Monday 25 September 2017

Few quick observations @ Deep Sky Meeting 2017

Observing place: Tähtikallio, Artjärvi, Finland (Deep Sky Meeting 2017)
Date: 23./24.9.2017
NE Lim.mag: 6.8 (zenith)
SQM-L: 21.38 (zenith)
Background sky: 7/10 (fairly good)
Seeing: 7/10 (fairly good)
Transparency: 6/10 (decent)
Weather: Clear, slight breeze, +10°C.

Two of the observatory domes harboring Alluna RC-16 16" f/8 (left) and 36" Astrofox (right)
From the get go, I knew that time constraints, constant (human) traffic and stray light would be a big issue so I only had a few objects in mind and even less objects to sketch. I was simply armed: only packing my 4.5" Orion SkyQuest but I had the privilege to use the 10" GSO of Juha Ojanperä.


The weather was decent with surprisingly poor transparency. SQM-L readings were between 21.20 to 21.40. Seeing was so so and the images at the telescope(s) appeared too "soft" to my liking. It must  have been a transparency related issue (including a regular Finnish humidity issue) but despite the good SQM-readings from all over and several sources... I noticed right away that the weather just wasn't all that good. I showed a few objects to the audience and managed to properly try to view / view only a few objects:

NGC 206 + NGC 604 (GSO 10") - Both easily visible @ low magnification.

NGC 1499 (XT 4.5") - Decent view with 40 mm Celestron Plössl eyepiece + UHC filter.

Sh2-216 (XT 4.5") - I knew even without looking that I would not be able to see this object. Still had to give it a shot and most importantly getting myself acquainted with the field for a proper try using a bigger telescope.

Pease 1 (GSO 10") - Same as above. Even Messier 15 didn't look too good with the big telescope. Used the biggest magnification on M15 just to dispel my illusions of Pease 1 being an easy object to observe.

NGC 1491 (XT 4.5") - Sketched with a UHC filter. Noticed that I do not have a proper sketch of this so I did what I must.

Outer wisps of Messier 27 (GSO 10") -  Observed for a Avaruus.fi project however it proved to be far to difficult a task so instead I chose to sketch the inner regions of M27.