I was limited to a quick photo
shoot of the Hyades and Pleaides by general busyness but was quite
pleased with the results.
Apr 2nd
Conditions were hazy with
bright moonlight. I took a few snaps of the Moon but, although I could
see some surface features on Saturn, photographing it was another
matter.
Well at least you can make out the rings! The Moon shots were more
promising.
Apr 4th
I went out for a solar photo
shoot at 11:00 GMT. Although the solar surface looked bland at first, I
could see a nice prominence in the lower left quadrant.
Apr 5th
It was the time of year that
made astronomical blogging difficult. It was after midnight when I went
out but, technically it was 23:30 GMT! The plan was to take some quick
Moon shots followed by an attempt on the Virgo supercluster. The Moon
was gibbous and about 8 days "old".
Then it was down to the real business. I started off with M53 that
looked like a globular cluster but there was no real detail
discernable. The Black Eye Galaxy (M64) didn't show its full glory in
my Mak but at least it looked like a spiral galaxy. I then moved on to
the M98/M99/M100 trio. Only M100 actually appeared as a spiral but at
least I'd already bagged 5 Messier objects I'd never seen before. Next,
it was the difficult task of going to Gamma Virginis, the bottom of the
Virgo bowl and working my way up. As predicted by the star atlas, it
was M87, M49 and M60 that stood out as the brightest and biggest
galaxies. Some of the galaxies showed their nature as being elliptical
or spiral but, in general, anything fainter than about magnitude 9.2
appeared as no more trhan fuzzy patches. I even got lost navigating at
times, as I could even see some NGC members that weren't on Messier's
list, although I did not explore them, as the urgency was to map the
Messier objects in the Virgo supercluster for an upcoming book. Even
so, it took a full 90 minutes before I could tick all of the Messier
galaxies off of the list.
Due to the Sun only being visible during mealtimes, etc, I missed it
and evening conditions really allowed viewing of one object only - the
Moon. I went out at 20:30 to do another shoot.
Apr 7th
I went out with the PST and
also tried adding a light pollution to the system, which seemed to
reduce the bandpass a bit.
April 11th
I went out with the PST at
14:00 GMT. The Sun was covered by thin cloud but I was able to see some
shading on the solar disc.
Apr 12th
It had been a frustratingly
cloudy evening, which was supposed to be clear. I had hoped to do some
constellation shots plus some Messierising. However, there was lots of
cloud about, some rather thick. I was able to see the Beehive (M44)
through cloud and (less surprisingly) Melotte 111. I split Mizar/Alcor
and Epsilon and Delta Lyrae. I could also see Saturn's rings edge-on.
The Moon was low and gibbous and partially obscured but Tycho and its
rays were dominating the lunar landscape.
Well it finally cleared at 01:00 GMT, although not enough for me to
have another look at the Virgo galaxy cluster. Wanting to take some
constellation shots of the area, I took snaps of Virgo and Coma
Berenices with each of 2 cameras. I decided to post the shots with
each, as I felt each had something to offer.
I built new solar filters for my binoculars and bin scanned the Sun
through thin cloud at 11:40 GMT. As expected, I didn't see any sunspots.
At 22:50 GMT, I did a bin scan. Conditions were poor, with lots of haze
around the horizon. Mizar and Alcor split but I could find no sign of
M81 or M82. Melotte 111 showed quite well and so did the main asterism
of the Beehive (M44). Nothing else was visible, except Saturn's rings.
April 13th
Bin scanned the Sun at 09:40
GMT in a clear sky. The view looked much sharper in my new
filters but, unfortunately, there were no visible sunspots. I then did
a hydrogen alpha shoot and noticed a nice prominence and a faint
filament.
Out of the close-ups only the prominences came out.
Apr 18th
Bin scanned the Sun at 16:50
GMT with my new filters and the Sun looked really clear, with limb
darkening very clear but there were no sunspots. I went out again at
22:00 GMT with the Mak to do some Messierising. I was out for a full 90
minutes, so the session (technically) ended on 19th. The first stop was
the Beehive (M44) and the light pollution reduction (LPR) filter did
its job very well and it looked really clear. I found the Sombrero
galaxy (M104), with some difficulty, and it showed some structure but
not as good as the classic photo. M68, the globular cluster in Hydra
was barely visible.
At about 22:13 GMT,
I noticed a sproadic meteor of 2nd magnitude flash south through
Auriga.
I revisited M59 and M60 (Virgo supercluster members) and M60's
elliptical structure was more obvious with the LPR filter. The next
target was M3, which was disappointing. I found it hard to find and had
to sweep it with the bins first. Although it was an obvious globular
cluster, it didn't appear much better in the Mak. I revisited M53, not
being quite so sure about it as on the last visit and found some hint
of structure with the LPR.
I uncovered M94 and M63 in Cannes Venacti and M63 was the better of the
two, actually appearing as a proper spiral. While finding them, I used
Cor Caroli as a signpost and was amazed to see it split into a double
at only 24x magnification.
I revisited M51 and was pleased to see that the nearby NGC5195came more into prominence. I
didn't remember visiting M101 before but, reviewing my records, noted
that I hadn't seen ist spiral arms. This time, they were visible and it
was amazing how large the galaxy is. I had my first views of M109, M108
and M97 but these were just fuzzy patches. However, the total of 11
Messier objects wasn't bad and great progress towards my next book.
April 19th
I took a look at the Sun
through my PST at 10:50 GMT. It was very quiet, with no prominences but
there was a small filament visible. Only two of the close-ups came out
but the surface detail was quite good.
April 21st
I attempted a PST photo shoot
at 12:10 GMT and, although I could see some small surface features,
they failed to photograph.
April 22nd
Bin scanned the Sun at 18:00
through thin moving cloud but didn't see any sunspots.
April 24th
I .bin scanned the Sun at
16:55 GMT but didn't see any sunspots.
April 25th
I did a hydrogen alpha shoot
at 14:30 GMT. A small prominence was visible at the lower part of the
Sun but it only came out in one photo.
At 20:35 GMT, I saw Mercury with the unaided eye but cloud moved over
before I could mobilise my telescope.
I returned out at 21:00 GMT. There was some cloud but it was moving.
Although there were lots of objects to choose from, I concentrated on
getting a position photo of M68 and a snap of the Beehive (M44) to
support some publishing work. Unfortunately, the Corvus shot was rather
north of M68 but Virgo came out well, with Arcturus and Saturn sneaking
into the picture.
While attempting the Beehive, I saw a faint satellite. I did 25
attempts and this was the best.
I was out again at 22:15 GMT, as I'd missed the southern part of Virgo
and Corvus but this time, I bagged it.
April 26th
It was still clear when after
midnight GMT (despite the forecast). Time was ripe for an assault on
some globular clusters. However, the first task was to get the position
photos and I was pleased to record the faint constellation of Serpens
Caput.
I also snapped Hercules to plot the positions of M13 and M92.
The final session of the night was when I returned with the Mak armed
with the 32mm Plossl, focal reducer and light pollution filter. M13 was
really memorable and was my best ever view of it, even with larger
instruments. M92 was somewhat of a disappointment but M5 was nice,
showing obvious structure and a very pronounced core.
Except it wasn't the final session as I went out again at 02:00 GMT to
snap a couple of more constellations. First up was Scorpius and
Ophiuchus.
Cassiopeia was low but I still managed a nice shot.
April 28th
I bin scanned the Sun through
thin cloud at 17:45 GMT but didn't see any sunspots.
April 29th
Solar viewing conditions had
inmproved somewhat since the day before when I bin scanned the Sun at
15:15 GMT. I could see limb darkening very clearly but didn't see any
sunspots.
I did a hydrogen alpha photo shoot at 16:50 GMT. Conditions were hazy
but I managed to see some surface detail and a curious bright spot. A
prominence turned up in the photos, which I'd missed visually.
