Sigh.. its so therapeutic to have a night of clear skies after a whole week of rain. So I really enjoyed myself out on one of the clearest nights I've had with my etx90.
M41, M93 and M47 around Canis Major are now becoming easy to locate as I get more familiar with them. I find M47 surprisingly bright and rich, and M93 is for me a very beautiful 'christmas tree' shaped cluster. M46 remains unspectacular as I think my aperture is too small.
I turned to crux and ticked off the jewel box, but I think the Eta Carinae complex is the real gem. Could detect the nebulosity and what seems like a dark vein around Eta C., but the two clusters 3532 and 3293 nearby are really spectacular. 3293 is a small compact group that resolves beautifully while 3532 (which Herchel considered the finest cluster he had ever seen) just fills the field of view with star upon stars, all of even brightness. A dark band lacking stars runs through the cluster and looks like an arrow.
Ending the night, I turn to the Centaurus constellation and Omega Centuri. The stars all being bright and clear, I can really 'see' the huge centaur standing over crux, bow in hand. And Omega Centuri was the brightest I've even seen it. Easily identified as the fuzzy star in my viewfinder, its a bright green patch in my eyepiece. My scope is too small to make out individual stars, but it is so bright that I can actually make out the graininess of the globular cluster.
Only an hour, a small patch of sky, and a few targets (not to mention the irritating street lamp in the way..), but I marvel at each one in turn. Majestic. Magnificent. It's so therapeutic to see stars after a week of rain...
Monday, March 15, 2004
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