observing with Sharmin (Blue Mountains)

11:44 PM, June 30, 2013. The imaging rig was up and running, just outside the Tony Horvatin Observatory. Estimated I had about an hour before it would finish.

Now I wanted to do some observing with the Celestron NexStar 11 GPS Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope.

Felt a little out of sorts, without the netbook—of course, the ASUS was tethered to the camera. Wondered, for a moment, how I would get to objects... Oh yeah. Use the small computer included with the telescope. Addicted to SkyTools now I guess... It felt a little weird.

Fortunately, this had occurred to me earlier, that I'd not have the computer in the THO. At the time, I had pulled up the list of targets from SkyTools 3 Pro. Tried printing directly through the CAO network but it didn't work. So, made a PDF file, transferred to Kali, and then printed. Two copies actually. One for Phil to look at.

Checked the sound recorder.

I had brought my bug suit gear out to the THO. But didn't put the gloves on. Even though the mosquitoes were finding me in the small observatory. I felt quite warm now. I took off the jacket.

The N11 was ready to go. I decided to try to view some DSOs. Or better still, double stars. If the sky was soft then doubles would maybe be best. I didn't know what to expect in terms of seeing and transparency.

Reviewed the list. There were a bunch of NGCs, a supernova, a comet. I couldn't seem to remember where the bulk of the items had come from. Probably the RASC Finest NGC list? And the RASC coloured doubles.

11:53 PM. I considered a star test first. I had "dropped" the N11. Sort of. It had fallen out of the wagon as I worked my way from the Great Room patio toward the generator. The ground was steep and I felt the wagon tipping backward. I hoped everything was OK.

I redid the mount alignment process. When I had first tried it, the 'scope pointed down for Arcturus. I knew that was wrong. I checked everything carefully. The alignment worked correctly this time. Aligned with Arcturus (again) and then Altair. The view was not bad. Yeh!

Forgot to align the finder scope. But it was not too far off.

12:02 AM, 1 July 2013. Completed the set-up. Align success! w00t. Did both the calibration steps to improve pointing.

Fetched my observing chair from the camera rig. Checked the camera while I was there: 48 to go.

Put on my eyeglasses strap.

12:10 AM. Viewed Albireo with the 36mm baader planetarium wide field eyepiece. It looked good. Hey, rather good. The collimation was no worse! No worse than before. Yeh!

The colours of the amazing double star did not look as brilliant as usual. The stars looked a little pale. I wondered, briefly, if I was on the right star.

The seeing looked good! Hazy... classic. The transparency must have been way off.

12:16. Briefly considered NGC 40, over in Cepheus. But changed my mind. Decided to hop in the area... I.e. stay in the general area, in Cygnus. Selected NGC 6819. Entered the object into the hand controller—just as Sharmin come a'knocking. Hi! She took a look at Albireo. "That's not Albireo," she stated. Ha. Interesting. I assured her it was. She thought the colours were off... I agreed. I shared my theory why.

She asked how the N11 was working. I said I thought it was working well. Much better than before. 

Sharmin said she loved open clusters. I then slewed to 6819. I let her have first look. She tried to centre but hit Enter by accident. No worries. She tried to centre again, with success. We enjoyed the view. It was very faint. Averted vision helped pull out stars.

I shared that the open cluster was 7700 lightyears away. It was 5.0 minutes-of-arc in size. Magnitude 9.5.

Told Sharmin that I had finished the Messier list back in May. She too was surprised when I said I had not submitted my notes for certification. Didn't need it.

We knocked her coffee mug off the ledge as I turned the roof. Empty.

Slewed to NGC 6802. As I viewed it in the ocular, a cloud went through. Fade out; fade in. I thought the dimension the same as the previous OC. This was confirmed by ST3. 5.0' again. My first impression was a fuzzy between some equally spaced pairs of stars. We noted HD 350074 and HD 350073 to the northwest and TYC 01609-0005 1 and HD 350075 to the northeast. This open cluster was fainter. Again, the software confirmed this: mag 11.7. It seemed harder to see stars. Even though it was half the distance.

Sharmin confessed she had broken her Galileoscope. Specifically, the mount was busted. She said Bill was taking a look. I offered to have a go.

12:45. Sharmin asked what the faintest object was that I had observed. I thought it was the quasar, at mag 19, or whatever, in Ian's 'scope, the big Dob.

We decided on NGC 6940. Sharmin punched it up in the hand controller. She thought it a big huge cluster. I agreed. We remarked on a "tail of stars" emerging from it. Lots of blue stars.

We considered going to M31. But I belayed the go-to. When I looked east, I saw that the Great Square was only just rising out of the murk. Too low. Too early. There seemed to be an unusual amount of sky glow from Collingwood.

Instead, we selected NGC 4725 in Coma Berenices. It too was low. It was mucky in the west. Hmm. Not a good view.

Sharmin and I exited the THO, to see how the camera time lapse set-up was doing...

1:26. I returned to the THO, solo. I found the voice recorder off. [ed: It had stopped shortly after Sharmin and I left.] The AAA batteries were dead.

1:38. Viewed NGC 7027, solo. From the "view again" category. It was very small. Was it green? I tried the 9mm Tele Vue eyepiece. It was oblong, perhaps with a ring or shell? It was bluish, or cyan. Interesting. aka the "Magic Carpet."

Done. I closed up. Not a bad evening. Not great conditions. Very bad transparency. But a lot of fun observing with Sharmin.