Telescope Reviews: ETX-80 , a challenging nebula and a few X-rays

Well, I took the little ETX out farther afield last night. I headed out for a state park that's used by the local astronomical club (Stonelick Lake Park). Interestingly enough, the skies out there weren't tremendously darker then what I can find by heading to East Fork Park (even though the former is a half hour drive further away from the city). It did, however, offer darker skies to the north then my spot at East Fork provides...I was just disappointed that the sky never really got black...just a very deep dark shade of purple. (And this is supposed to be a yellow or green sky site, depending upon the source.)

Anyway, on with the report. We arrived at the park early (about 8:00), as my wife came along and she wanted to do a little fishing. We also scoped out the campground since we hope to do a little camping this month. Temperatures were in the low 70's to upper 60's (by the time I was out with the scope) with a light fog hanging over the lake (we had set up in the parking lot above the beach). Sadly, a lone mercury lamp shone from across the lake which combined with the fog ruined my view towards the west (and may be partly responsible for my dark purple skies). I positioned myself so that a tree stood between myself and the lamp. Seeing wasn't very good tonight, as most of the stars of the little dipper's arm were not discernable.

At around 9:00, I aligned the scope (it chose Arcturus and Altair) and then parked it. I draped my pillow case dust cover over the scope to shield it from the dew and lay a wash cloth over the eyepieces, then sat down to wait. Gee...maybe I should have done this on another day....the Moon is still rather high... (it finally set at around 11:00). My wife had given up fishing, having been chased away by a lack of [fish] bites, mosquitoes and allergies. She was sleeping in the car (she'd been up since 5:30AM). I sat and waited, watching the sky grow a little darker and enjoying the odd meteor (I saw about 3 or 4 total through the entire session). Before too long I was joined by a (stray?) cat. He made himself at home...he rubbed my legs, the telescope's legs and then hopped into my lap. (He certainly isn't shy ).

Finally, at around 10:00 I decided it was dark enough to begin doing some observing. First target was M24...which in hindsight was kind of a bad choice given the moonlight that was still around in that direction. I did see a nice cluster of stars, but the sky was a light gray and not at all black. This detracted from the view considerably. I tapped on the car's glass and asked my wife if she wanted to have a look. She sleepily came out and had a look. I asked her if she liked it...she replied "I see a bunch of stars". I told her it's a star cluster (technically, I guess M24 is just a dense section of the milky way, but no matter). "Do you like it?" Her answer was "I can see a bunch of stars just by looking up...this one just looks the same...a bunch of stars" I guess you have to be fan of that sort of thing to appreciate it I guess....I decided that maybe a different class of object would be better.

I slew the telescope over to Ayla (theta Serpens)...a nice pair of pure white stars seperated by about 20". She had a look, she thought it was mildly interesting (I think, since she did look at it for a minute or two). She then hinted that she might go back to sleep...I told her how about a little color?
She agreed, so I slewed the scope over to another of my personal favorites, Tarazed (beta Aquila). This is a nice orange star that has a delicate, serpentine line of white, fainter stars running in the same FOV. She had a look and agreed that it was pretty. I showed her where the star was in the sky and she compared the view a couple of times between the telescope and the unaided eye. I think she enjoyed it, but she said she was getting tired so I let her climb back into the car and go to sleep while I continued observing. (I understand...it's hard to appreciate these things when you're feeling too tired.)

So...I'm on my own now...where to next? I still had about half an hour until moon set, but by now it was getting dark enough. I decided to give M52 & M103 another chance as dew had spoiled my previous look at these two. M52 was magnificent...it reminded me very much of M11...a milky glow of light studded with stars. As I increased magnification more stars resolved, but it still had the appearance of a patch of light sprinkled with glitter (although not quite as dense as M11). Very nice. M103 was another matter. It looked about the same...a double line (or long box like) pattern of stars. This time I did note that one of the members had a distinct yellowish hue compared to the white of the other members.

I decided to give a galaxy a try. I slewed towards NGC7331 and had a look...hmm...just stars...no fuzzy patches. I swapped in the 9.7mm EP and had another look...still just stars. I slewed around a bit...more stars. Hmm....I guess the sky just isn't dark enough here...kinda disappointing but not really surprising.

Next I decided to see if I could log my 3rd planetary nebula. I slewed towards NGC7662 (aka the blue snowball). I had a look...just stars...hmmm...am I having tracking errors? I bumped up the magnification a bit with the 9.7mm...still stars...but then I noticed that the star near the center of the FOV has a strong bluish hue and doesn't seem to be quite the pinpoint of the other stars which share the FOV (but still awfully tiny, like the dot a pin might make if you just lightly pressed it into paper). I decided to make a full jump...I put in the 5mm EP. Yup! That's it...a tiny blue disk...very similar to the Saturn Nebula from a few nights before. I tried it with an Astronomik UHC-E filter and it looked about the same (just in a darker sky). Very nice...another planetary logged.

As long as I had my UHC filter out, I decided to try for a target that has eluded me for some time...the North American Nebula! I slewed the telescope there and had a look...at first glance, all I saw was a field of stars. But then, I noticed a soft white glow of light that seemed to lie behind the stars...it was vaguely L shaped (think of the curvy L used when people wrote the word love back in the 60's)...hmm....that's should be it! To confirm, I had a look without the filter. It was still there, but just barely. If I didn't know to look for it I wouldn't even see it. With the filter it was there, but faint (l'd put the filtered surface brightness on a par with when I observed M81/M82). Finally! This is a nebula I'd read about but figured I wouldn't ever see in the light polluted skies we have here... (For the record, the nebula fills the FOV nicely in the 26mm EP).

Inspired, I gave the Veil Nebula a try...no luck...but it is a more delicate target so I wasn't surprised...I'll just have to head further afield to log this one.

By this time it was starting to get late (for my wife, not me), so I decided to log one more target. I looked at my notes and noted that I was interested in having a look at M15...the globular in Pegasus. I slew over there and at first glance wondered if it had tracked wrong...upon further inspection I noted a tiny fuzzy just at the top of the FOV. I centered it in the EP and then dropped in the 9.7mm. Very nice...the fuzzy dot was now a fuzzy ball of light with a brighter dot at the center. I moved to the 6.4mm...even better...it still looked like a fuzzy ball, but the fuzzy ball and the center dot were larger and easier to appreciate. I gazed at this for at least a good 10 minutes before I thought to consult the Autostar for the details. Wow...this little guy is 39,000 ly away...and yet it looks better then others I've observed that are half that distance! Plus, it emits X-rays to boot (good bye eyeballs ). A sure sign of the presence of one or more black holes...that explains the bright dot at the center...it must really be packed in there! I pity the poor astronomer looking for dark skies from a planet in there!

M15 was a fine way to wrap up the session, so I switched off the scope, packed up the accesories and put the scope into the car. My wife awoke and seemed happy finally headed for home (lucky for her, she's doesn't have to go to work today). As for me, I'm content...M15 and the NA nebula made my evening....
Craig