Last saturday 9-4-2011: Starparty in Netersel

Last Saturdaynight we had a very nice starparty at our standard location on the model-airplane field near Netersel. We were with a large variety of telescopes: a Meade LX-90 200mm SCT, a small apochromatic refractor, a classic Vixen R-150S on EQ3-2 and 2 200mmF5 Skywatcher Newtonians (both on HEQ5pro mounts). When I arrived on the field there were some members busy with flying their model helicopters. They really wanted to see the moon, so I quickly installed the Newton in its mount so they could have a look. There were many oohs and ahhs, they said they first went home for dinner but promised to get back later that night.

After that many other visitors came, but despite of the moon we could still show them some nice objects. After showing M51 I tried the Whale galaxy on them. In the 8mm Hyperion (at 125x) it was very obviously visible to me (and other astronomers), however, the visitors still could not see them. After putting in my 33mm SWAN (30x) they could barely see it. This shows how much experience you get when you regularly observe objects. After that I made a comparison on the "Whale" between a 7mm WO UWAN and my proven (standard deepsky "weapon of choice") 8mm Hyperion. Unexpectedly, the Hyperion won on both transmission and contrast, I did not expected that.

Around 300am in the night the moon finally set and I was able to view some nice objects, here is the list:

Globular clusters in Ophiuchus: M10/12 very much resolved in the 8mm Hyperion (125x), M14 very faint, not resolved (8mm Hyperion)

Galaxies in Canes Venatici: 

NGC4631 Whale galaxy in 33mm SWAN (30x), very nice needle visible, bright. 

NGC4656 Hockey stick: also very nicely visible in the same eyepiece.

After that we went to the famous Hercules globular clusters:

M13: Resolves perfectly up to the outer boundaries in 8mm Hyperion (125x)

M92: Only outer regions resolve in the 8mm, bright center

After that we went to the summer triangle planetary nebulae, first Lyra:

M57 The ring nebula is visible, but details are not very shart in 8mm Hyperion (125x)

And after that Sagitta:

M27 The Dumbbell nebula shape is clearly visible in the 8mm Hyperion (125x)

I noticed that by 300am M51 was directly overheat in the zenith, so I gave it another final try:

M51: I was very amazed to see the outer ring structure in this nice galaxy. I never saw it this good.