9 Dec: +44 05 40
Magnitude: 4.8 - 6.3

I decided to take a look at the star called La Superba because its rather interesting name caught my attention. The name actually comes from a 19th century astronomer called Angelo Secchi who was hugely impressed with the beauty of the star. The star is a giant red "carbon star" which means it has started to fuse helium into carbon and it is this process that results in a strong red colour. Another interesting aspect is that it is also a semi-regular variable star, peaking at about +4.8 mag and diminishing to around +6.3 over a 160 day cycle.

Even though this star is supposedly one of the reddest in the night sky it still looked reasonably orange to me and I am not sure it was that much more vivid a colour that Betelgeuse. It is possible that it was at a dim stage in its variability and this dulled the colour slightly but I can't say I was as impressed I had hoped to be. In the end it was still a nice colourful star to look at when you compare it to the vast quantity of white stars around but I will need to check it out in the future just to see if I can notice any change due to its varying magnitude.

Overall, I am happy that I managed to see all the Messier objects at times I think I was rushing through them so I could fit everything into the observing period. I think in the future I may try and look back over some of these galaxies and see if I can pick out any more structure by really studying them although I think my telescope aperture is always going to limit me to some extent.

Hazy Cloud & Moonlight - 10th March 2014

On the night of 10th March 2014 the night was clear and I decided to head along to Harperrig Reservoir. The reason is that this is normally a darker location than my back garden and I hoped I might be able to make out a few double stars I had failed to see previously. If anyone is interested I have put a map of Harperrig’s location below which will show where it is in relation to Edinburgh and Livingston.

Unfortunately a few things conspired to mean that I found it hard to see dim objects. The first of which was the moon which was high and bright, whilst the moon is a wonderful sight to see it isn’t conducive to seeing dim objects as it rather bright. In addition, the hazy cloud that was present was providing a brilliant medium for the moonlight to reflect off. This meant that even when I was looking away from the moon everything still looked a bit washed out.

However, I was not one to let this stop me attempting to look at a few things which I will detail below:

Messier 3
RA: 13 42 11.62 Dec: +28 22 38.2
Type: Globular Star Cluster
Magnitude: 6.2

The first object I looked at was Messier 3 which is a Globular Star Cluster located in Canes Venatici. This cluster is massive as is made up of around 500,000 stars which makes it one of the largest and brightest. Unfortunately as I looked at it the cluster was very low on the horizon and with the added light pollution from the moon it meant that I struggled to actually resolve any individual stars in the cluster. It basically looked like a very prominent blurry cloud of light reminiscent of the various galaxies I have looked at.

With a bit of averted vision I think I could make out some stars in the cluster but overall, I think I need to take another look at this DSO when it is darker.

Messier 40 / Winnecke 4 (SAO 28353)
RA: 12 22 12.53 Dec: +58 04 58.6
Type: Double Star
Magnitudes: 9.7, 10.2
Separation: 53.2”
Position Angle: 76°

My next target was Messier 40 which is a double star also known as Winnecke 4 which sits in Ursa Major. The interesting thing about this star is that this was discovered by Charles Messier when he was actually searching for a nebula. However, he couldn’t find a nebula so he just catalogued this double star instead.

To be honest I didn’t find it to be a very interesting double star in its own right and the moonlight actually made it quite difficult to make out both components. The funny thing personally is that the haze and moonlight actually gave the stars a nebulous look which is rather ironic when you consider what Messier had actually been looking for when he catalogued this star.

Cor Caroli / Alpha Canum Venaticorum / Struve 1692 (HIP 63125 / SAO 63257)
RA: 12 56 01.67 Dec: +38 19 06.2
Type: Double Star
Magnitudes: 2.9, 5.5
Separation: 19.2”
Position Angle: 229°

So my final new site of the night via my own telescope was Cor Caroli, the brightest star in the constellation Canes Venatici. The name Cor Caroli means “Charles’ Heart” and it was named this in the 17th Century to honour the executed King Charles I of England and Scotland.

This is quite an easy double to split and see with my telescope although both stars appeared white. Supposedly I may have also been able to see another fainter double in the same region as this star called Struve 1702 but alas I didn’t have this information with me at the time I was looking in the area so didn’t do a search.

If anyone is interested in the locations of the three objects detailed above then just take a gander at the image below taken from Stellarium.

Besides the three new targets I also took a view of various other objects I have seen before such as the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31), Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82), Bode’s Galaxy (Messier 81), Almach, Betelgeuse, Mizar, Pleiades (Messier 45), Jupiter & the Moon.

One nice bonus from being at Harperrig was another member of the Central Scotland Observers Group was present with his 12 Inch Dobsonian telescope and he let me have a quick look through it at a few interesting sites. I got to get a glimpse at the leo triplets which is a small group of galaxies in the constellation of leo although I could only make out two galaxies in the eye piece. I then also got to look at the Christmas Tree Cluster in Monoceros and the Double Cluster in Perseus. I thought that both of these clusters looked stunning and I will need to look at them through my own telescope in the future.

My final sight of the night was a lovely star through the 12 Inch Dobsonian which is called Mu Cephei or more commonly as Herschel’s Garnet Star. As you can imagine by the name, the star appears garnet red and there was no doubt that it really has a very distinctive colour. It was a lovely way to finish the night and I am curious to know how vivid the colour would be without the moon light affecting the viewing. Now I know it exists I will need to make sure I take another look in the future.

A Brief Deep Space Object Tour

As the weather hasn't been that great recently here in the central belt of Scotland I can't help myself but try and see as much as possible when I do get the odd bit of clear skies. Therefore when the clouds obscured the constellation of Ursa Minor which is where I was looking at some double stars I decided to use the time to scan other parts of the sky for some Deep Space Objects.

The first two DSOs that I decided to take a look at were the Pleiades (Messier 45) & the Hyades (Caldwell 41). These are both open clusters within the Taurus constellation which happened to be in an area of sky with no cloud cover at all. Whilst I have looked at the Pleiades with binoculars before I had never tried to look at through my telescope and I had never looked at the Hyades at all which is a shame as it is actually the closest star cluster to Earth. In the image below which was taken from Stellarium (a great free planetarium programme) I have tried to show where the Pleiades and Hyades are located.

The first thing I noted is that with the 25mm Eyepiece which has the widest field of view of my current eyepeices I couldn't get either of these two clusters fully in view. I had heard that these are best viewed as binocular objects and I probably have to agree with that view unless you have a telescope which can give you better field of views than mine. What I actually found is that my 8x50 Finderscope gave me great views of both clusters and I ended up spending most of my time just looking at them through it. I think the Pleiades is the nicest of the two but I did like seeing the large red giant of Aldebaran in amongst the Hyades cluster. I decided to sketch the Pleiades based on what I saw via the finderscope and you can see my results below.

My sketch probably doesn't do the Pleiades justice but if any of you have a decent pair of binoculars you should take a look as there are quite a lovely sight to see. Anyway after looking at these two clusters for a while I decided to go get some views at some DSOs I had seen before, the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) and the Orion Nebula (Messier 42) being the first two that I gazed at for a bit. I actually think that I got the best view of the fuzzy core of Andromeda  than I have seen before so I was quite happy with that.

My final targets for the night where the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82) and Bode's Galaxy (Messier 81). I have seen these two galaxies before but never managed to see them from my back garden but tonight was the night as the lovely clear sky and the lack of neighbours safety lights enabled me to get some nice if fleeting views. However, it appears that I have missed the chance to see the supernova in the Cigar Galaxy which was a bit disappointing.

The sky was pretty clear in Ursa Minor by the time I finished with the last two galaxies so I now turned my attention to Double Star spotting which I will discuss in my next blog post.

My First Few Months

Because I am a bit late starting the blog I have already spent the last few months searching the skies for interesting sights but I don't want to spent ages going over everything I have seen. Therefore I am going to try and just going to point out a few of the important things I have seen so far and maybe post a few pictures.

So on my first night I didn't really know what I was doing and just picked a couple of random stars and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Now I fell into the trap of believing I could see something like all the pretty pictures of galaxies you see around the web and was therefore a bit surprised when all I saw was a lovely smudge in the sky. Oh well, at least it is still amazing when you realise that smudge is billions of stars!

So the next night I just set the telescope out the front for 20 minutes so I could get a view of Jupiter and this time I wasn't let down. I could make out the four Galilean Moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto which were very obvious. I also managed to make out the banding in the atmosphere and even get a little glimpse of the giant red spot. It was seeing this that made me go out and buy the Xbox Webcam I mentioned in the last post and managed to take a few pictures of Jupiter such as the one below.

After this I also grabbed some nice views of the Moon and did try and take an image of that but my attempt at stitching about 40 images together didn't work as I managed to miss a section of the moon. After this I decided to jump back to the Deep Space Objects and took my first view of the Orion Nebula (M42) which was superb, with a dusty cloud being visible alongside the Trapezium which is an open cluster of stars at its heart. 

Of course at this point there was news circling the internet about a Supernova occurring in Cigar Galaxy (M82) and I decided to point my scope that way. Unfortunately I couldn't see the bright supernova but I did see the  galaxy and even managed to catch Bode's Galaxy (M81) at the edge of my field of view.

The final objects I have been looking at are multiple stars and I have managed to split a few of them now including Mizar, Almach, Eta Cassiopeiae and Polaris. I even did something completely new and decided to try and sketch what I saw when I was looking at Polaris. I don't normally do "arty" things but decided to give it a go and you see my digitized results below.

You should just be able to see the smaller companion at around the 5 O'clock position from the main star and if you are wondering why the East and West are the wrong way around it is because my telescope flips the view so that is how it appeared to me. As a note, supposedly the main component star is yellow and the smaller one is blue but I just saw white, white and more white! Anyway, I quite enjoyed doing this so I think I will at least try and sketch all the double stars I see in the future.

Other than this the only other interesting experiment I have undertaken is trying to use my Point and Shoot camera to take some wide field shots. I have managed Ursa Minor, The Plough, Orion & Taurus so far but I find myself limited by the bad noise levels my camera produces in the dark. I do plan to get a DSLR at some point but my favourite image I have taken is the one I did of Orion and it is shown below.