Jupiter is always amazing. Have looked at it several times in last month. Can see 4 satellites. Can easily see bands with my scope through either 32 mm lens (40x mag.) or 12.5 mm lens (100x mag.). Saw red spot on one occasion. Noted rapid movement (moved visibly over 1.5 hrs). Looked up Jupe's rotation period -- 9 hrs vs. Earth's 24 hrs!
Was going to look at M81 and M82. Looked hard at star charts and thru binocs. Had it nailed. Then clouds covered them. But now I know that part of the sky (NE of big dipper bowl) pretty well.
Scanned sky near jupe and saw nice blob. Looked up in star charts and saw that it is M11. Put scope on it. Nice view. Lots of stars in this "Wild Duck" cluster. Got to know Aquila constellation in which Altair shines brightest.
Moved to Ring Nebula in Lyra near Vega (Altair, Vega and Deneb form the summer triangle). Can make out ring with 100x mag. No doubt would be better in dark conditions.
Looked at Andromeda over by Cassiopeia. Maybe on a really dark night it'd be more exciting through this 10" scope. On a dark night with long film/digital exposure that you can really see Andromeda in detail, so here's a picture:
Image credit: Jason Ware, http://www.galaxyphoto.com/Also looked at nebulas 884/869, and 654/653 which are near Cassiopeia. Seems easy to play with this dobsonian mounted scope as compared to typical tripod.
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3 comments:
Sounds like you had a good stargazing night even under less than ideal conditions. We should look from here. Not completely dark, but pretty good out in the country in our dry atmosphere.
eric, recall andromeda galexy one of only 2 naked eye objects outside our galexy can be easily found w 10x50 binoculars and on good seeing nite if have 20/20 can see reasonably well.
with my 10 cm refractor i can't resolve any stars but it is till impressive.
did u see any stars?
a dark cold nite after mn w andromeda overhead when heat waves gone might reveal stars w your scope
the orion nebula is showing up w fall coming on.
steve
no, definitely couldn't see stars. i look forward to seeing it from a darker spot with this 10". I was a little confused about what i was seeing. I thought i could make out one of Andromeda's neighbor galaxies, but not quite sure.
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