I am relatively new to the wonderful and awe-inspiring world of astronomy. However, I wanted to keep an astronomy ‘log-book’ in order to record what objects I have found and observed using my telescope. I have started from the month when I first got my telescope, which is a small Newtonian reflector (Celestron Astromaster 130 EQ-MD). I will try to keep this post as up-to-date as and welcome any target suggestions, recommendations or general comments.

Equipment:

Telescope: Celestron Astromaster 130 EQ MD (Aperture 130 mm; Focal Length 650 mm)

Eyepieces: Plossl- 30mm, 15mm, 10mm, 6mm

Barlow: 2x

Filters: Moon, Blue, Red, Green

Binoculars: 7 x 50

Camera: Samsung Galaxy S3 (Smartphone)

Books/Maps: Turn Left at Orion, Cambridge Star Atlas.

Collimation method: Cheshire

Miscellaneous: Red-light head flashlight; Compass; Spirit level; Stellarium (Andriod ap); ISS detector (Android App); Flask for tea and a folding chair.

Summary:

The table below includes the list of all the objects I have observed and the month it happened. You can click on the name of the object in the table and it will take you straight to the log-entry in this article, which includes a description of the target as well as a range of images and photographs. Enjoy!



May 2014:

The first targets I observed with my telescope were the Moon, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. I have already written a short blog about my experiences viewing these targets (see my previous blog posts here and here), so all I will write here is a list of objects I observed in May.

– The Moon: Numerous phases.

– Jupiter: Gemini, setting in the West in the early evening.

– Saturn: Libra, rising in the East in the early evening.

– Mars: Virgo.



– M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules.

This was the first deep sky object (DSO) I observed with my telescope. Now, it must be stressed that viewing DSO using a small telescope under fairly light-polluted sky requires patience and a certain amount of imagination. We are looking at very distant and dim objects; there is a reason they are known as ‘faint fuzzies’! However, when your eyes are dark-adapted, and you understand what you are looking at, boy are they worth it. M13 is a globular cluster; an ancient, and colossal, spherical collection of stars. Through a small telescope, M13 looks like this…

It looks like a white, fuzzy circle, right? However, this circular blob of light is 145 light years in diameter, over 25,000 light years away and contains some of the oldest stars around, about 300,000 of them. Indeed, the age of M13 has been estimated at c. 11.6 billion years old. To put this in perspective, our star, the sun, is ‘only’ c. 4.6 billions year old and the whole universe is c. 13.7 billions years old. So, when you think about all these things when viewing M13, the ancient globular cluster really comes alive, moving from a faint fuzzy to a thing of intricate beauty. Visual astronomy is not necessarily all about what the eyes see, but what the mind can begin to comprehend.

I should also stress that even in a small telescope, individual stars can be seen in M13. However, this requires dark, clear skies and the use of ‘averted vision’ (i.e., not looking directly at the object of interest; using peripheral vision like this utilises the dim, light-sensitive rod cells on your retina as opposed to the colour-sensitive cone cells) vastly improves observing M13. I also viewed M13 through some large telescopes (5″ Celestron Cat; 8″ Skywater reflector) at the Bristol Astronomical Society weekly meetings. Wow! These bigger telescope sure gave fantastic views of M13 and loads of individual stars could be resolved. Using long-exposure photography the true beauty of M13 can be seen.



– M81 and M82 Galaxies.

M81 and M82 are both galaxies and they are located relatively close to each other in the sky, meaning they can both be observed in the same field of view. M81 is a spiral galaxy 12 million light year away and contains > 250 billion stars. M82, which is also known as the Cigar galaxy because of its side-on appearance, is also 12 million light years away and contains > 30 billion stars. Once again, these two DSOs appear as faint blurs of light through a telescope, as shown in the simulation image below…

These galaxies make great targets for amateur astronomers and astrophotographers. Due to the fact cameras can collect far more photons than the human eye (they can collect hours of worth of light due to long exposures), photographs can really show beautiful details these pretty galaxies.

I viewed M81 and M82 using telescopes at the Bristol Astronomical Society (BAS) (5″ Celestron Cat and an 8″ Skywatcher reflector). As of the 06/07/2014 I have not located and observed M81 and M82 using my own telescope; this is one of my next targets to hunt down.

– Mars

Whilst at the BAS I was also lucky enough to observe Mars through an 8 inch CAT (Celestron C8 OTA – XLT)…wow, what a piece of kit. I have never seen Mars with so much detail; it was beautiful. I could clearly see the polar ice caps and lots of surface detail when the sky remained steady. The picture below is a fairly good representation of what it looked like down the eyepiece.

I should also note that Jupiter and Saturn looked stunning through the Celestron C8 OTA – XLT. The banding of Jupiter was extremely clear and the Cassini division of Saturn was visible, too.

– Epsilon Lyrae: The double-double>

Kerrie and I viewed this through the 5 inch Celestron Cat. It was very easy to resolve the double-double and pretty, too. The Double-Double is 162 light years away in the constellation Lyra. The system contains two sets of binary stars orbiting each other, which takes hundreds of thousands of years! I have tried to resolve these stars using my telescope but to no avail; I think the seeing has to be perfect and the scope in excellent collimation.

May 2014 Summary: I thoroughly enjoyed the first month with the telescope and I saw some amazing sights. I would be happy if Saturn was the only thing I could look at in the sky; I love gazing at Saturn’s beautiful rings. The moon, too, has been a favourite.

June 2014

The nights are getting brighter and shorter, but that has not stopped me getting out there as much as I can.

– M57: The Ring Nebula.

M57 is a planetary nebula located in the small constellation of Lyra. A planetary nebular is a giant cloud of ionised gas that’s ejected from red-giant stars as they evolve into white dwarfs. The Ring Nebula is 2,300 light years away and has a diameter of 2.4 light years. When we gaze at M57 we are viewing the dramatic death of a colossal star; albeit a very slow demise. Like most DSOs, M57 is a faint object in a small telescope. However, with dark-skies, dark-adapted eyes and averted vision, the M57 can clearly been seen in a small telescope. The sketching shown below gives a good impression of how the Ring Nebula appears in a small scope.

Once again, it is understanding what M57 is that makes is more beautiful than just a white, smoke-ring in the telescope’s eyepiece. Furthermore, it is very easy to find in the sky. Cameras can also capture beautiful images of M57, with colour, such as the photograph below.

– M64: The Black Eye Galaxy.

This was the first galaxy I found and located using my own telescope. I also found it by pure luck/chance and I had to look up which galaxy it was on Stellarium. M64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is c. 24 million light years away and located in the constellation Coma Berenices. It is 40,000 light years in diameter and contains billions of stars. The image below is a fairly good representation of what M64 looks like down a small telescope.

– M31: Andromeda Galaxy.

I know this time of year is not M31 season, but one night I just could not sleep and headed out into the garden in the early hours of the morning. At the time, I was staying in a very light polluted part of town, so I know she will look much more impressive in winter away from the city lights. I still got to tick her off my list, though. Through a small telescope, M31 looks like a wispy, white cloud (like most galaxies) and the image below gives a good idea what I saw down the eyepiece.

For more information on M31, see my previous blog here. Once again, photographs give M31 much more credit…

– Albireo (beta cygni); Cygnus.

A beautiful double star, potentially the most stunning in the sky, and easily split in any small telescope. This beautiful star is 430 light years away from Earth, so the light we see today left the star when Queen Elizabeth the 1st was Queen of England. The binary star is consisted of a bight gold star and a smaller blue star and is situated in the constellation Cygnus. It is unknown whether Albireo is a true binary star system (i.e., two stars that orbit around each other). However, if they are, it has been estimated that they would orbit around each other once every 100,000 years.

– Mizar + Alcor.

Another famous double star system, perhaps the oldest one ever identified. However, Mizar and Alcor are only optical double, not a true binary system. Their names come from the Arabic ‘horse and rider’ and the ability to split the two stars with a naked eye has long been a test of keen eyesight. When using higher magnification, it is easy to see that Mizar does have a smaller, true binary partner.

July 2014

– M3: A globular cluster.

This was the first time I have seen the globular cluster M3, which is located in the constellation Canes Venatici, with my own eyes. I managed to locate this using the bright star Arcturus and a 30 mm eyepiece (for a wide field of view). This globular cluster is 8 billion years old, situated 33,900 light years from Earth and contains a staggering 500,000 stars. Although significantly smaller than M13, M3 was still a pretty sight in my telescope. I could clearly see individual stars using averted vision and higher magnification. Through my telescope, M3 appeared just a tad smaller than the image below.

– M51: The Whirlpool galaxy.

I was very excited to locate and observe M51 with my telescope. This was only the 3rd galaxy I have seen with my own bit of kit. M51 is one of the most well-know galaxies in the universe and it is estimated to be located 23 million light years from Earth. The Whirlpool galaxy is estimated to be 100,000 light years in diameter; this means that in the time it takes light to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other, anatomically modern humans evolved and moved from primitive hunter-gatherers, to walking on the Moon and driving car-sized rovers on the surface of Mars (estimates of the evolutionary origin of anatomically modern humans range from 100,000 – 300,000 years ago). Although small, and very fuzzy, the circular shape of the galaxy was obvious and appeared as very similar to the image below.

I look forward to adding many more deep sky objects to this blog post over the next few weeks. Clear and dark skies, everyone!

July 15th, 2014:

“You are going to see two new targets tonight, Jack”, I told myself before I had even set-up my telescope on this lovely, clear evening. Indeed, I spent about twenty minutes reading the excellent book ‘Turn Left at Orion’ to decide both what I was going to target and how to find them. Due to the fact that the constellation Lyra and Cygnus are right overhead at the moment, and easily visible from my garden relatively early in the evening, I decided to aim for the small globular cluster M56, which is found between Albireo (in Cygnus) and Sulafat (in Lyra), and the Dumbbell Nebula, M27. M27 is located in the constellation Vulpecula, the small fox, which is found just below Cygnus and is apparently relatively easy to find. Just as I was reading up and memorising how to find them in the sky, my ‘ISS detector’ app alerted me to an Iridium Flare(IF) that would be visible overhead. I rushed outside to view the -6.0 magnitude IF, which went over at around 21:55. I always like viewing IFs, which are caused when sunlight reflects off the highly-reflective surfaces of the Iridium Satellite directly back to Earth. On a dark night these can sometimes be incredibly bright, reaching magnitudes of -8 or -9. To put that is perspective Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, is magnitude -1.5 (the magnitude scale is logarithmic, so an Iridium Flare or -8 magnitude is nearly 400 times as bright as Sirius; the IF I saw last night was 63 times brighter that Sirius).

Now, onto the star gazing…



M56: A Globular Cluster

I was able to find M56 with not too much difficulty; it is situated bang in the middle between Albireo and Sulafat. The only issue I had was that I did not expect it to be quite so small! Compared to M13, M56 appeared tiny in my telescope, even at higher magnifications. It really was a faint fuzzy. I have the feeling that if I had stayed up later and waited for it to get darker, M56 may have appeared as more impressive. To be honest though, I think it is M56’s location in a rich part of the Milky Way that makes it a nice target, irrespective of its apparent size. M56 is around 32,900 light years away from us and is estimated to be 84 light years across. She is a ripe old age of 13.7 billion years.

Unfortunately I was unable to find an example of what M56 looks like through a small telescope, but image it looking considerably smaller than the example I gave for M3. Consequently, I have only included a Hubble Space Telescope image below.

There really is a thrill and adrenaline rush when you find something new for the first time and I am so glad there are so many new things for me to find in the night sky.

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula

The second ‘first-time’ of the night. This DSO was surprisingly easy to find; it’s pretty big and relatively bright. Using averted vision it was clear to see the ‘apple core’ shape of this colossal cloud of gas and dust. It really is quite an amazing sight, even in the early, relatively bright, summer evening I was observing under. I wish I could have stayed up later for it to become full-dark, because I think it would have been even more spectacular.

Now, onto the facts. M27 is a planetary nebula (similar to M57) and is 1,360 light years away, with a diameter of 1.44 light years. The light I saw tonight left M27 in the year 654 AD, when the world’s human population was only 208 million. The Dumbbell nebula is relatively young (in astronomical terms) and is only 15,000 years old. Although M27 does look like a dumbbell, the correct name for this shape is a prolate spheroid.

Tonight was a fun evening and I achieved my objective of viewing two new objects. I think planning what I want to target from my viewing session is an excellent way to maximise telescope time and I will definitely be doing this more in the future.

17th July, 2014.

Another great night for astronomy. It was clear and very dark; after about 00.00 I could see the Milky Way in Cygnus with my naked eye. I started the evening looking at M27, M13 and M57, just to check that I still know how to find them. I was able to and relatively quickly, too. The 30 mm eyepiece I use sure makes finding DSO much quicker. I pushed the magnification with M57 and M13 to the max and it actually worked quite well. Next I began looking for the three new targets I had set myself and I found them! Details below.



– M92: Globular Cluster



I was able to find M92, which is located in Hercules, relatively quickly. It was a very pleasant sight through the telescope. It is far smaller than M13, but it appeared much brighter to me. At high magnification, and using averted vision, I was able to see a number of individual stars. M92 is 26,700 light years away from Earth and has a diameter of 109 light years. Like most of the globular clusters, M92 is old and estimated to be 14.2 billion years old. The picture below shows an image of M92 captured by the Hubble Telescope.



– M11: The Wild Duck Cluster.

In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful objects I have observed so far. Indeed, when I found M11, which was not difficult to do at all, I unconsciously uttered ‘that’s f###ing beautiful’, and it was. M11 is a relatively young open cluster, with an age of only 220 million years. It is one of the richest and most compact of all the open star clusters and contains approximately 2900 stars. It is 6120 light years away, 23 light years in diameter and derives its name because the brightest stars in the cluster apparently represent a flying flock of ducks (I don’t know why they are wild?).Open Clusters are very different from globular clusters; they are far, far, far younger and are normally interstellar nurseries (the birthplaces of new stars) as opposed to the OAP homes of globular clusters.

Using averted vision M11 leaped to life and hundreds of stars were visible. I spent a good 15 mins or so looking at this amazing cosmic object, imagining what kinds of worlds have developed and evolved in this rich and diverse part of the Milky Way.

– M71: Globular Cluster.

This was the last new object I attempted before hitting the hay (in fact, a huge storm was on the way and clouds were beginning to creep across the sky). I wanted to look at M71 for two reasons. Firstly, is is dead easy to find in the sky, because it is right between two bright stars in the constellation Sagitta (the arrow). Secondly, it has a somewhat interesting history. For quite some time we did not know whether M71 was an open or globular cluster. Relatively recently, however, it was determined that M71 is a loosely concentrated globular cluster. And it’s much younger than other globular clusters; a mere 9 billion years old. It’s 12,000 light years from Earth and is 27 light years in diameter. It was easy to find but very small indeed. In fact hardly any detail could be seen and it almost appeared ‘Galaxy-like’; i.e., like a faint fuzzy cloud.

This was another brilliant and productive night. I am going to try and find some Galaxies next time. Cheers.

July 23rd 2014

This was another stunningly clear and dark night in Winslow. I started the evening at the telescope with a glass of lovely wine; an amazing combination that I strongly recommend.

By 23:00 hrs I could clearly see the Milky Way Running through Cygnus; we really do have a dark sky here and I hope it stays this way. I spent some time reading my trusted copy of ‘Turn Left at Orion’ and had decided on a few targets. Once again this book proved its weight in gold as I had a superb session and I ticked off around seven new targets, which I was very chuffed with.I started the night locating two new globular clusters….

– M10: Globular Cluster.

M10 and M12 were relatively easy to find globular clusters and are located in the large constellation Ophiuchus. I found M10 first, which was rather small but very pretty. M10 is located around 14,300 light years away from Earth and is 83 light years in diameter.

– M12: Globular Cluster.

M12 appeared somewhat less bright that M10 and I was unable to resolve any individual stars, even using averted vision. M13 is 15,700 light years from Earth, 75 light years in diameter and is estimated to be around 12.67 billion years old.

– The Double Cluster

Next, I slewed over to Cassiopeia; the beautiful ‘W’ shaped constellation in the heart of the Milky Way. The Double Cluster was easy to find with binoculars and the telescope and boy were they pretty. I really think open clusters are now my favourite targets because they are easy to resolve in my small telescope and hundreds of stars can be observed. The Double Cluster was mesmerising and I found myself observing it for quite some time. I used low magnification with my 30 and 15 mm Plossl eyepieces to enable a large field of view. Both of these clusters are around 7500 light years away and, like most open clusters, relatively young (they are only 12.8 million years old) Each cluster contains over 300 blue-white supergiant stars and they are hurtling towards Earth at a rate of 38 km/s!.

– M52: Open Cluster

Another open cluster, M52; easy to find and pretty to observe. This open cluster was beautiful under both high and low magnification. M52 contains around 193 stars and is around 35 million years old.

– NGC 7789: Open Cluster + other Cassiopeia Open Clusters

NGC 7789 was the second open cluster I found in Cassiopeia. Another beautiful target; I think I could look at open clusters all evening. After NGC 7789 I went on to find numerous open clusters in Cassiopeia and they were all pretty. Unfortunately I was unable to identify each one individually because there were so many of them!

After spending a good amount of time looking around Cassiopeia, it was now really dark and I spend a good 15 minutes just browsing around the Milky Way in Cygnus at low power. The number of stars you can see with a telescope is simply mind blowing; the human brain has not evolved to comprehend such colossal numbers and vastness. I then had a quick look at M27 again, which was brighter than I have ever seen it before; clearly a Dumbbell shape.

Next I tried to find M81 and M82, two targets I have never found in my own telescope before. I could just about make them out in my binoculars and I found them relatively quickly in the telescope. These are two really cool targets, and, to be honest, they did not look too dissimilar to when I observed them with a much larger telescope in Bristol; when it comes to galaxies, maybe dark skies are more important than telescope aperture? For more information and images of M81 and M82 see Here.

At around 12:15 I had to hit the hay; doesn’t sleep and work get in the way of things? I would have liked to stay out all night because it was a cracking sky. Oh, well. I am eagerly looking forward to the next session!

July 25th 2014

Tonight was the first time that I have driven out of town with my scope for some darker, less-obscured skies. After doing some research with a light pollution map and a bit of pre-darkness scouting, I found a location just 2 miles outside of my small town that was in a dark-blue zone. It was in the middle of a large field, away from the road, meaning great views of all the sky (unlike my back garden, which limits the areas of sky I am able to see). I was also joined tonight by one of my neighbours, Keith, who has a keen interest in astronomy and owns a lovely 100 mm short-tube refractor (Sky-watcher). We headed out around 10 pm, just as it was getting dark and set up our kit. The sky was clear and dark and we looked forward to a great evening.

In order of observations: M13: easily the brightest I have ever seen this and it was clearly graining in the eyepiece; M27: again, big and bright; M71; M57; M81 +M82: I really like these two galaxies; M11; M51; very dim at this time of year.

New Targets:

– Cor Caroli: A double star

A pretty double star; easy to split and pleasant shading in colours.

– M94: A galaxy

A real faint fuzzy…small, too. Mind you, it is 16 million light years away! Good to tick off the list, but not my favourite galaxy so far.

– Teapot Messier Objects: M21 and M20

This was the first time I have been able to observe the Teapot asterism in Sagittarius. Wow. What an amazing area of sky; a product of the fact that the centre of the Milky Way is located here. Indeed, 15 Messier objects are found within Sagittarius alone! I was able to simply point my telescope at the asterism and numerous Messier objects just jump out at you; it’s hard not to find DSOs in this area of sky! Although I observed a good handful of Messier objects in this reason, I was unable to 100% identify each one individually. Consequently, I have only listed M20 and M21 as definite observations. Next time I observe this area, I will record each Messier object; I was somewhat overwhelmed by the number of them on this evening.

M21 is a pretty open cluster that is located very closely to M20, the Triffid Nebula. Indeed, at low power they were not far from both being in the same field of view. M20 was a white cloud in the eyepiece. However, do to the fact I was so excited by the sheer number of new objects I was looking at, I did not take enough time to really appreciate and observe this object. On my next session, I will spend far longer on each of these Messier Objects to truly appreciate their intricate beauty. I am also fairly certain I observed M8, which is a large emission nebula. However, I am not going to document it until I am 100% certain this is what I observed.

Unfortunately, at around 1 am, the cloud rolled in and put an end to the brilliant evening of astronomy. We were very chuffed with the location and will definitely come back here again soon; they were lovely dark, clear skies.

July 28th 2014

This turned out to be somewhat of an impromptu observing session. All evening it was horrible and cloudy, but at around 22:30 the it cleared up nicely. I strolled out into the garden with my 7×50 binoculars and tried to locate M5; something I have been trying to observe for weeks on end. And you know what? I found it almost instantly with the binoculars. So I memorised the area of sky it was located in relative to a tree in my garden and ran indoors as quick as I could to grab my telescope.

– M5: A globular cluster

Finally, I found M5 in Serpens in the telescope! I can’t quite believe it has taken me so long to locate because it is rather large and bright. M5 was very pretty in the eyepiece and I enjoyed observing it for a good ten mins or so. M5 is 165 light years in diameter and one of the largest globular clusters known. It is 24,500 light years away from Earth and is a staggering 13 billion years old; one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way. M5 contains more than 100,000 stars. Indeed, some estimates are as high as 500,000.

– M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

Another target I have been trying to observe for ages; once again, ‘Turn Left at Orion’ saves the day. M101 was very, very, faint. Indeed, I think this was because the evening was rather bright and I did not stay out too late this evening because of a horrible cold/sore throat that was creeping up on me. However, I did glimpse at the photons that left M101 21 million years ago, long, long, long before humans had even evolved. M101 is a staggeringly large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light years; it’s 70% more massive than the Milky Way. In my small telescope I was unable to see any of the features that give M101 its common name, the Pinwheel Galaxy; it really was a very faint fuzzy. However, I was still chuffed to find and observe it and I bet it will look much better under dark skies.

– M29: The Cooling Tower

This easy-to-find open cluster was rather pretty using a long focal length eyepiece and it is easy to see where M29 gets its common name from. It is a relatively young open cluster at around 10 million years old, and situated around 5,000 light years from Earth. It is also flying towards us at a staggering 28 km/s. Due to its location in a rich part of the Milky Way, M29 was beautiful to observe.

– M110: A Galaxy

Wow, M31 was amazing tonight and easily the best I have ever seen it. I spend a good 15 mins observing it and I was able to identify M110, one of M31’s satellite galaxies. And it appeared as a small, but bright fuzzy cloud. M101 is around 2.69 million light years from Earth.

– Gamma Delphini: A pretty double star

A lovely double star situated at the head of Delphinus, the Dolphin. It is 101 light years away and consisted of a yellow-white dwarf star and an orange subgiant star. Easy to find and easy to split, even at low magnifications.

July 31st 2014

Last night I was joined at the telescope by my 80 year old Grampa, Brian. He had never looked through a telescope at the night sky before; something I had to do something about. It just so happened that the evening cleared up nicely, so we decided to head out into the field behind his house and hunt planets, double-stars and Messier objects.

Our first target was Saturn, the jewel of our solar system. For the first time in his 80 years on planet Earth, photons reflected off the ringed planet hit his retinas (actually, thinking about it I should say ‘resolved’ photons, because it is highly likely he has seen light reflected off of Saturn before, even accidently). He loved it. “That’s beautiful”, he muttered under his breath as we stood in a pasture field in the heart of the British countryside. Saturn is somewhat low in the evening sky now, and the atmosphere was rather turbulent, but he could clearly see the elliptical shape of the rings surrounding the planet. A job well done.

Next we looked at some pretty double stars, Mizar + Alcor and Albireo, which he thought were stunning. He also enjoyed learning that binary stars even exist!

Now that the sky was becoming darker, we observed M27: The Dumbbell Nebula , which he was able to see as an “apple-core shaped cloud”. Grandpa enjoyed viewing this, but he enjoyed learning about what he was looking at even more. Indeed, his mind was blown by the fact M27 is two light years in diameter and over 1,200 light years away.

Next we looked at M13, the great globular cluster in Hercules, which contains some of the oldest stars in the universe. He really loved this one and was able to find it himself using his binoculars; a stellar effort.

Then we located the Double Cluster; another beautiful target, which Grampa thought was lovely.

Finally, just before the cloud rolled in, we observed M81 and M82, the first galaxies he has ever seen outside the Milky Way!

Just after looking at M81 the cloud rolled in and put an end to things. I had an absolutely lovely time showing my Grampa these targets and I know he did, too. I was able to make some great memories last night and I hope there are many more to forge in the future. He was also very happy to hear the voices of two species of British owls, which he thought had left the local area. A night well spent and one I won’t forget quickly.

19th August 2014

First entry in here for a while. However, this is not because I have not been using my telescope. On the contrary, I have had a lot of evenings out with the telescope, but I have not focussed on finding new objects. Indeed, I have been doing a lot of lunar viewing and sharing the evenings with other people, by showing them all the targets I have learned to find in the sky and telling them all the information I have learned about them. I also set-up the telescope outside my house one evening, which meant lots of passers-by were able to observe the Moon and Saturn (I have written about this experience here). Anyway, tonight, on the 19th of August, Kerrie and I drove to a dark location just outside of town and set ourselves up with a flask of tea and some strawberries with cream…very posh. It was a relatively clear night, but at around 11 pm the clouds rolled in a put an end to things. I did, however, get to observe two new Messier objects, including M15 anf M16, which are described below.

– M15: Globular cluster

M15 is a easy-to-find globular cluster located in the constellation Pegasus. It is around 12 billion years old, 175 light years in diameter, and contains over 100,000 stars. Indeed, M15 is one of the most densely packed globular clusters in the galaxy. The light we see from M15 today is 33,600 years old. M15 appeared small, but bright in my telescope. The image below shows M15 captured by the Hubble telescope.

– M16: The Eagle Nebula

I think I have observed this nebula before, but tonight I was able to be confident in my identification. M16 appears as a very large cloud in my telescope and is easy to find, too. M16 is a diffuse emission nebula (similar to the Ring Nebula), which is 7000 light years away and 15 light years in diameter. M16 contains some amazing sights and some of the Hubble images of this region are mind blowing (see below).

Kerrie and I captured these fun photographs of our observation site in Buckinghamshire, England:

23rd August 2014

This weekend we celebrated Ryan’s (Kerrie’s brother) birthday with a camping trip to a vineyard in the middle of Devon (10 Acres Vineyard; an amazing camp-site that’s well worth the visit). The camp-site was located near the small town of Winkleigh, which is situated in a black-zone dark-sky. After an evening of eating, drinking and having fun, the sun set and I set-up my telescope under unbelievably clear, dark skies; easily one of the darkest I have ever seen in England. By around 23:00 I could see the Milky Way as clear as anything, stretching from Perseus all the way to Sagittarius. Indeed, the Milky Way was so clear that I was easily able to see all of the ‘dark patches’ (e.g., the Cygnus rift) caused my molecular dust clouds outside our solar system. Just being able to see the Milky Way like this would have been good enough for me, but as I had lugged my telescope all the way down South, I had to have a slew across the sky, too.

My first target under this incredible dark-sky, was M13, the Great Globular cluster in Hercules. I have observed M13 many, many times over the last few weeks. However, this was 100% the best I have ever seen it. It was beautiful. It was so clear and dark that I was able to observe the cluster with my 6mm eyepiece (x 108) and the number of stars I was able to see using peripheral vision was outstanding. This really made me understand how a dark-sky can do wonders for even small telescopes. Indeed, I think M13 looked just as good this evening as when I observed it using an 8 inch reflector under Bristol’s bright, light pollutes skies.

Next I slewed over to M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Once again, all I can say is ‘wow’! This was easily the best and brightest I have ever seen it. Back in my hometown in Buckinghamshire (which is also actually a pretty dark sky) M31 fills just over a ¼ of my 15 mm Plossl eyepiece. Tonight in Devon, M31 filled up nearly the entire eyepiece! It was truly incredible. M31’s satellite galaxies (M32 and M110) were also very bright indeed. A truly a spectacular sight and I was able to share the views with a few of the people who had not yet hit the hay.

Next I browsed over the epically impressive constellation Sagittarius. Once again, I stumbled across so many deep sky objects that I was unable to identify all of them. I was, however, able to add three new DSOs to my ‘Astronomy Log’. These were M17, M22 and M28.

– M17: The Swan Nebula

M17, the Swan Nebula, was beautiful and it was easy to see how it gets its name; it really does look like a crude drawing of a swan. The Swan nebula is around 5500 light years from earth and is a staggering 15 light years in diameter. I spent a while on this object, allowing my eyes to really adjust to the image and memorising its shape and location. This image below shows a sketch of M17 made by John Herschel in 1833 and is not too dissimilar to what I saw through the eyepiece.

– M22: A globular cluster

M22 is one of the closest globular clusters to Earth, at a distance of 10,600 light years. It is around 50 light years across and it was the first globular cluster to be discovered.

– M28: A globular cluster

Another globular cluster. M28 was small and rather dim in my telescope, but I was able to identify it accurately due to its close proximity to the star ‘Kaus Borealis’, which makes up the lid of the teapot in Sagittarius. M28 is 17,900 light years from Earth and 12 billion years old.

– M45: An open cluster

M45, or Pleiades, is a beautiful, easy-to-find open cluster in the constellation Taurus. Although this was not my first time observing M45, it was the first time I have looked at it through a telescope. M45 is possibly the most famous and beautiful open clusters in the sky and if you have not seen it before, grab a pair of any old binoculars and observe it; you will not be disappointed. By astronomical standards, M45 is but a baby and its stars are only around 100 million years old. The stars are hot blue, extremely luminous and are situated around 400 light years from Earth. It has been estimated M45 will survive another 250 million years before gravitational interactions will spread the open cluster apart.

Through the telescope, the cluster is somewhat less impressive than through binoculars, purely because of the large area of sky M45 covers. However, using a 30 mm Plossl eyepiece with a wide field of view, M45 could just about squeeze in, resulting in a pretty image. M45 definitely looks better through binoculars.

After a brief period of time trying to locate Neptune and Uranus (there were just too many stars visible tonight, which really confused things) whilst being frozen to the bone and with dew forming on the eyepieces, I decided to call it a night and what a night it was. I will not easily forget this weekend and it reminded me that the UK still does have great, dark skies to offer.

26th August 2014

After a grey, damp and miserable day, the clouds decided to clear up at around 22:00 resulting in an unexpected and impromptu astronomy session.

As soon as I set-up my telescope I had a quick look at M31, the Andromeda galaxy. Boy, this target looked so much different to when I saw it down in Devon just a few days ago. It is amazing (and also rather sad) what even a small amount of light pollution can do to observing DSO. Last night M31 definitely took up less than ¼ of my 15 mm eyepiece, whereas in Devon, it took up nearly the whole eyepiece…unbelievable really.

Anyway, I spotted myself three new objects this evening, so let’s start with the first, Messier 2.

– M2: A Globular cluster

This Messier object was very easy to find in the sky and was pleasant to observe. M2 appeared small and dense in my eyepiece. However, this bright globular cluster is one of the largest of its kind at a whopping 174 light years in diameter. Is appears smaller in the eyepiece due to the fact it contains less stars than M13 (which is 168 light years in diameter and contains over 300,000 stars; M2 contains around 150,000). Both M2 and M13, however, are dwarfed by the largest globular cluster in the galaxy, Omega Centauri , which resides in the Southern constellation, Centaurs. This is a bit of a digression, but I was lucky enough to observe Omega Centauri during my three years of living in New Zealand. I actually visited the Mt John Observatory at Lake Tekapo. Here, I looked at the colossal globular cluster with a 0.6 m (23 inch!) reflector, which was mind blowing. Omega Centauri is 150 light years in diameter and contains over 10 million stars… it was incredible. Anyway, back to M2. The image below is a Hubble photograph of M2.

– Almaak: A double star

Almaak is a beautiful double star located in Andromeda; easy to find and easy to split at high magnification. This binary system is close, with only 10 arc seconds separating the two main components. There is also a lovely contrast of colours here, with one star being a larger golden yellow star and the other a smaller indigo blue star. The smaller blue star also has two other stars orbiting it, although I was not able to resolve these in my telescope. So although Almaak appears to the naked eye as a single star, it is actually a quadruple stars system 350 light years away from Earth. I will definitely keep this one as a ‘go to’ example of a binary star system (along with Albireo and Mizar).

– Neptune: 8th Planet from the Sun

Neptune was tricky to find, far trickier than I originally thought. However, after a good 30 or so minutes of browsing around Aquarius, with Stellerium loaded up on my Android, I finally located Neptune (with 90% confidence). For the first time in my life I observed photons reflected off of the furthest planet in the solar system. I’m not going to lie, this was a really exciting moment for me. Neptune appeared very small in my telescope, even at high power (x 216). Like maybe the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence. But it was possible to see it as a (small) disk, as opposed to a point of light, which is what a star looks like at high magnification. It was also a distinct blue colour, unlike any star I have seen before and it looks similar to what the Earth would look like from afar (e.g., from Saturn), apparently. Now, once again, one of my astronomy mottos comes into place. Visual astronomy is not so much about what the eyes see, but what your mind can begin to comprehend. That small ‘full-stop-sized-blue-blob’ is another planet, a gas ice-giant with a volume of 57 Earths, situated 4.5 billion kilometres away. This means the light that hit my eyes from Neptune was 8 hours old (it takes light 4.1 hours to get from the Sun to Neptune and another 4 light hours to come back to Earth!). When I observe Saturn in my telescope, the light reflected back to Earth is only 2.5 hours old. If you were to fly to Neptune on a British Airways jumbo jet (travelling at 900 km/h) it would take 547.2 years; I think all the Gin would run out in that time, too. In theory, you could have 30 generations of decedents during that flight to Neptune. Due to Neptune’s colossal distant from the Sun, it is home to one of the most extreme and cold environments in the Solar System. Indeed, the temperature in Neptune’s clouds reaches -218°C. Furthermore, the strongest winds in the Solar System can be found encompassing Neptune, where wind speeds of up to 2,100 km/h have been recorded. It is when you think about all these crazy facts that the faint blue dot transforms itself into an intricate thing of beauty.

The image blow shows photographs of Neptune captured by the Hubble telescope. These are some of the best images of Neptune captured by a 2.4 m mirror costing $2.5 billion. When you see these pictures it makes you realise how far away Neptune is, and it also makes me feel good that I can even see it as a (very small) blue-disk in a 130 mm reflector.

31/08/2014

After a long drive back to Buckinghamshire after a lovely weekend down in Poole, I arrived home to a beautiful clear sky. A very pretty waxing crescent was setting over in the South West, which was nice enough, but Saturn was also situated right above the Moon and was visible in the same field of view in my telescope. This really was a cool sight, and it really makes you realise just how huge Saturn must be, because even though it is around 1.2 billion kilometres away, it is by no means a tiny dot compared to the Moon. Unfortunately, by the time I set-up my telescope in the garden, the Moon was already setting behind some bushes in my garden, which means the only photo I was able to capture turned out terrible. This was mainly because the camera on my phone kept trying to focus on the out-of-focus branches that were in front of the Moon. I have not included my photo below of the relatively close cosmic encounter (mine turned out terrible), but I have included a photo captured by Reddit user ‘AstronEmma’, who used a similar set-up to me.

– Epsilon Lyrae: The double-double

The astronomy session that followed was probably one of the best I have had so far. The sky was very clear, dark and incredibly stable. Indeed, the seeing was so good that even Vega did not appear to twinkle. With Vega in mind I started my evening trying to split Epsilon Lyrae, the famous double-double. Although I have observed this beautiful binary system before, I have never been able to split these stars in my telescope. Tonight, however, was different. Using a Barlow lens and a 6 mm Plossl (x 216) I was able to split the double-double. They were still very close to each other, but they were just about visible as two sets of binary star (Epison2 was much easier to split into two than Epison1). After viewing the double-double I started hunting new Deep Sky objects using both my trusted copy of ‘Turn Left at Orion’ and my mobile phone copy of ‘Stellarium’.

– IC 4665: An open cluster

Whilst trying to located M14 (a globular cluster in Ophiuchus) I stumbled across a pretty open cluster that I soon identified as IC 4665. This open cluster is 1,400 light years from Earth and contains around 30 stars. This was lovely to observe in both my 30 and 15mm eyepieces.

– M103: An open cluster

This pleasant open cluster was my 30th Messier Object I have observed since May 2014. Found in the constellation Cassiopeia, M103 is located 9,500 light years away, making it one of the most distant open clusters known. M103 made for a pretty sight in the eyepiece and its brightest stars make up a bright triangle, which can be seen in the short-exposure photograph shown below.

– NGC 457: An open cluster

I found this cute little cluster whilst trying to find M103 and it’s easy to see how it got its nickname the E.T cluster; it really does look like the shape of the little alien. The image below shows a sketching of NGC 457 made by ‘Star Observer’ (Math Heijen, whose excellent website is http://www.starobserver.eu/) and is very similar to what you see down the eyepiece. I think this cluster looks like a combination of E.T and Jonny 5.

– NGC 654 & NGC 659: Two open clusters

Two pretty open clusters in Cassiopeia.

– Eta Cassiopeiae: Binary Star

Eta Cassiopeiae was a rather tricky-to-split double star. At high magnification (108x and 216x) I was able to observe the far smaller 7th magnitude companion star, which was far smaller and a red colour.

– M39: Open Cluster

A large and bright open cluster situated just behind Deneb in Cygnus. Easy to locate and observe in binoculars. I observed M39 at low power using a 30 mm eyepiece.

– M34: An open cluster

M34 was the final open cluster I observed in the evening and it was easy to locate between the ancient married couple Andromeda and Persius. This was but a white smudge in binoculars, but through the telescope the cluster came to life and many stars could be resolved.

– M33: Galaxy

M33 was the final target after a brilliant and productive night. I have tried to find M33 numerous times over the last few observing sessions, however, to date I have not been able to see it at all. Just before 00.00, when Andromeda (and Triangulum) was far higher in the sky, I manages to locate this elusive and shy galaxy (well, it’s shy under even mildly light-polluted skies). It was a very, very faint fuzzy in my eyepiece (I could see no structure at all, just a white, wispy cloud), but I could see it all the same, especially using averted vision. M33 is 3 million light years from Earth and is the third largest galaxy in the local group. The galaxy is 50,000 light years in diameter and is the home to over 50 billion stars (compared to 400 billion within the Milky Way and the 1 trillion stars in the Andromeda Galaxy).

M33 is a vital member of the Bortle Scale, which estimates the darkness of the sky and the impact of light pollution. Using this scale, I estimate my hometown’s Bortle Scale to have a number of 6.6, which means a Rural Sky/Rural-suburban transition.

The image below shows a stunning photograph of M33 captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Here, it is easy to see where it got its nickname “The Pinwheel Galaxy” from.

After I observed M33 the cloud rolled in and I hit the hay. All-in-all, a fantastic night behind the eyepiece and I ticked off quite a few objects.

02/09/2014

A lovely First Quarter Moon was up in the sky, but as soon as darkness fell, the clouds rolled in, which meant I was unable to observe my favourite phase of the Moon. At around 22:30, however, the skies cleared up nicely and I was able to have a good old star gaze…literally because this evening I focussed solely on stars and double star systems.

– Struve 2816 and 2819

The Garnet star, or Mu Cephei, was my first target of the evening. This famous star got its colloquial name from William Herschel who described it as “a very fine deep garnet colour”. Now, this star is famous for many reasons. Firstly, Mu Cephei acts as an astronomical anchor point, meaning that the spectrum of this star has been used for classifying other stars in the Milky Way. Secondly, the Garnet Star is a super-massive red giant and one of the largest known stars in the Milky Way and the largest visible to the naked eye. Indeed, if our sun was replaced with the Garnet star it would engulf all of the planets up to Saturn and almost one billion suns could be fit into its volume. This really is a colossal star, which was an obvious dark-red/orange

– Struve 2816 and 2819

Struve 2816 was the first multiple star system I have ever observed and is consisted of three individual stars that are gravitationally bound to each other…pretty cool. The star is located in the constellation Cephus and it’s relatively easy to find, too. I really liked this star system and observed it for a good ten mins, imagining what the sky must look like from a planet orbiting one of the stars.

04/11/2014

I know this is the first log-entry in a long time, but that is not to say I have not been out with the scope; I have just not ticked-off any new Messier objects since September. Indeed, in the very few clear nights, there has either been a full moon, or a bright moon, ruining the views of the heavens. Consequently, my astronomy has been limited to lunar, and double-star hunting.

Anyway, this morning I woke up at 5.00 am to a crystal-clear and dark sky, so I quickly put on a warm coat and dragged the telescope into the garden. Orion was relatively high over the South-Western horizon and it allowed me to glimpse at the magnificent Orion Nebula M42 for the first time through my telescope.

– M42: The Great Orion Nebula

M42 was a piece of cake to find in the telescope; it is so large and bright in the sky that is it just about visible to the naked eye. It appeared as a large, grey cloud in the eyepiece and is easily the largest nebula I have seen in my telescope (indeed, it is one of the largest diffuse nebula in the sky). Due to that fact I was observing this with a warm telescope (I did not have time to wait for the mirror and tube to cool and fog was creeping up on the Western horizon), I don’t believe I had the best views of M42, and I was unable to resolve the famous ‘Trapezium’ collection of stars.

After looking at M42 for a short time, the fog was really beginning to creep over the whole sky. Before that happened, I took one quick look at Jupiter, the king of the planets, who now resides between Leo and Cancer. Again, I was not able to get crystal-clear views due to a warm tube, but I was able to make out Jupiter’s four bright moons and two equatorial bands.

After a few minutes of watching Jupiter, the whole sky was covered in a thick, low fog and I went back to bed for a few hours sleep. All-in-all, it was worth the early start. However, I am looking forward to viewing M42 and Jupiter again with a cold scope.

12/11/2014

What was a horrible, wet and cold evening actually turned into a lovely clear evening, so at around 22:00 I set up my scope outside to catch me some Messier objects. Whilst my scope was cooling down to air-temperature, I had a quick look at the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Even though I have seen this galaxy many times now, I still really love looking at it. It appears to be the more you observe DSOs, the more detail you can begin to tease out of the images (or maybe it is just my eyes playing tricks, who knows?).

Anyway, I suddenly caught a bright light in the corner of my eye and turn to see what it was. It was the brightest meteor (shooting star) I have ever seen (22:29; North-South; low in the sky). I watched it for a good 4 seconds before it completely burned up; I was so excited that I called Kerrie straight away. I was very lucky to capture it, but I was also a bit peeved I did not see the whole thing, because behind the point where I first noticed it was a huge, thin cloud (tail) that streaked right across the sky! I bet it would have been amazing to see the whole thing. The cloud of smoke it left behind stretched from North-West all the way across the Zenith to the South-East. It was so bright when I noticed it towards the end of its journey (definitely brighter than Venus) that I can only imagine how bright it must have been during its first impact with the atmosphere. This prompted me to record the incident on “http://thelatestworldwidemeteorreports.blogspot.co.uk/”. Interestingly, there was one other report of this meteor from a Chris Cullen in Aylesbury, which shows that I was not the only one to see it!

– M37

A beautiful open cluster located in the dominant constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer. Very pretty in a wide-field eye piece and contains over 500 stars.

– M36 and M38

Two lovely open clusters. Both less densely packed than M37, but still pretty in the eyepiece.

14/11/2014

Tonight was my friend Ben’s birthday, so a few of us went out for a meal and a little trip to the casino. After a great night out, and a fair few pints (and beating the casino; after a few lucky hands of blackjack, my whole night had been paid for by the house), I arrived back home at around 00:30 hrs to a lovely clear and dark sky. My head was telling me to go to sleep, but my slightly-drunk heart told me to set up the scope in the garden. So I did and enjoyed a lovely end to the evening under the stars; well, towards the end of my session, the last-quarter moon made and appearance.

– M1: The Crab Nebula

Tonight was the first time that I have observed the Crab Nebula, the first object in Messier’s famous list, M1. is M1 is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The supernova that produced the Crab Nebula was observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 and was so bright that it was visible during the day!

M1 is 6,500 light years away from Earth and has a diameter of 11 light years. At the centre of the nebula is a neutron star, only 30 km across, which spins at a rate of 30.2 times a second!

M1 appeared as a rounded patch of white cloud, which was actually a lot larger than I thought it would be. No detail at all was visible through my small telescope and it really was a fuzzy blob. However, once again, when you think about what M1 actually is, it makes it all worth it.

– M35& NGC 2158/strong>

Messier 35, a lovely open cluster in Gemini, was the other new object I observed tonight. What a pretty sight. This bright and large (it takes up around the same area of sky as the full moon) cluster was pleasant under both low and high power. M35 is located around 2,800 light years from Earth and contains thousands of stars. NGC 2158, which is located just to the right of M35, is older, more dense and contains many more stars.

Finally, here are some of my Moon and Jupiter photos I managed to capture with my smartphone. When these photos were taken, a fine-wispy fog moved slowly across the sky, bidding the end to a fun night.

24/11/2014

– Uranus, the 7th planet from the Sun.

Tonight I set-up the telescope in our new flat in Bristol for the first time. We have a great South-facing balcony, which means there is perfect elliptic viewing to be had (Sun during the day, planets and Moon at night). Although I was observing from pretty much central Bristol, I was surprised by how many stars I could actually see! I could easily make out M42, M31 and numerous 4/5th magnitude stars. Although, inevitably, it is brighter than my observing location in Buckinghamshire, I was very happy with the new ‘urban’ astronomy location.

It was my goal this evening to finally track down the elusive Uranus. After studying the star-charts on Stellarium for a few minutes, it was apparent that locating Uranus should not be too difficult. This is because Uranus is currently situated below a relatively bright star (Delta Piscium) in Pisces, just below the easily-identifiable ‘Great Square of Pegasus’. The three stars shown below (right) make for a very easy target, with Uranus found just below the forth bright star.

Once I have Uranus in my sights (and I was 100% sure I was looking at the ice giant and not some star), I whacked up the magnification to full-power.

December 2014:

– Geminid meteor shower; 13/14th December 2014

After a rather cloudy day and early evening, the sky-gods changed their mind and granted clear skies over Bristol for the peak of the 2014 meteor shower. We headed out of Bristol’s light-polluted skies to the outskirts of Chew Magna and set-up base on the edge of a farm. What a spectacular shower we were treated to! Shooting star after shooting star flew over our heads; definitely the best shower this year. It was a freezing cold evening and by the end, my telescope was almost frozen solid. In between watching shooting stars we got amazing views of Jupiter, M42 (including an easily resolved Trapezium!) and M44. M44, also known as the Beehive Cluster, is a huger open cluster currently situated right next to Jupiter (as of 2014/2015). It is a beautiful object in binoculars and a low-powered telescope. It is one of the nearest open cluster to Earth and contains over 1000 gravitationally-bound stars.

We were then joined by a very friendly, and very cold, farm cat. She was also a keen astronomer and even had a peek down the telescope.

All in all, a great Geminid meteor shower this year and looking forward to the next shower.

January 2015

A rather slow start to the year in terms of astronomy; living under light-polluted skies has drastically reduced the number of objects visible in the sky and I have been very limited to planetary observing. This month, however, saw a close call between Mercury and Venus, which allowed me to observe both planets for the first time (through my telescope). This now means that I have observed every planet in the solar system through my telescope! Both planets were relatively close to each other low on the Western horizon; a pretty naked eye conjunction.

– Comet Lovejoy

This month Comet Lovejoy (C/2014Q2) graced our skies with its greenish tint. It was relatively easy to locate Comet Lovejoy, because on the night I first observed it, she was very close M45, the Seven Sisters. This was the first comet I have ever seen through my telescope, but even under Bristol’s light-polluted skies it was quite a sight. It was very similar in appearance to M13, the great globular cluster in Hercules, but with a faint greenish tint. It was amazing to observe and track its motion across the sky each night. I felt lucky to observe this cosmic wander, who will not be back in our skies for 8000 years.

– Jan 23rd, 2015; Triple Moon Transit: Jupiter

I also observed a rare ‘triple moon transit’ on Jupiter this month. Callisto, Io and Europa all passed in front of the planet Jupiter, meaning only one moon was visible orbiting Jupiter (Ganymede). This will not be seen again until 2032, so I’m glad I set the alarm for 5 am on a Saturday morning (and it was clear!). Bad seeing and my small telescope were to blame for me not being able to observe the shadows transiting Jupiter, but it was still cool to only see one moon orbiting Jupiter.

February, 2015

This month was mainly focussed on observing Jupiter, which was at opposition early in the month. Wow, what a stunning sight Jupiter is through a telescope; I never get bored of him.He changes every day; the moons are in different positions and the two bright bands change their appearance, too. I was clearly able to see details on the main bands, but I am not quite sure I have been able to see the giant red spot yet.

March, 2015

– Partial Solar Eclipse, March, 2015

I was very excited about the partial solar eclipse this month and I had everything crossed for a clear morning. I arrived at work early to set-up the telescope and it stared off rather cloudy. However, just 5 mins before the eclipse was due to start, some of the clouds cleared, and I was able to observe the Sun through my telescope (using a solar filter, of course). I was incredibly lucky and was able to observe the whole eclipse from first contact to final contact. It was an amazing experience and although the Sun was ‘only’ eclipsed by 85%, it still led to an eerie semi-twilight and the birds stopped singing. It also became noticeably colder. This was not a day I would forget easily and I finished the evening with a few bottles of Tribute (St Austell ale) listening to Pink Floyd’s ‘DSOtM’ on vinyl; the perfect end to an awesome day!

April, 2015

– Leo triplet

Leo is well placed this month for a bit of Galaxy hunting, so I headed away from Bristol’s light polluted skies down to the Mendip Hills. I had tried on a few previous occasions to observe the Leo Triplet galaxies, but to no avail. However, on a particularly clear and dark evening in April, 2015 I was able to observe this beautiful triplet of galaxies. These are the first new galaxies I have observed for a long time and it was really exciting finding them in the eyepiece for the first time. This small cluster of galaxies is 35 million light years away from Earth, meaning the faint light that struck my retinas was 35 million years old.

– M96 Group

The M96 group is a cluster of galaxies in Leo consisting of, inter alia, M105, M96 and M95. I had tried to locate these galazies a number of time but to no avail. However, on the same night I located the Leo triplet, these also jumped out at me. These are a pretty group of galaxies, ranging in brightness and morphology. M105 is 32 million light years from Earth; a similar distance to the Leo triplet.

– Virgo Cluster

I have been looking forward to observing this cluster for a long time and last week the weather permitted a great night of galaxy observing. Just one look at a star chart tells us just how many galaxies there are in the Virgo Cluster, and it’s mind-boggling. However, I had no idea how many would be visible in a small telescope under mediocre skies! I observed so many galaxies I that could not even identify them, all I know is I definitely observed M60, M87 and M49. If you ever get the chance to observe this area of sky with a telescope, seize it; it’s definitely one of my new favourites! Whilst I was scoping out this area of sky, I could not help but be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of stars that I must have observed; billions and billions of them! Each one likely containing its own planetary system; there must have been something, somewhere, looking back at us that night…surely.

The Virgo galaxy cluster is around 53 million light years away and it consists of around 1300 individual galaxies. Of all the galaxies I was able to observe M87 was definitely the brightest. M87 is a staggering 53.5 million light years away and contains a very high number of globular clusters (over 12,000 compared to the Milky Ways 150-200).

I am very much looking forward to observing the Virgo cluster under darker skies, and, one day, using a bigger telescope. This area of the sky must be staggering in a large Dobsonian.