This time a total of 13 of us (the biggest number ever) had gone for observation to our northern location. We had
Sridhar's 4.5" Celestron and
Sathya's 6" equatorial with us. It was not very cloudy (thin haze
everywhere) in the evenings and
this had to happen ONLY on the day we went. It was a general observing
session in the night with
not many objects because the sky was lighted up from reflection of city
lights by the clouds. But
after 3 am or so (when I got up and became active) the session went in full-force. I
mainly concentrated for the
globulars in the sky and other general objects. We also saw the
Pojmanski comet for the first time. I hadn't taken a finder chart with
me this time and just from memory I found it. At the first glance it was
a breath-taking view, a bright coma. This object resembled a bright
globular cluster. Fantastic for how a comet should be. It was not
exactly like the 3 bigger and bright binocular level
ones I had seen in 2004
and 2005. But it
showed signs of some thin
haze going towards the west. That had to be the tail. It was very thin,
dim and merged into the
sky color after some distance. I also attempted for the planetary
nebula in the open Messier
cluster M46. Tried a lot but without success.Everyone was having a
gala time during late night, listening to music, joking and laughing,
and just being together. Some had a sleep late night.
Then I decided to get up as it was around 3 am and we didn't want to be
sleeping all the time there, because we hadn't come for that. Also the
sky was looking tempting through the car window. After getting up and
coming out I decided to wake everyone up. After looking up, the sky after midnight was.....whew !!
Sagittarius Milky Way
was...!!! There are no words for it, so I won't be able to explain it in
more detail. It was the BEST and the THICKEST ever !! This time and for
the first time we
could see the ENTIRE
extent of the Milky Way whatever there is. And
the dark regions was just as clear as in any long exposure photograph.
Fantastic view after a long time.
The following is the list of my new objects :
1) Pojmanski Comet (a meaningless fuzzy object looking like M28 but with
slight hints of the very
dim tail pointing towards the west. The comet wasn't visible even with
10x50 Olympus binocular, just
no sign of it ! Nor had I noted the position of it from the sky chart.
Just had to push the
telescope to the right side from Beta Cap. Also saw it under slight
twilight but then it
appeared as a bright white object as if radiating light. No blue color
seen as mentioned in
internet)
2) M53 (globular - Coma)
3) M54 (globular - Sagittarius)
4) M55 (globular - Sagittarius)
5) M9 (globular - Ophiuchus)
6) NGC 6638 (globular - Sagittarius)
7) NGC 6624 (globular - Sagittarius)
8) NGC 6541 (globular - Corona Australis)
9) NGC 2808 (globular - Carina)
10) NGC 3201 (globular - Vela)
11) NGC 6388 (globular - Scorpius)
12) NGC 5286 (globular - Centaurus)
And the following objects are old in the list but were special:
1) M101 - Visible very dimly with binocular but with the instrument
visible as a big round haze
2) M57 - Appeared bigger than normal, central hole quite easily visible.
Appears always to me as a smoke-ring first and then also as a bubble
next
3) M51 - For the firs time I saw it with binocular as a very small and
hazy spot. And it's companion and it were wonderful with even the 4"
Celestron. Nucleus of both the colliding galaxies could be made out as
points of stars with the 4" Celestron
4) OMEGA CENTAURI - Incomparable !! It looked like a sparkling jewel,
nothing else
5) CENTAURUS A - Nothing but a point of light with a very slight haze
around it. But quite easy
with binocular and in the same field of a binocular. as Omega Centauri. Just as
dim as in the current
homepage photo
6) M83 - Visible as a hazy spot with binocular and surely showed something
more than round shape, but
I don't know what, probably the spiral feature
We had a
fantastic get-together this time, something which is not easy for our
small group to manage always because of difference in everyone's
schedule. I'm sure our group will remember this moment always.
