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Post by Martin Mc kenna on Oct 28, 2005 15:19:02 GMT
The clouds broke late last night revealing a lovely dark sky. I was busy observing Mars and decided to take a break away from the eyepiece to scan the sky with the naked eye. At 01.00 local time i made my very first sighting of the Gegenschein!!!! It was located in a region of sky between Cetus, Pisces and Aries. It looked like a faint mild green patch of light at least 10 * in diameter that was barely brighter than the background sky, it was slightly elongated in a horizontal direction. I held it with direct vision for a considerable time untill clouds arrived on the scene and washed it out.
Then with the 8" LX10 F/10 SCT at 77X i glimpsed the Merope nebula (NGC1435) in M45. It took up half the FOV of the low power eyepiece and looked like a grey elongated strip pointing down to the SW of that star. It looked a little like a comet tail. What a night, it was only clear for 1/2 an hour and i got to see two treasures i have always wanted to see. Great session!!
Clear skies!
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Post by Phil on Oct 28, 2005 16:16:04 GMT
Well done Martin!! Yeah I noticed myself that when I came home from work the last couple of mornings, there was a couple of breaks in the clouds and the seeing looked very good!!
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Post by NeilP on Oct 29, 2005 7:43:42 GMT
Hey Martin
Sounds like you had a great night, congrats on getting to view those two
Neil
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Post by markmc on Oct 29, 2005 12:54:18 GMT
nice work there folks sounds like a nice if not short bit of viewing .as soon as it got dark here it clouded over ,great :-(
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Post by Martin Mc kenna on Oct 29, 2005 17:46:56 GMT
Thanks again everyone!
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