Observation log 13-1-08

By arun; Published 14 Jan 2008

Skies were normal, not what we expected from Ramancherry.... There were no clouds as such but there was a lot of haze and so there was a kind of halo around bright stars when seen through the scope... The observation started with the sightings of M31,M32,M110,NGC 752, M 51 was sighted but was not really at its best.... The Leo triplets M95,M96,M65,M66,NGC 3628,M105,NGC 3384 were also seen.... The fun really began as soon as Ursa Major and Centaurus were up.... In Ursa major the attractions were M81,M82,M101.... M104 was stunning with the dust lanes easily visible at a power of 80x.... As usual the show stealer was in Centaurus... It was Omega Centauri.... It looked amazing on both the 10' and 12'.... At 140x the stars were resolved quite easily.... It looked quite stunning on Hemanth`s scope and am sure that it is one of those objects that astronomers will always want to view even if it has been viewed n number of times..... The other globulars were M3 ,M4 , M53, M68, NGC 5286.... The other objects seen were M97,M108,Centaurus A,NGC 1316,M84 and M86.... Another stunning galaxy was the famouse Blackeye galaxy or also called M 64... It was easily visible even on an 8'..... Close to 30 objects were viewed.... It was a very good night of observing thanks to the expertise of Akarsh and Amar.....