Finally I have time to write a report from Rio de Janeiro where I have my 80mm refractor with me. In Rio there is a lot of light pollution, nevertheless I observed from the hotel roof a couple of times. Proxima Centauri was hard to see because it was low above the horizon, and hard to find because it is just a small star among other small stars - but I saw it. Seeing is not too good either, so Jupiter (albeit high in the sky), Alpha Centauri and Alpha Crucis looked not too impressive 8) Much more interesting were the bright open clusters with striking shapes and coloured stars - NGC 3766 and both Jewel Boxes, 6231 and 4755.
But last weekend I visited my friends in a small town in the state of Sao Paulo. We first went to a dark place on Saturday, but the weather was bad, and my friends had most fun with my green laser pointer. However, at sunset on Sunday I went to their back yard to check the seeing - and found it excellent. We looked at Jupiter where GRS was right in the middle, and then I noticed that Milky Way with Sagittarius in zenith was well seen already in the dusk! While it was getting dark, we looked at Alpha Centauri and Alpha Crucis - they were magnificent, with steady diffraction rings and brilliant Airy discs. Alpha Crucis is beyond any doubt the most beautiful multiple star in the sky. Antares was very close to zenith and I could see the companion as a tiny whitish knot on the outer edge of the diffraction ring.
After that we looked at Milky Way, first with the naked eye (I used the laser pointer a lot), and then with the telescope. M7 was the brightest knot of light easily seen without optical aid. M8 and M24 were almost as easy to see, M6 was a little dimmer. I finally got to know what Large Sagittarius Star Cloud and Scutum Star Cloud were - they looked like star clouds and showed uncountable stars in chains and other patterns at low power. I could see the galactic bulge and the great dark nebulosity in front of it, with winding dark rifts on the Cygnus side where Milky Way was well seen down to the horizon.
The Messier objects in Sagittarius and Scorpius looked like I had never seen them before. There was a lot of detail in M8 with UHC filter at 70x. I could finally see the dark lanes dividing the Trifid unfiltered at 90x. What is the ID of the double star in the middle of it? M16 looked like a sack of nebulosity with a ball of stars of equal brightness in it. (Did I see some dark lanes?) M11 withstood all magnifications from 20x to 140x. The galaxies, M83 and Centaurus A, were disappointing because of the city lights in the West, but no galaxy can compete with Milky Way! The Sculptor/Fornax galaxies would rise in the dark part of the sky later, but I had to go back to Rio. I concluded the night by observing the Helix Nebula where I could easily see the hole in the middle at low power.
Dmitri
But last weekend I visited my friends in a small town in the state of Sao Paulo. We first went to a dark place on Saturday, but the weather was bad, and my friends had most fun with my green laser pointer. However, at sunset on Sunday I went to their back yard to check the seeing - and found it excellent. We looked at Jupiter where GRS was right in the middle, and then I noticed that Milky Way with Sagittarius in zenith was well seen already in the dusk! While it was getting dark, we looked at Alpha Centauri and Alpha Crucis - they were magnificent, with steady diffraction rings and brilliant Airy discs. Alpha Crucis is beyond any doubt the most beautiful multiple star in the sky. Antares was very close to zenith and I could see the companion as a tiny whitish knot on the outer edge of the diffraction ring.
After that we looked at Milky Way, first with the naked eye (I used the laser pointer a lot), and then with the telescope. M7 was the brightest knot of light easily seen without optical aid. M8 and M24 were almost as easy to see, M6 was a little dimmer. I finally got to know what Large Sagittarius Star Cloud and Scutum Star Cloud were - they looked like star clouds and showed uncountable stars in chains and other patterns at low power. I could see the galactic bulge and the great dark nebulosity in front of it, with winding dark rifts on the Cygnus side where Milky Way was well seen down to the horizon.
The Messier objects in Sagittarius and Scorpius looked like I had never seen them before. There was a lot of detail in M8 with UHC filter at 70x. I could finally see the dark lanes dividing the Trifid unfiltered at 90x. What is the ID of the double star in the middle of it? M16 looked like a sack of nebulosity with a ball of stars of equal brightness in it. (Did I see some dark lanes?) M11 withstood all magnifications from 20x to 140x. The galaxies, M83 and Centaurus A, were disappointing because of the city lights in the West, but no galaxy can compete with Milky Way! The Sculptor/Fornax galaxies would rise in the dark part of the sky later, but I had to go back to Rio. I concluded the night by observing the Helix Nebula where I could easily see the hole in the middle at low power.
Dmitri
