Monday, July 19, 2004

The view from the deck- It's been awhile since I've blogged about my telescoping (mis)adventures off the front deck of my house. Seen some neat sights, and missed a few too. Comet NEAT was very cool. I was able to see it barely with my eyes and quite well with a pair of bird spotting type binos at the end of the driveway. (Ouch! should have bothered to put on shoes.) It was pretty much in the trees when it was bright, so I couldn't train my scope on it. I did manage to get a peak as it passed between branches of a fir tree, just to say I did see it through my scope. Highlight was when it was by the Beehive Cluster - viewed with bino's. I'd been wanting to check out the Ring Nebula and got my chance. With my scope's low power I could see a faint patch with averted gaze...maybe a slight lessening in the middle. Switching to 'high' power brought a faint ring shape. No way could I see any color, nor a star in the middle, but I was happy just to find the thing! (Now I know how easy it is to find in Lyra.) Then there was the Blinking Nebula, NGC 6828. That night I'd missed out on a couple of other things, I discovered my mount does not like to point straight up. So as I kept one eye on the incoming clouds I flipped though my trusty Turn Left at Orion to see if the night would not be a total loss. It seems my scope maxes out around the 8th-9th magnitude stuff so I knew NGC 6828 was iffy. Racing against the approaching cloud band I was able to hone in on the right set of stars, then there it was winking in and out as I stared and averted my gaze. I reached down, grabbed my sketch log, and putting my eye to the glass was met with a field of white. The best was when the familys saw the ISS pass over one eve. We were all were very impressed. I swear I could make out a bit of its shape with the binos...at least it was not a speck like the starts it went by. 11:15:26 PM