Morning Observing

I normally open up the observatory in the evening - I am more of a late night person, rather than an early riser - but since the 3rd of this month that has changed and I now open up in the evening and early morning.

On the 3rd. I was up early to carry out a dry run of the partial eclipse that was to take place the following day. I did not open the observatory that day or the day of the p.eclipse, but just went out onto a terrace so that I could confirm exactly where the sun would rise. I found that the sky was a lot clearer than the previous evening sky. That morning I had the pleasure of seeing Venus, Mercury and a very fine crescent of the Moon.

The following morning I was up earlier thinking that I would enjoy myself wandering around the sky with a pair of 20x80 binoculars before the eclipse started. The sky, as in the previous morning, was perfect.

I viewed a number of Deep Sky Objects of which the best was Omega Centauri, the huge Globular Cluster in the Constelation of Centaurus. This object has been viewed for at least the past 1800 years, as Ptolemy included it in his catalogue. The reason it is called Omega is that the 17th Century Astronomer Bayer catalogued it as a star and used the Greek Letter for Omega as it classification within Centaurus.

One of the extras you get by using binoculars is that you see the area around it. When I view Omega in one of my telescopes all I see - even using a 50mm eyepiece - is the Globular Cluster taking up 60 or 70% of the field of view. In the binoculars I saw something that I had not seen before. To the south of Omega there is an asterism that that has the shape of the Plough (Big Dipper). There are seven stars, the only difference is that there is one less star in the handle and an extra one in the farside of the bowl. I have looked on the Net to see if it had been noted anywhere, but had no luck in my searches.

For the past week I have been observing Moon and Jupiter in the evening and Deep Sky Objects in the morning, finishing up with Venus, Mercury and Saturn before the Sun rises - later on in the morning I check the Sun out as well :-)

For some reason I had never thought of Omega being a naked eye object but after reading about Ptolemy's entry I thought I would check on this. It only gets to 5 or 6 degrees above the horizon so I was a little unsure. On clear nights I can see stars down to the horizon, but they are bright pinpoints, not a "fuzzy thing". On the morning of the 5th the first thing I did after I woke up was to get up with no lights on - not even a red torch - and fumble my way out to the terrace. Looked to the point in the sky where I knew it would be and there it was, quite clear. In the mornings since, even without being completely dark adapted, I see it straight away.

This morning I also looked at Centaurus A (NGC 5128). This is a very peculiar galaxy with a strong Radio signal. Although I could see it with direct vision, it was better seen indirectly. Because of the dark band of dust it looked like two object, the northern part larger than the other. It was on the verge of twilight that I viewed this, so I will have to look at it earlier next time.