In January I wrote about my frustration about not being able to see the wealth of open clusters behind the hind legs of Canis Major from Sweden. Well, now I've got my opportunity!
My last night in BrasÃlia was clear and transparent - first really clear night in two weeks of my stay there. I went to the hotel roof about half past ten. The beautiful city was brightly lit as usual, but half an hour into the session I discovered that if I retract the tripod legs and sit down on the (warm) floor, the sky instantly becomes dark and I can see Milky Way - thanks to the transparency.
I mainly looked at the open clusters in Puppis/Vela and Centaurus. NGC2451 was striking with its bright orange stars. It was hard to find 2477, but then I noticed its large faint nebulosity at 11x that resolved into a swarm of faint stars at higher power. I also looked at 2546, 2547, IC2391, 5460, 5822 and 3239. One of them (I don't remember which) had delicate chains of stars making calligraphic patters, like a question mark. I wasn't writing log because I didn't have much time - which one could that be?
Along the way I looked at the globulars Omega Centauri and 3201, some very double stars like Gamma Vel and Alpha Cen (the latter lost its traffic light appearance due to the excellent seeing and being relatively high over the horizon), and Jupiter where I could see detail in the belts and a tiny disc of Europa very next to the planet limb - seeing was truly remarkable! Is that usual for tropic countries?
The last half an hour I devoted to the nirvana of Eta Carinae which was clearly seen with naked eye. With UHC, its central bright part easily took 100x. I saw that what I had seen before as a dark ragged cone protruding into the bright nebulosity was actually a dark winding rift. Later I realised after some reading that it was the Keyhole Nebula. At 22x I could feel that the large faint nebulosity had a lot of detail in it, but I couldn't pick up any - I surely would if I had a couple of hours to look at it. The abundance of bright and faint stars in the nebula made me wonder whether an open cluster is involved - Uranometria shows no less than six just within the nebula's borders! The wonderful combination of bright, not-so-bright and dark nebulosity with stars bright and faint make Eta Carinae truly unique and certainly my favourite object. I'm wondering when I get to see it again!
Dmitri
My last night in BrasÃlia was clear and transparent - first really clear night in two weeks of my stay there. I went to the hotel roof about half past ten. The beautiful city was brightly lit as usual, but half an hour into the session I discovered that if I retract the tripod legs and sit down on the (warm) floor, the sky instantly becomes dark and I can see Milky Way - thanks to the transparency.
I mainly looked at the open clusters in Puppis/Vela and Centaurus. NGC2451 was striking with its bright orange stars. It was hard to find 2477, but then I noticed its large faint nebulosity at 11x that resolved into a swarm of faint stars at higher power. I also looked at 2546, 2547, IC2391, 5460, 5822 and 3239. One of them (I don't remember which) had delicate chains of stars making calligraphic patters, like a question mark. I wasn't writing log because I didn't have much time - which one could that be?
Along the way I looked at the globulars Omega Centauri and 3201, some very double stars like Gamma Vel and Alpha Cen (the latter lost its traffic light appearance due to the excellent seeing and being relatively high over the horizon), and Jupiter where I could see detail in the belts and a tiny disc of Europa very next to the planet limb - seeing was truly remarkable! Is that usual for tropic countries?
The last half an hour I devoted to the nirvana of Eta Carinae which was clearly seen with naked eye. With UHC, its central bright part easily took 100x. I saw that what I had seen before as a dark ragged cone protruding into the bright nebulosity was actually a dark winding rift. Later I realised after some reading that it was the Keyhole Nebula. At 22x I could feel that the large faint nebulosity had a lot of detail in it, but I couldn't pick up any - I surely would if I had a couple of hours to look at it. The abundance of bright and faint stars in the nebula made me wonder whether an open cluster is involved - Uranometria shows no less than six just within the nebula's borders! The wonderful combination of bright, not-so-bright and dark nebulosity with stars bright and faint make Eta Carinae truly unique and certainly my favourite object. I'm wondering when I get to see it again!
Dmitri
