Bino report part I

Bino Observation Report - New Orions strain the milk pitcher

Ok, I'm calling Sagitarrius the "milk pitcher" instead of the "teapot" because of the LP I have to the south at my parents' house where this took place, and tried to style the title after Ron's great Light Cup obs reports. Imitation and flattery and all that, Ron. ;-)

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Aug 05 2002

Date: August 5, 2002 (UTC, Aug 4-5 EDT)
Time: 0225 – 0400 UTC
Seeing: 7/10
Transparency 5.0 North, 5.5 ZLM, 4.0 South

Instrument Used: Orion 10x50 Ultraview binoculars, mounted on Bogen 3021 tripod with tripod adapter.

Objects Observed:

M4
M6
M7
M8
M13
M20
M21
M22
M23

Set up in side yard at parents house and got started about 1025 local (EDT) time. Eta Ursa Minoris (mag 4.9) was barely visible with direct vision before I was fully dark adapted, so limiting magnitude toward the north was about 5. Overhead, I estimate the ZLM at least 5.5. However, to the south toward Sagittarius the neighbor’s lights make it much more difficult, though the direct glare is blocked by my parents’ barn. Mu Sagittarii at magnitude 3.81 takes a careful look, though it is there. Limiting magnitude toward the south is closer to 4. Seeing is fairly good, at least as far as I’m able to tell with 10x binoculars. The views are steady.

First target is M7. In spite of how prominent it can be to the unaided eye it is NOT visible unaided, or at least I can’t see it and I do find it readily in the binoculars. In spite of the light background it is still very pretty. My notes comment, “Looks like an X-Wing!” Interesting that I see a winged object from the mythology of my youth in this and not in M6, which is up next. I make a half hearted attempt to count stars, but the background in this area is just too rich.

Moving up to M6, my notes say, “reminds me of a miniature [constellation of] Orion” and I have a very small crude sketch that shows it this way.

Later and indoors, I look at both with Starry Night Pro. After playing with the limiting magnitude and setting it at 10, I manage to recreate the “X-Wing look” look of M7. M6 takes more work and dropping the limiting magnitude to 9, then it looks “sort of almost maybe a little bit like” my sketch. The X-Wing is obvious but I have to convince myself I see the butterfly shape in M6. I’m not at all sure of it even so. It doesn’t look much like Orion either, indoors.

document.

Wanting to find something else in Scorpius before it sank lower into my southwestern sky murk, I next located M4. In spite of being only 1 deg 18’ from Antares, I manage to glimpse it only with averted vision. Listed as “Easy” by the AL and mag 7.50, this speaks of how my sky at this location gets even worse to the west.

Next attempted target was M28, listed on my League list of M objects for binos as “Tougher.” I never convince myself I have a glimpse of it, not surprising given it’s magnitude wich SNP lists as 8.5 and considering it is not a point source.

Next I manage to find M22. My notes read, “Nice globular, showing as a prominent fuzzy patch. Triangular asterism to lower right.” Lower right would be WSW. If I needed confirmation, checking this indoors later gave it. There’s my triangle made up of 24 Sagittarii (at mag 5.46 the only one of the three that showed on the crude roughly mag 6 charts I was using,) 25 Sagittarii at mag 6.5, and HIP90953/TCY6857-628-1 at mag 6.78. I also saw some of the other, dimmer, stars within this neat little triangular signpost.

Back to the west for another sweep for M28 without luck. Moving on to a few degrees north and west from there I go to M23. Notes read, “fairly easy, within another triangular asterism.” Humm, lotsa triangles tonight. But setting up SNP later and playing with limiting magnitude and setting it to mag 9 duplicates it beautifully. My triangle this time is TYC6258-534-1 (mag 8.19,) TYC6258-511-1 (mag 8.65) and HIP87782/TYC6258-94-1 (mag 6.46.)

It’s interesting how different some objects and their fields look with the limiting magnitude set differently on a computer program. This may be one of the less proclaimed but useful advantages over paper charts as it seems some tinkering can usually get remarkably close to the actual view without either leaving out too many stars for recognition or crowding the chart with so many dim ones as to obscure the patterns we see at the eyepiece.

Looking at M24 later convinces me I saw it, as I definitely recall a very pretty open cluster that reminded me of a miniature Cygnus flying with its neck outstretched right toward the teapot. Since I wasn’t sure until I checked later I don’t know whether to count it or not, but I’m sure I can nail it immediately next time. It’s only a couple of degrees north of Mu Sagittarii anyway, and a very prominent pattern.

Similarly with M25, I’m pretty sure I saw it but was never totally convinced that I knew for sure what I was looking at. No score but it should be easy next time.

and M45. But that’s a much shorter tale for another