Star Gazing 2007-03-10

I went for star gazing at Tierra Del Sol (TDS) on Saturday with San Diego Astronomy Association group. They have their own observatory with 22 inch optical telescope. TDS is an hour drive from SD and the site is excellent. You can catch Mag 7 stars easily with naked eye.

My main objective this time was to do some binocular astronomy, like observing Messier objects. I had list of 16 objects to locate within 3 hrs (thats pretty lame objective for pros.. but for beginners like me its okay :)). Bob & Ravi were also with me and they didn't know much abt stars. So we had good beginner's session with fundas and then with constellations.

Best part of the star party was...

- Saturn from 22 inch. Bob said that it was like a textbook image of Saturn. Rings were just fabulous. 4 of its satellites were clearly visible !!

- Watching M41 open cluster in Canis Major and M36-37-38 open clusters in Auriga through binoculars was fun. I tried to locate these objects from SD multiple times and it was frustrating. But at TDS, I got them within a minute.. I was damn happy :) !! Infact for M36-37-38, I first observed them through binocs and then checked their relative-locations in sky-chart.. and it was perfect. It was indeed (a small scale) achievement for me. I am sure that now I can find them from SD also.

After 3 hrs, whole thing got ruined because of cloud cover and winds. We were planning to wait till moon rise @ 12:34 and then observing moon through 22inch would have been fun.. but gusty winds were just unbearable !!

Overall, I located 10 messier objects out of 16. Others were lost because of the cloud cover... bad luck.. bad day for star gazing !!

Any way, my Nikon 10x50 binoc, which I ordered last week, is on the way.. I should get it tomorrow.. Feeling excited !!