Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Tonight's Stargazing

FINALLY it was a 90% clear night tonight and was able to take the new Orion binoculars for a spin. What I love about the Orion 20x80's is that you see SO many more stars than you can see with the naked eye it's really like looking at an entirely different night sky.

I really wanted to see if I could locate a nebula tonight but was unsuccessful...what I did see was as follows:

Andromeda Galaxy (M31, 4.8mag)
Easy to find once you know where to look, Andromeda is viewable with a 15x50, and of course even that much brighter with the 20x80. I still couldn't make out any detail however and looked like a dim blur.

M15 (Globular Cluster, 6.2mag)
I thought this was a galaxy, but turned out it was a globular cluster. I was never able to find this with the 15x50 binoculars, but was easily resolved using the 20x80 (but still looked like a faint blur).

NGC457 (Galactic Cluster, 6.4mag)
An interesting formation of stars which is easily seen with 20x80 binoculars.

M45 (Galactic Cluster, 1.5mag)
Always a cool formation of stars which is easily seen with 20x80 binoculars.

Jupiter & Moons
All 4 moons were very easily visible and I think I saw a hint of cloud detail on Jupiter. Very sharp using the 20x80 binoculars.

Well that's about it...going to he sack now...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

bring on the pics! :)

ASMR Destiny said...

I wish I could have taken pixs, but taking photos with binoculars is next to impossible :(