Chandler Mountain July 2, 2011

Earlier last week we were afforded some good skies during the work week. We had a front push through that kept most of the gulf moisture to the south. Each summer we get this weather pattern for a few days, they are not long lasting. I encountered one of these patterns back in August 2007. However this time the pattern was starting to breakdown and so by the night I made it out to the observing site, the more typical pattern of weather for summer in the south was starting to return however.

I had been watching the weather the whole day, so once it got within about 2 hours of sundown I headed out to get dinner and to the observing site. I figured even with the Birmingham Astronomical Society having their star party at Oak Mountain State Park to the south of Birmingham someone else would still be on the mountain with me...but alas there was nobody but me.

Unfortunately, as the Sun went down I noticed the seeing was very good, mainly from the humidity. However after twilight finally ended the transparency was improving, but still it fell short of the normal winter time conditions here in Alabama.

I spent most of my time looking for Herschel 400 objects and Messier objects. The H400 is a project I have been working on for quite some time. I did however finish the Binocular Messier list. This has been a project that I thought I had completed back in 2009, but when I got ready to send the object list in to get my pin from the Astronomical League, I came up one object short. I really did not enjoy the binocular observing since I did not feel you could really see the objects clearly, so I sort of put this project to the side.

The Messier Objects are some of the brightest objects in the sky, a small telescope will reveal them easily and a moderate telescope will start to show quite a bit of detail in some. With binoculars the point to is just to locate the objects. There is not much detail to be seen. But to earn the Master Observer Pin from the Astronomical League this is one of the required projects, so therefore I completed it.... finally.

So the night I ended up observing the following towards earning Astronomical League pins:
4 H400 objects--Bringing my total to around 90
2 Messier Bino Objects--Bringing my total to 51

I also observed a beautiful pass of the International Space Station. With 10X50 binoculars, the ISS is clearly got some shape.

But the highlight of the night was observing Supernova 2011dh in the galaxy M51. I found the object not to be super easy nor super hard. The supernova erupted in early June so by the time I got out to observe it was fading.

Before packing up though I spent sometime with M13 the globular cluster. I have always liked globular clusters. What I was wanting to do was see if I could see the propeller pattern in the cluster. I find my eyes see it easily in many pictures, but at the telescope I was having a little bit more trouble. I could see one blade I thought for sure and a possible second, but I was not seeing a Y shape like so many pictures show.

I was using a 10in SCT at between 113X and 208X under fair skies, so if anyone else has seen the propeller effect, I would love to hear about it!

(The link to the Las Vegas Astronomical Society I included for the good information, and because when I was a teenager I was a member of it. Hope you enjoy it)