Telescope Reviews: 8p Tuttle / M33 Encounter

Mike, great shots. It was cloudy and rainy all day bu miraculously and spectacularly cleared about 8:20 PM EST.

Below is my report (feel free to skip the Comet Holnmes stuff in the middle

):

12-30-07 8:42 PM EST Bishop GA: The rains and clouds that persisted these past three days departed suddenly, and the washed-clean sky above was black and spectacularly clear and transparent. The wind was light, the temperature was low 50s, and the humidity felt low to medium. Shades of visions: I thought my former dark rural SE CT skies were great; this sky beats the heck out of any I’d seen there! The Pleiades fairly glowed, Orion was made from sparkling jewels, but the showstopper and eyeopener for me were Perseus and Cassiopeia. Naked eye, I saw more Milky Way there than I’d EVER seen before. The Double cluster was an easy naked-eye target, and M31 was breathtaking in its expanse even with direct vision!

Comet Holmes was a huge (1° +) diffuse oblong shape, now far removed from its earlier Melotte 20 climes, yet quite distinct by naked-eye against the velvet-coal background. Quantum leap: bringing up the 7x35 binocs, the comet remains a large and diffuse oblong, but now the central cigar-shaped jet it quite prominent.

Quite prominent too is a diffuse and much smaller patch that upon some closer scrutiny resolves a bit into tint closely packed stars. This is M34, a lovely bright open cluster that has an expanse of 25’. Judging against that number, I would estimate Comet Holmes as almost 1.5° across

!!

The other and remaining reason to venture out into the ubiquitous red mud: 8P Comet Tuttle’s approach to M33. I know where M33 is versus the constellations of Andromeda, Triangulum, and with respect to the orientation of M31 to them; so in short order, I am gazing with the 7x35s at a PAIR of fuzzy objects! M33 I am judging to be the somewhat fainter and a bit smaller of the pair, Comet Tuttle the round, bright nucleus object less than ½° removed. Although with the smaller aperture of the binocs I did not perceive color, the pairing was QUITE impressive

!

As humans, we second-guess ourselves all the time. Up until tonight, I was horribly uncertain, despite CSC and Google Earth, that I’d made a good choice in sky conditions for my home observing site.

I am no longer uncertain, last night whisked me back 24 years to the very dark skies of northern Vermont, the best I’ve actually experienced!

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Good Seeing!

Mark

Orion 12" XTi f/4.9

VERY old Edmund 6" f/8 reflector
Assorted binoculars