Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
I posted in the binocular forum that I didn't think M45 was anything special in a telescope. I've seen it before in smaller apartures but never in a six inch.
I would have to retract my earlier statement. True it is nothing like other clusters, especially The Double Cluster, but it has it's merits.
After viewing it in a 40mm I decided to bump up the magnification one EP at a time. After getting up to the 15mm a slightly blue nebulosity started to surround the brighter stars in the cluster. I thought it was chromatic aberation at first, so I slewed over to another star about as bright and the nebulosity did not appear.
I slewed back to M45 and up'ped the mag a little more. It was really beautiful on the larger stars. I've never seen the nebulosity surrounding the Pleiades before. I spent around a half hour going from star to star with the cluster.
i eventually stopped at the 9.7. That gave the best views with no image breakdown.
All you six inch owners have to have a look.
|
Carolyn
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 09/17/03
Posts: 2061
|
|
I have an 8 inch dob, and I love the Pleiades in it. It is just pretty to look at. 
--------------------
The inside of a pumpkin is where the universe went terribly wrong.
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
Can you get a picture of the net similiar to what you can see? ( Google images would be easy ) I'm pretty curious.
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
I did not know this, but the reflection nebulae actually has a catalog number. Around the star called Merope, it is NGC 1435 alsp known as IC 349. Around the star called Maia, it is NGC 1432.
This is not what it looked like in my eyepiece, but the bluish nebulosity was visible around the stars. Alcyone was the star I concentrated most of my time on, though others looked very good too.
I guess it'll be another month before I see it again.
|
Maverick
sage
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 256
Loc: 41:06:38.819N 81:28:51.650W
|
|
I actually use that image as my desktop   without the labels.......
--------------------
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
I was on a trip and the Pleiades was the first space object I happened to find an a small set of 8x25 binocs. I thought it was awesome, allthough at the time I didn't know what it was called and it took me a couple of weeks to figure it out when I got back home. Now I look at it with a set of 11x70s and think it is even cooler. I haven't spent a lot of time with the scope on it yet. The picture might inspire me to do it.
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
It's one of the youngest clusters discovered. A mere 100,000,000 years old.
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
Discovering the Pleiades by oneself is really a great feeling. I remember before I seriously became interested in astronomy I was looking at the sky naked eye and noticed a fuzzy path that after some concentration appeared as a small group of stars. Being your typical non-astronomer who was raised in an urban enviroment I was very excited and a little frightend by this unknown object. I didn't realize things like this could be see by anyone looking. A pair of Tasco 7x35 I got from my grandfather showed me what I thought was the whole story. This little cluster (though I didn't know what an open cluster was at the time) was something special to me now. I had found it myself. And still today I love astronomy because it opens the doors of discovery to anyone. There is an emphasis on achieving things for oneself and not just reading about other people's discoveries. Now that I have a pair of Orion 11x70 binoculars I have seen a new level to the Pleiades. Though I can't make out the nebulasity I can detect a hint of blue in the stars. Before this I didn't realize the color that can be seen in the heavens, though I now also understand the difficulty in seeing it with the human eye.
The contrast between the binocular quality has also taught me about the technology of astronomy. I can now look down the objective lense of the Tasco's and see the square created by the shadows and light loss of the poor prisim design.
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
This is just a little bit better than what I can see with my binoculars. I can only see about a third as many background stars, and the blue color is not quite obvious, but more subtle. My veiw would probably look more like the picture if I were viewing from darker skys; however, I have about a med-high suburban amount of light pollution to deal with.
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
A.S.
Nice picture. What did you take it with?
Keith
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
|
mav, since you have the orion st 130, what about the
plaedes? pretty good view?
thanks,
sky
|
Charlie Hein
Postmaster
Reged: 11/02/03
Posts: 6574
Loc: 26.06.08N, +80.23.08W
|
|
Quote:
Discovering the Pleiades by oneself is really a great feeling.
I have to agree... when my wife and I started going outside to look at the stars, we really couldn't identify much of anything beyond the "big dipper" and orion. So, armed only with a remembered view of the sky from the Sky and Telescope website, we set out on an attempt to learn our way around the night sky.
My wife had taken up the habit of creating her own names for constellations that she didn't already know. She always seemed to pretty much follow a real constellations' boundaries, even though she wouldn't have a clue as to what the constellation was really named, or even that it existed... she truly "discovered" them for herself.
One memorable name was the one she gave Cassiopeia: "the D-cup girl". I'll never look at it in the same way again!
One evening, we "discovered" a small cluster (by this time, we could correctly identify that it was a cluster and not a constellation) climbing in the east that immediately got the names "the upside down Maxwell House Cup", or "the *really* little dipper".
Took us a couple of weeks to correctly identify it as the Pleiades. It's now a must-see for us through a 35mm 2" eyepiece - the view is quite beautiful - much better than through our binoculars.
Charlie
--------------------
Weston CSC:
|
rboe
Numbfinger
Reged: 03/16/02
Posts: 39708
Loc: Phx, AZ
|
|
Charlie; When your wife publishes her book on constellations I'll buy a copy. 
--------------------
Ron
NS11GPS
Pronto
16" dob
15X70 Obies
Edited by rboe (11/23/03 04:27 PM)
|
Charlie Hein
Postmaster
Reged: 11/02/03
Posts: 6574
Loc: 26.06.08N, +80.23.08W
|
|
Quote:
Charlie; When you wife publishes her book on constellations I'll buy a copy.
You know, you just might have something there... we should be cataloging her "discoveries"!
Charlie
--------------------
Weston CSC:
|
EdZ
Professor EdZ
Reged: 02/15/02
Posts: 12581
Loc: Cumberland, R I , USA42N71.4W
|
|
A S,
I was out the last few nights preparing some charts for a winter project. M45 is the target. I took a cut out of your photo to show my target area of study. It almost exactly matches the boundaries for my next project. In this area, veiwing with a Celestron 5" SCT using a 30mm Ultima at 40x, I plotted 258 stars. In the exact same boundary, with Fujinon 16x70 binoculars I plotted 142 stars. Even with a pair of Pentax 12x50s I plotted 101 stars. Actually, I didn't plot the stars. I started with a chart to mag 12 and circled all the stars I could see with the scope, then did the same with a clean chart for the binocs.
If you look at this photo there are two lines of stars, one pointing down to 6:30 on a clock, the other pointing at 9:30. Encompasing that area, the 5"SCT at 40x saw 92 stars down to about mag 11.2-11.3.
The Fujinon 16x70 saw 50 stars in that same 6:30 to 9:30 section. That is almost exactly what is shown in this photo. That would be stars down to about mag 10.5-10.7.
edz
--------------------
Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards.
member#21
|
desertstars
Deja moo
Reged: 11/05/03
Posts: 30031
Loc: Tucson, AZ
|
|
Quote:
One memorable name was the one she gave Cassiopeia: "the D-cup girl". I'll never look at it in the same way again!
Queen Cassiopeia would be pleased. 
My earliest childhood star memories are of Orion dominating the winter sky, and the Pleiades hanging high in the east on cold nights, like a spoonful of diamonds. This year, when I saw the cluster rising in the east for the first time after taking up astronomy again, I watched it with binoculars until my arms cramped. It was like having an old friend show up unexpectedly, ready for a long visit.
--------------------
Tom W.
SVP8 'She turned me into a 3-legged Newt' EQ
Ralph, the All-Purpose 102mm Refractor
Under the Desert Stars
Alcohol and calculus do not mix. Please don't drink and derive.
|
Charlie Hein
Postmaster
Reged: 11/02/03
Posts: 6574
Loc: 26.06.08N, +80.23.08W
|
|
Quote:
This year, when I saw the cluster rising in the east for the first time after taking up astronomy again, I watched it with binoculars until my arms cramped. It was like having an old friend show up unexpectedly, ready for a long visit.
I know how you feel... I get at least a quick scan with the 2" 35mm ep almost every time I'm out!
Charlie
--------------------
Weston CSC:
|
Spyke
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/22/03
Posts: 1943
Loc: Scotland
|
|
Hi,
I had a look last night with 80mm f5 refractor, and Pentax xl 10.5mm- I was really surprised to actually see the nebulosity in such a small telescope, but it was definately there! I checked against other clusters, and no nebulosity, but when I went back to M45- there it was again! Fantastic! The seeing was excellent though, and M45 was really high in the sky.
--------------------
Equinox 120 just arrived! 
GSO 8" f6 Dob (Hi-Lux coated)
ED100 Pro, ED80
Skymax 127 Maksutov
Coronado Ha PST
Vixen GP, Porta-mount, multiple AZ-3 mounts.
Berkut 10x50 Binos, 'reasonable' no. of eyepieces
|
Echo
Post Laureate
Reged: 09/29/03
Posts: 3320
Loc: So Cal
|
|
Spyke,
I never really appreciated M45 until I saw the nebulosity. It must be pretty dark over there. Great that you can see it in your scope. I need to get a small refractor soon.
--------------------
Queen of GOTO
Life is short.... get a massage!
|
Spyke
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/22/03
Posts: 1943
Loc: Scotland
|
|
Echo,
er....it was from my back garden, which has street lights at two of the corners! But M45 was right in the middle of the darkest bit of sky I could see, and at least 60' elevated. Seeing this has kind of re-born M45 for me as well! I'm going out tomorrow hopefully to use our society's 10" reflector- Guess what I'll have a look for!
Small Refractors are great! The 80mm takes about, oh, 30 seconds to set up, and stick a quality eyepiece in and you get excellent views (up to a limit)! The 102mm is even better, but takes a little longer to set up (EQ mount).
Good hunting!
--------------------
Equinox 120 just arrived!
GSO 8" f6 Dob (Hi-Lux coated)
ED100 Pro, ED80
Skymax 127 Maksutov
Coronado Ha PST
Vixen GP, Porta-mount, multiple AZ-3 mounts.
Berkut 10x50 Binos, 'reasonable' no. of eyepieces
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
