Telescope Reviews: Sketching using small binoculars

Faith

This should be an interesting test for your binoculars. But I bet you will find someone there with a telescope. I have not checked my current charts for the southern skies constellations lately. When I was in Fiji, three trips for nearly over five months stay in late 2003 through late June 2004, I believe the famed Omega Centari globular was due south about 45 ~ 50 degrees on the starry dome at around 10 ~ 11 PM. It should be in the sky a little after midnight now? I took a new 10.1” Dobsonian aside from my h-alpha solar scope, a Nexstar 5i Cassegrain and 7 X 50 BAK4 binoculars and was enthralled. Omega Centari will be higher yet in Australia for you, further southern in latitude than Fiji. If you can see it for the first time through say an 8" or 10" reflector in dark skies, it is overwhelming. It is the angular size of the full moon and appears as if it has dimensional craters or strange voids in the central globular stars patterns. I agree with Special Ed; you should try to sketch the Omega Globular. Try to find the nearest Astronomy club and see this through a medium telescope. The multiple colors of the stars in the Eta Carina and Southern Cross region is something you will never forget; even in low powered binoculars. We see nothing like this in the northern hemisphere. Also the ecliptic will be way north and Saturn will appear as nearly overhead and slightly to the north on the dome. It will seem confusing at first for a northerner, as if the sky is backwards and upside-down. On my first trip below the equator, I had only an antique 5" Celestron Cassegrain. The tracking motor only ran for the northern skies, so the motor was in reverse for below the equator and thus I could not use the tracking. Also, I was not sketching then. My wife and I did meet many Australians and British vacationers as I allowed them to observe the sun through the h-alpha; I provided public sidewalk astronomy and also for schools, day and night.

Also 47 Tucani, in late October 2003 near the meridian at late eves appears with the naked eye as a bright 4th magnitude fuzzy star. It is perhaps the most densely compacted globular cluster in the entire sky and the brightest overall magnitude globular; especially in a telescopic view. I am not sure that it is visible this time of year. *Take a rotating Planisphere with the southern sky charts. They are available at many science shops and book stores. Or if time limits are no avail, find one in Australia.

Good luck on your trip. We will all look forward to your observing discoveries!

Mark

www.markseibold.com

My CN Sketch Gallery