First light for the year

Observations - Friday, 24 Feb. 2012.

Despite the light polution of suburban Melbourne, Friday was a beautiful clear night, so I dragged the scope out onto the front step for a quick sweep around the sky.

Clear night. No moon. Very little haze. About a Mag4 on the GaN light pollution charts.

Mars - First time observed through the 8". Very bright. Distinctly a disc, burnt orange colour. Unable to make out any real detail, so shattered dreams of seeing 'canals' and polar caps. Reality is like that. However, will try again and may get different results in different atmospheric conditions.

Orion nebula (M42) - Beautiful! Loving the 8" for this. Any greenish colour is probably more imagined than actually with this scope and this sky tonight, but could make out the nebula and four embedded stars very nicely.

Betelgeuse - bright point of orange light. Disappointingly completely failed to supernova while being observed. Will try again soon.

Crux - on a whim checked out the stars of the Southern Cross.

Carina - after waving Google Sky and SkyEye around a bit I realised that Carina was just about 'there', so checked it out. Stumbled across a beautiful Globular Cluster (?) while casting about which I will have to make a point of identifying next time. Then found the nebula (NGC 3372)
:) Very happy with that, my second nebula with the new telescope.

Saturn - finally! Saturn was high enough to put the scope on. Wowzah... Saturn always blows my mind. Looked great through both the 10mm and 25mm EPs. The rings are currently at that classic angle.



(Image credit: Picked up from the 'Starts With a Bang' Blog, which credits it as "Earth-based telescope, retrieved from SolarSystemQuick.com.")

I wish I could make out that much detail! But very happy with what I could see.

Content with that, picked up the scope and staggered inside to go to bed.

Equipment

Picked up for the family last year a Saxon 8" reflector on a Dobsonian mount.

Loving the new light bucket! Very glad I went with the 8" aperture instead of spending the money on the fancier mounted but smaller 6" on an Equatorial mount.

Will eventually pick up a motorised GoTo pack for the Dobsonian base, but for now doing ok adjusting by hand as I improve my constellations knowledge and practice hopping around the sky.

The finder scope on the Dobby, once dialed in is very accurate as well. Actually, it was initially a shock that the view through the finder scope was better than the view through my old original Tasco 50mm refractor. Although in all fairness that old thing is easily 30 years old.

2012

OK - new blog to record what I've looked at, where and when and associated ideas.

Hoping for a good year of clear skies and dark nights!

Lets go.