September 8, 2000

With a waxing gibbous Moon in the southeastern sky, I really didn't give much hope for a good observing session, despite the clear skies. But the neighbor's boy Matt (about 12 years old) asked me if I would like to do some stargazing tonight. I told him that the Moon was going to be pretty bright tonight, and so it would be harder to see other stars. I told him he was more than welcome to bring out his telescope and look through it in my yard, even if I wasn't around.

He didn't seem to like the idea of observing alone, so I told him to look for me around dark. If he saw me outside, he was more than welcome to come over and I'd help him out. He's just starting to develop a love for the hobby, so its difficult for me to turn him down.

As evening progressed, I decided that I really hadn't looked at the Moon in quite a while, and I'd hate to quash the enthusiasm of a budding astronomer, so I got my gear and headed outdoors. Due to the Moon's bright presence, I didn't really have an observing plan, so I just took out a copy of the September Sky & Telescope magazine to use its monthly star chart.

Sure enough, within a few minutes, Matt was outside, bringing over his telescope. From previous sessions with me, he now knows how to set it up, but I noticed that his finderscope was way off center, and I helped him adjust it. He brought his mother out and impressed her with the knowledge of where the Big Dipper and the North Star were. She thinks its great that he's learning the night sky and is encouraging him to continue.

With his finderscope lined up, he was better able to find things, and before long had found a double star and some other objects. But he eventually returned back to the Moon to see how many craters he could detect.

He packed it in around 10:00pm or so. I decided that the weather and skies were too good to pass up, so I settled in for a little Messier Hunting. I took quick peeks at M31 in Andromeda, and M13 and M92 in Hercules before deciding what my observing plan would be.

I remembered that I hadn't yet logged M52, so thought I'd look it up. At low power, I could detect one or two stars within a smudge of nebulosity. At this small level of magnification, its easy to see how Charles Messier may have at first mistaken this object for a comet.

Increasing the magnification to 56x revealed a few more stars (maybe 5 or 6), and most of the nebulosity had disappeared. With my 60mm telescope, this is overall a pretty unimpressive little cluster, with few stars or structure visible.

This is the first time I had ever viewed this planetary nebula with my telescope. At low power, it is a dim smudge against the background stars. The shape couldn't really be discerned, except that it obviously wasn't spherical.

At 56x, it was larger and dimmer, but I still couldn't make out the dumbbell shape. It seems to be a lot larger in size than M57 (the famous Ring Nebula). My overall impression with this nebula was that it was even better than M57 for low-power viewing. The lack of a lot of bright stars in the immediate vicinity of M27 makes it stand out a little more, I think.

This cluster is nicely nestled along the borders of a triangle formed by three fairly bright stars in the same field of view, making it pretty easy to find. At low power, it appears to be smaller and brighter than M13, but without much structure or resolution.

At 56x, its definitely round in shape. The center appears almost stellar, and then gently fades to nothing at the edges. This cluster is similar in size to M92, but is brighter and more impressive.

At 116x, the cluster is larger and starts to appear a little mottled, but no real resolution of stars is evident, even at the edges.

The Moon was in Capricornus tonight, so nearby Aquarius was kind of washed out with glare. Nevertheless, I thought I'd try to bag M2 tonight as well. To find it, I starhopped from about 1/3 the distance from b Aqr to e Peg (the nose of the Flying Horse).

At low power, this is a pretty dim globular. Stepping up the resolution didn't reveal any real detail, but I was able to see a couple of nearby dim stars in the same field of view.

At high power, its definitely larger and globular, but I was still unable to make out any individual stars. The contrast was enough at high power, however, that it is probably a pretty decent cluster. I've put it on my list of things to observe again when the Moon isn't interfering.

Even though they were just above the treetops, I couldn't resist the urge to view one of the finest deep sky sights in the sky. With the naked eye, I could easily make out its six brightest members. With the low-power eyepiece, I could resolve dozens of stars (probably between 50-100), of varying magnitudes. They form interesting pairs and chains of stars.

The early-morning eastern sky is really magnificent right now, with Jupiter and Saturn dancing between the Pleiades, the Hyades, and Aldebaran.

By this time, Jupiter was just starting to clear the trees. In order to get a better view, I retracted the tripod legs of my telescope and set it on top of the trunk of my car. This had the added advantage of allowing me to remove my star diagonal, thereby reducing the number of surfaces that Jupiter's light had to travel to reach my eyes.

At 56x, I could clearly make out the two main bands of Jupiter. The one closest to the equator was really prominent, but both had a medium brown color. Three of Jupiter's moons were lined up almost equidistant apart on one side of the planet and the other Galilean moon was alone on the other side of Jupiter.

With my 6mm Ortho lens (producing 116x), Jupiter appeared larger, and was still well-focused. The two bands, although a little fainter, still stood out on the gas giant. At this magnification, The 80A Blue filter seems to perform the best (of the four filters I have), as it blocks out the glare, but still allows most of the banding details to shine through. At this magnification, the two main bands appear thicker, but no more bands are visible.

Despite being so low in the sky, this is probably the best view of Jupiter I've had in a long time. The transparency and seeing must have been incredible. What I would've given for a true dark-sky site with no Moon...

With this kind of sky conditions, I was able to push the magnification up on the planets. I found that my best view of Jupiter was with my 12.5mm Kellner eyepiece stacked on top of a 2x barlow (unfiltered), resulting in 112x. Although my 6mm Ortho produces 116x, the field of view is enough smaller that I spend more time moving my telescope to keep up with the planet than I do observing it. I don't think the Great Red Spot was on the near side of the planet at the time, or I'm pretty sure I would've been able to see it.

After Jupiter had risen a little more in the sky (about 30 degrees above the horizon), I took another peek at it. I was now able to combine my star diagonal with the 12.5mm Ortho and barlow lens. By placing the barlow ahead of the diagonal, I could achieve an approximate magnification of 168x. The two main bands showed a variation of thickness and color along their lengths. Occasionally, hints of a third and fourth band would show through, but would quickly disappear again.

Trying to push the magnification any higher resulted in a fairly blurry and wavy image, but the fact that I even considered pushing it up that high is a testament to how good the seeing was tonight.

Now that Saturn was fairly high in the sky, I decided to give it a try. I decided to use the same magnification that I used on Jupiter (112x). The rings were at a pretty good angle, so that the near side of the rings barely obscured the bottom of Saturn, and the planet barely obscured the far side of the rings. At low power, it comes close to resembling the CBS logo.

Right above Saturn was the faint Titan, Saturn's most easily-visible moon. Since it was above the planet, it must have been passing behind the planet, but was visible due to Saturn's large tilt.

On Saturn itself, there was a little bit of evidence of banding, as some latitudes appeared more shadowy than others. The Cassini Division was just barely detectable at the sections of rings that were farthest away from the planet.

At 32x, it appears as 5-6 stars with a little bit of nebulosity. At 56x, six stars are clearly visible, forming sort of a butterfly, with three stars making each wing. At 116x, a few more members are visible, one more on one of the two wings, another star near the front end of the "butterfly", and two more off to the side which may or may not be part of the cluster.

This isn't much of a cluster for small telescopes, but the unique shape gives it a little bit of character. Please note that this cluster shouldn't be confused with the Butterfly Cluster (M6), which is in the constellation of Scorpius.