Rio

Here comes my first report from Rio de Janeiro. The weather is bad, the only clear evening yesterday. Transparency was bad. Unfortunately they didn't let me to observe from the roof of Sheraton (I'm not staying there) that overlooks the dark South over the ocean, so I had a short session in the rather brightly lit yard of my hotel. I didn't just go to the beach because I want to keep my scope for myself. . . No trace of SMC, but I looked at some showpieces nevertheless.

Globular clusters:
47 Tucanae, 100x - Huge, a bright cirular concentration (that looks grainy) is surrounded by a fading halo of outlying stars. Definitely better framed in my 80mm than Omega Centauri! Diameter with outlyers at least 9'.

NGC362 - concentrated with bright but not star-like core; grainy at 100x. It was put there to make a contrast to 47 Tuc.

Galaxies:
NGC1316 - detected at 22x, small at 40x, rather bright; a stellar core.

NGC55 - detected at 40x - no more than lumpy darkness...

NGC253- seen at 22x, worse at 40x. Huge!! Seems mottled. An outstanding galaxy; should be a killer sight given dark skies. In a way, it's better than M31. [ Thomas, I know you would have loved the view! ]

Hi, Maybe a drive up the mountain side would help?
Hope you get some more clear nights. Have fun anyway, even if the skies won't cooperate.

Dmitri,

I have been dreaming about both "The Silver Dollar" (NGC253) and NGC55 for years. How does the surface brightness of NGC253 compare with other galaxies?

Have a good time in Rio!

Inge S

Now I'm ready to finish my report from Brazil. I stayed over the weekend with my friends; the weather was unstable and in spite my going out at 3 a.m. to check the clouds I was only able to observe very few objects with Moon interfering, most notably the Tarantula nebula (where I could see only the central part at 100x) and NGC346 in SMC that got behind the clouds even before I could identify it on my charts.

However, I managed to show my friends what telescopes are good for: the crescent of Venus, features on Mars, craters on the Moon, the great Orion nebula and the Pleiades which were a real shock for them when compared to six stars seen by the naked eye. They were impressed, so perhaps I won't need to bring my scope next time I visit them!

Best time to do astronomy in Brazil is April-May; the air is clear and transparent. If I ever get there at this time of year, we'll go to spend several nights at one of the small hotels in the mountains where coffee grows on the slopes, the nights are very dark and the stars are many.

Dmitri