Last night's (01/17/2015) Observation session at Burton's
Tim Vent
When we arrived, the sky was covered in clouds, but the few of us that were there early decided to go ahead and set up anyway.
As we set up, more and more people arrived and the clouds magically "lifted" for us all!
As the night progressed, the temperature was wonderful, there was food!, and there was a wonderful turnout.
I didn't realize it last night, but it's been about a year now since Spencer and I first came out to an observation session.
My how time flies!
I'd have to say, if we had to rate all the observation sessions that we have attended since we started - Last night was at the top of the list!
(not that any of them have been anything less than great, but last night was umm... stellar!)
Oh, I probably should mention a little about what we looked at :)
The Comet Lovejoy was of course a hot item. High in the sky! Everyone was able to see it via binoculars and/or several different types of telescopes.
M42 against that wonderful sky was truly a piece of art.
The Pleiades M45 was at zenith (pronounced zen-ith, not zee-nith, holding true to it's Middle English, French, Old Spanish, and Arabic root - Thanks to Bill Busler for pointing that out. :)
Jupiter came out for a little while. None of us were sure if it was coming or going, but we were able to see one of it's moons JUST ABOUT to make a transit.
M78 was of course, nice.
M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and M101 were high in the sky.
Several of us pointed our scopes at The Horsehead nebula, but true to my experiences with it, no one was actually able to "see" it more than just a faint line.
(I was actually relieved to learn that it isn't really an "observation target." All these years I thought I was doing something wrong since I've never been able to actually see it.)
After a few hours, the clouds returned but everyone had such a wonderful time I don't think any of us felt any contempt toward them at all.
What a great night!
Freddy Diaz
I agree with Tim, last night was a great observing night!
I dedicated most of my time to image the Comet Lovejoy and posted the result (that pretty much resembles what we saw through the eyepiece).
Details at http://memphisastronomer.com/Astronomy/PoD
Hope you like it
Freddy
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Freddy Diaz
From: Kenneth J Winters <winters_...@lilly.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 7:09 AM
Subject: RE: [MemphisAstro:884] Last night's (01/17/2015) Observation session at Burton's
To: Freddy Diaz <freddy...@gmail.com>
Cc: "memphi...@googlegroups.com" <memphi...@googlegroups.com>
Freddy,
Great photo and I agree that it reflects what we could see in the eyepiece Sat PM (Comet Lovejoy’s nucleus/coma but no tail even though the seeing was very good Sat PM).
Interestingly, last night (Sun PM) I went back to Burton’s with Brian Hancock and Michael Wood and in three different telescope/big bino setups we could see Comet Lovejoy’s tail quite readily (about 2 degrees long with “multiple streamers” in the tail). I could see the tail even in my handheld 15x45is binos. This was observed even though the seeing was not as steady as Sat PM—maybe better transparency but I am not certain if this would be enough to explain the difference observed?
Anyway, will be interesting to see if the comet tail “comes & goes” by eye and/or by imaging depending on atmospheric conditions in days/weeks ahead.
All in all, a great weekend!
Ken
