Observing report, 10" f5, 7/25/2003

Date: Friday night, 7/25/2003, 9:30pm to 3:00am local PDT
Location: Cottonwood Spring campground, Joshua Tree National Park,
Calif.
Equipment: 10" f/5 dob (Guan Sheng)

Weather this week is still pretty muggy and generally crappy. Tonight
didn't look too bad so drove up to Cottonwood to spend the night. Some
high clouds threatened a bit throughout the night but otherwise not too
bad. Still lots of haze mixed with smoke from a brush fire near San
Jacinto. Using 10" f/5 scope plus Fujinon 16x70mm binoculars.

Starting with some galaxies in Draco. 4236 at mag 10.1 is quite large
but overall very faint. Elongated. Almost 1/3 of the 62x field. The
galaxy is also competing with some skyglow from the Coachella Valley.
Nearby 4128 at mag 13.1 is very small and faint.

Also in Draco galaxies 4291 and 4319 make a nice little pair. Both look
about the same to me. A little angle of 3 dim stars between the galaxies
forms a square with 4291. Off to the side of these two 4386 seems a bit
brighter. All 3 fit in the same 100x field. Also in the area 4589 is
fairly easy and off to the other side of my starting pair is 4127 which
is very dim and hard to see. There is a pretty little Pleadies-like
cluster of stars just north of 4127.

Little detour down to M81 and M82 in Ursa Major. Very impressive in the
10"! M81 looks like a small version of the Andromeda galaxy. M82 very
nice edge-on. Too low in the sky to really be optimum however. Still,
very nice indeed. Also in Ursa Major is 5585. Soft and round with a nice
little string of 3 stars a bit west. Just barely in the same field is
little 5631. Small and tight.

Open cluster 6939 in Cepheus and galaxy 6946 in Cygnus make a very
interesting pair. Very similar size, shape and brightness. The cluster
resolves into maybe a few dozen stars. Also visited galaxy 6951 in
Cepheus.

Planetary 7008 in Cygnus doesn't look very planetary-like to me. Seems
almost triangular. A dim double star is no the south-east edge. (In
checking some resources the next day i found this neb is also called the
Fetus nebula.)

At around 11:30pm local time some high clouds are coming over so i took
a little nap. Woke at 1:30am to find conditions improved.

Galaxy 7331 in Pegasus is a very nice galaxy. Quite bright and easy.
Brighter toward the middle. Nice at 100x. Is just barely visible in
16x70mm binoculars as well. South and a bit west in the same field with
7331 is Stephan's Quintet. I can pick out maybe 2 members. Hard to tell.
Can see general mottling in the area. Faint. Very intriguing. Will have
to revisit. Also in Pegasus found galaxy 7753. This guy is faint and
hard to see.

Side trip to Mirach in Andromeda for galaxy 404. I've always liked this
galaxy probably because even though it is hard to see it's a very easy
field to locate!

A few degrees north of the Andromeda galaxy is a little string of
galaxies in Cassiopeia. 185 is round, fairly large and easy. 147 is
larger than 185 yet fainter overall. And 278 is compact and fairly
bright.

Last object i tracked down was M76 in Perseus. This is very faint for a
Messier object. At higher powers can see the little dumbbell shape.

At 3am the moon is on its way and clouds are coming back over. Thicker
ones this time. Getting breezy too. Time to catch a couple hours sleep
before dawn.

[Post wrapped at 76 characters for you plain-text mud sticks. ;-) ]

-Florian Boyd
Stargazing.com

How do you like the Guan Sheng? Maybe it will eventually become as well
known here, although for a different market segment, as Takahashi? Is it
Hardin Optical that is marketing these Guan Shengs?


Hi Bill,

I'm quite happy with the scope. I've never owned a dob so that's new to me
as well. Hardin, OPTCORP, and Hands On Optics all sell the same Guan Sheng.
I got mine from OPT. The Orion dobs are Synta.

-Florian

I'm quite happy with the scope. I've never owned a dob so that's new to me
as well. Hardin, OPTCORP, and Hands On Optics all sell the same Guan Sheng.
I got mine from OPT. The Orion dobs are Synta.

I thought the Orion SkyQuests were Guan Sheng. The supplier I bought a
GS from said he visted the GS factory and saw SkyQuests being packed
there. I think I recall a while back on saa someone mentioning that
Orion switched sources Synta-GS ... or was that GS-Synta?

Hope this suitably confuses everyone :-)

Mark

Orion switched sources Synta-GS ... or was that GS-Synta?


I "think" Orion's were GS and are not Synta.

-Florian

Mark Elkington wrote:

I thought the Orion SkyQuests were Guan Sheng. The supplier I bought a
GS from said he visted the GS factory and saw SkyQuests being packed
there. I think I recall a while back on saa someone mentioning that
Orion switched sources Synta-GS ... or was that GS-Synta?

I can't speak for the new four-vane XT-10s, but I know for sure my
three-vane XT is a GS. Not a bad scope at all, really - I just need to
get some really good eyepieces... :-)

Steve

I "think" Orion's were GS and are not Synta.
^^^

That should read and are NOW Synta.

-Florian