I love being able to share the night sky with others, and my brother and I had been waiting for a suitable evening for several weeks now. I was also excited to finally have a chance to use my new Siebert Barlow and Nikon binoculars.
I set my equipment out about 30 minutes before my brother arrived, and was forced to drape the grill cover over the railings on our deck to shield us from my neighbors incredibly intrusive street lamp. I also ran extension cords out to the yard to keep a large fan on us - warm weather astronomy is great, but mosquitoes aren't.
So, the trouble with showing DSO's to inexperienced stargazers is finding objects that won't disappoint. Basically, a faint fuzzy galaxy that appears as a grey smudge might be thrilling for me to look at, but I'm sure it would be rather anti-climactic for a first-timer. Planetary objects, stars, and clusters are great objects to show off because they are relatively bright, easy to see and less impacted by light pollution and atmospheric conditions than nebula and galaxies.
I started us off with a view of Saturn. By 10:00 PM Saturn is pretty well overhead, but not as bright as it was a while ago. At 48x you can see the golden globe and her rings, which look more like a line running across, but which is an impressive sight nonetheless. My brother's reaction to his first glimpse of Saturn was gratifying, "Oh Sh*t..I had no idea...you could see that much".
I then swapped in my 8mm Stratus, the atmosphere seemed still enough to go to 150x. At this magnification I can count 5 moons, see the distinct shadow and 3d effect of the rings, and slight coloration changes on the planet. Beautiful. I couldn't wait to attach the Barlow, which would bring my magnification to 300x - pretty high on any night, but the atmosphere was clear and still. I was not disappointed. Viewing Saturn at 300x yielded a breathtaking view. At this point, nearly the entire field of view comprised of Saturn and a visible 5 moons. Although focusing at 300x is a little tricky, I could see distinct banding on the planet, and can only imagine how amazing those rings will look in a few years as they tilt away from the current edge-on position.
Next on the list was the Great Cluster in Hercules, M13. This one is an easy find, situated near Hercules's hip. In a dark sky this cluster is visible with the naked eye. Not the case for me, but through the scope it's a real beauty.
Just below Hercules is the constellation Lyra. This was a good night to try for M57, the Ring Nebula. Wow, for a magnitude 9 object, the visibility of this nebula is really good. The doughnut shape is easy to identify, and I was able to make out shading in the gas. I'm sure with more studying I would be able to see surrounding stars and perhaps more detail.
By midnight the Moon crashed the party. It was just full on Friday, so the light it was throwing off into the sky made it entirely futile to find some nice galaxies for my brother to see - M81 and M82 would have been nice targets, but alas, the Moon and a large tree and a skunk made it difficult.
All in all it was a nice night. I was able to show my brother something new, I saw the Ring Nebula for the first time, and am pleased with my new views of Saturn. Hopefully in the coming week I'll be able to show him more wondrous views of our universe.
My approximate views of Saturn, M13 and M57
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