A Dark Sky !

Last night I joined the local astronomical society on a trip to find a true dark sky. We took a boat trip to a spot some thirty kilometres South West of Malta. The sky was truly spectacular exceeding my wildest expectations. The Milky Way stood out in all its glory. Like a menacing cloud, all the dark lanes and bright patches and knots were visible. The view towards Sagittarius was especially interesting. The Lagoon Nebula was a bright naked eye object. All the others were also visible, the Trifid, M22, M25, Swan and Eagle Nebulae.

Altogether a very interesting night to remember!!

Telescope

These are pics I took this evening of my telescope set out and waiting for nightfall. The telescope is a Sky-Watcher 200mm (8") F6 1200mm reflector on a dobson mount. In these photos it is set up with a 10mm eyepiece, 2X barlow lens and a digiscoping adaptor.

The telescope is on the flat roof of my house which acts as my observatory.

Jupiter

Yesterday, my little camera having been replaced after a problem developed in the display backlight, I decided to try to image Jupiter since the Moon had moved out of the way:)

Using a digiscoping technique I attached my BenQ three megapixel camera to a 10mm eyepiece and a 2X barlow on my 200mm Skywatcher Dobson reflector (1200mm F6)

I snapped 9 shots over a period of six minutes and stacked the results with Registax. Unfortunately there was no transit of the GRS or any of the moons' shadows but Ganymede is faintly visible at the lower right. Considering the equipment used, I think it is a fair result.

Guests

On Friday I invited friends over with their two young kids and sent them on a quick tour of the heavens. In such circumstances I play safe and show objects that I am confident of finding very quickly. I don't like boring people while I star-hop to some elusive fuzzy. Also the objects have to be somewhat impressive to avoid underwhelming the guests.

So the program was Saturn (before it went too low in the sky), Jupiter which was undergoing a transit of Io. I did catch the moment when Io appeared and the shadow was still on Jupiter's surface. M13 which was quite high and easily resolvable. M57, an exploded star makes for a good impressive story. M104, almost seeing the age of the dinosaurs at 50M LY. And some good doubles including Epsilon Lyrae, Algieba and Albireo. Of couse the moon was at 40% and its surface always amazes first time viewers.