Observing report -- July 1, 2011

It's been four weeks of cloudy, crappy weather, but the clouds FINALLY cleared up tonight. I thought about heading to the dark site on the side of Seymour Mountain, but decided to keep it local and casual instead; I headed over to the local park with my dad.

We got out around 10pm and set up our lawn chairs to watch the stars slowly, slowly come out. It's not terribly dark at this park -- nearby street lights are visible, and we don't really have any way of shielding ourselves -- but it is nice and close.

We watched for an Iridium flare at 11:15pm...no luck. I got to show my dad Albireo, M13 and a bunch of satellites. I'd hoped to show him Saturn, but it was behind the trees by the time we got out. About 11.30, he headed in for the night.

After he left I got down to some serious observing (modulo the fact that I'm still a newbie). First on the list were some double stars. I tried splitting the Double-Double but no luck -- just a double tonight. I did split Eta Cassiopeiae, though I couldn't see any colour difference. (The last time I looked up Eta it was winter -- it's weird to think of Cassiopeia being up in the summer!). Ras Algethi was pretty, and held up to the high magification needed -- it took 240X to split it, and that did not seem unreasonable. The pair seemed orange and blue-green to me. Very pretty.

Next up were a couple of globular clusters. I started with M13, and spent about ten minutes underneath an astronomy-quality t-shirt, trying to let my eyes adapt and trying different magnfications. Having just read Rod Molise' "Urban Astronomy", I was enthusiastic to try high magnifications...but I gotta say, it was nearly invisible at 150X. Yes, it's a 4.5" scope on a night of probably not-great seeing, and my eyes never really dark-adapted, but I exptected more. At least at 75X I can see it. There might have been some little hint of graininess at higher powers, but nothing I could see with confidence. I'm willing to put this down to equal parts inexperience, lack of dark adaptation, impatience and smaller aperture.

I looked up M5 for comparison, and found it about to head behind some trees. I was surprised at how obvious it was in binoculars and the finder, and I agree with Molise' opinion that it at least rivals M13. Maybe the tiniest hint of graininess, but, but again I'm really not sure.

I saw M57 for the first time. Maybe saw the hole at higher powers (120x) but I can't say for sure. The sightq was a bit disappointing for me. I found myself wishing for the open clusters that abound in winter time; they're pretty and really shine in the small scope. And it was nice that there was no moon, but without a planet to look at I felt a bit lonely.

After a second look at Albireo (colours much better in the dark!), I packed it in about 1am. Even though I missed some favourite targets, it was so good to get out after the long, long drought.