DATE/TIME: 2007 09 15 19:00K
LOCATION: Mt Walsh National Park, Queensland.
LATITUDE: 25° 34’ S
LONGITUDE: 152° 3’ E
WEATHER: Fine night initially no cloud cover. Warm NW Breeze very little dew.
SEEING: Good, clear atmosphere, very slight atmospheric turbulence (only noticeable at highest magnification) very dark site.
INSTRUMENTS: Telescope: Skywatcher Pro Series 180mm F15 Maksutov; EQ5 Pro Go To Mount
Eyepieces: TeleVue 40mm Plössol; TeleVue 15mm Panoptic; 25mm Plössol; 12mm Illuminated Reticule.
OBSERVATIONS:
Tonight’s goal was to observe the Great Red Spot on Jupiter (predicted transit time 20:30 local = GMT +10 hours) Uranus and possibly Neptune and when the crescent moon had set try Galaxies from the Sculptor Group.
Three star alignment on Alpha Centauri, Acrux and Nunki.
Planets
Jupiter: observed at different times during the night. Success at last (20:18hrs) with my 15mm Tele-vue panoptic eyepiece Arlene and I were able to distinguish the Great Red Spot.
Uranus: no discernable features and I wasn’t able to identify any moons. Colour appeared as a dull grey.
Deep Sky
Globular Clusters: NGC 4833 in Musca - a very pretty but tiny compact cluster.
M4; M80; M19;
NGC 104 aka 47 Tucanae - what a wonderful cluster - Very bright, compact and large - Pure eye candy.
Open Clusters:
M6; M7; M23
Galaxies:
NGC 55 a fine edge on Magellanic type barred spiral galaxy in the Sculptor Group
NGC 253 Sculptor - what wonderful sight a very bright edge on Spiral galaxy.
NGC 300 Very faint face on spiral galaxy hardly any detail discernable due to glare of nearby stars.
