Observation Log – July 30, 2010
Date: 7/30/2010
Time: 9:00 PM – 11:30 PM EDT
Scope: Celestron C8 SGT-XLT
Eye Pieces: 33mm SWAN, 22 Panoptic, 13mm Nagler
Mount: Celestron Advance Series CG5 GOTO
Location: Backyard, Suffolk, VA
Weather: Warm, Few high thin clouds
Seeing: 6 Transparency: 5 (4 after Moon rise at approx 10:30)
Moon: Waning Gibbous
Alignment Stars: Arcturus, Antares
Calibration Stars: Deneb, Alberio
Not the best night for observing, but it has been a long week and I just wanted to get outside, look up, and get a bit lost in the stars. I have not had the Celestron C8 set up in a couple of months and I have been looking forward to trying some of my new eyepieces in it.
I installed Bob’s Knobs on this scope since the last time I set it up so I had to collimate first. Took a little while to do this, but it would have taken a lot longer with the Phillips screws originally installed. I collimated using the 13mm and 9mm Nagler eyepieces.
I did a quick polar alignment – not really spending a lot of time getting a precise polar alignment since I was only planning on visual observing. Even so I had the mount aligned pretty well. Did the two star alignment with a couple of calibration stars and the GOTOs were right on.
The views through the 33mm were very nice. Crisp and bright with a nice wide field of view.
My plan for the night included M27, M29, and M71 before the light from Moon rise washed out most of the fainter objects.
From my observing notes:
Messier 27 (M27) The Dumbbell Nebula – A lot larger that I thought it would be in the 22mm Panoptic. Looked like 2 faint clouds in the 13mm Nagler. Tried the O III filter which produced a bit better contrast that showed more detail to the center. The 33mm SWAN showed the nebula with a nice star field background. This will definitely be a target for my camera in the near future.
Messier 29 (M29) – Open Cluster – In the 22mm Panoptic I observed 7 bright stars and 6 fainter stars. The 13mm revealed a couple more fainter stars. In the 13mm I could count 16 stars that appeared to be part of the cluster.
Messier 71 (M71) – The moon rose about 10:30 and I was not able to find this one in the eye piece. Will try again another night.
After the Moon rose I observed M4, M3, M10, and M12. I was able to observe each of these objects, but I did not make notes.
