Shape of the ISS and some doubts

Tuesdays are not good observing nights for me. Last night put me at a bit of a dilemma. The forecast is that last night might have been the last best night for a while to come, and yet, I have a class I attend on Tuesdays. So I missed out on what could be the last best observing night for some time, and went to my Tai Chi class instead. I've been studying Practical Tai Chi Chuan for about 4 years now, and it's a surprisingly tough workout, considering that you only move in what amounts to slow motion. But wait, this isn't a Tai Chi Blog I hear you say. You're right.

So, anyway, I happened to be near the back door at 1740 (convenient eh ?) when the ISS pass was due. I thought tonight, instead of trying to capture it on film (well in pixels anyway) I'd watch the pass in my bins. I dashed off to get them. Got back (only takes about 20 seconds, as I keep them convenient, just as well really) and after a couple of seconds searching found the moving dot (rather than the stationary ones, stars, that surprisingly even with the sky so day coloured I could make out). I tracked the ISS for about a minute in the bins before it dropped behind the roofline of the house. Now, I could be wrong here, but I'm fairly certain that I was able to make out some form to the blob. More than I was expecting, given the ISS is 300 miles away. It looked almost to me, like there were some shadows behind the brightness of the reflected sunlight. I was really pleased with that.

A little, later, the sky had gona dark, Cassiopeia was high in the sky, so I decided to grab the scope and see if I could find me NGC7789. I looked and looked, went back to TL@O, looked again. I new I was in the right place, but nothing was there. Could a cluster take itself away and play hide and seek ? Then I spotted a small note. In a small telescope, about 3 inches, NGC7789 will only just be visible as a faint patch of light. I realised then, that I had about as much chance of seeing NGC7789 as that proverbial ball of compacted ice crystals in the glowing furnaces of the underworld, i.e. none. I'd given myself a window of 5 minutes, dark adaption, what dark adaption, the moon, approcahing first quarter was riding high in the sky (the previous night, she had conveniently decided to hide behind the trees at the end of the garden for me, most considerate) and everything was fairly awash with white light. And NGC7789, Mag 11, right at the limit of my scope under dark conditions.

Then, I had a quick look at la luna and whilst I wasn't using a high power eyepiece, 17mm Hyperion (it's just so much easier to use than the plossls, gotta get me more!!!) the view was completly stunning. There were three very obvious craters in view, near the terminator, now if I can just ID them, I can tick them off on my Lunar 100 (only got 3, the easy two... The Moon, and Earthshine, and one I got purely by accident looking at someone elses images). Tis done, I found them. Of course, all three are only one in the Lunar 100, never mind.

Then off to my class. At the end of the class, I was chatting to a friend, and he'd been to the Chichester Planetarium, it's on my list of places to visit. They'd seen a number of things, and he'd somehow left with the impression that Mars was not visible as a naked eye object. Well, I soon cured him of this misconception. As we left the sports hall, Mars was perched just above the roof. It was nigh on impossible to view any stars near him to point out the constellations as the car park was lit like a football stadium and only the brightest stars were burning through, but he saw Mars.

Then, when I got home, after my failure with NGC7789, I started to doubt my previous nights observations. Had I really found all those clusters ? Had I seen something in about the right sort of place give or take a few degrees and falsely decided that obviously that must be it ? Was yesterdays report, a total sham ? Was it even possible with my little scope to see some of those objects ? Had I only thought I'd seen them because I wanted to ? I tossed and turned after I had gone to bed, worrying. I resolved to pull out TL@O and re-read all the info on the clusters and check the mag in Stellarium this morning.

Well, I've been through the exercise, compared the notes in TL@O and the Mags of the clusters in Stellarium. I've used this information from other nights and sightings of faint fuzzies to work out whether it's likely I saw them or not. The ones now in question, (from the long list, now 4) are:

NGC436 Mag 8.8
NGC637 Mag 8.2
NGC659 Mag 7.9
NGC654 Mag 6.5

I don't feel like I might be quite such a fraud now, that's a relief. Reading the descriptions in TL@O, I'm pretty certain that I did definitely get NGC654 and NGC637. NGC436 based on my Galactic searches is probably borderline and NGC659, was possible, so I'll leave it as found. I'm relieved looking at this, I was feeling pretty rotten at the thought that I might have invented seeing all these clusters and publishing, only to find that I'd gotten it all wrong.

I'm gonna chalk up NGC436 as imaginary, not the cluster, but that I actually saw it the other night, and will have another go at it, the next time the moon is in hiding and the clouds have left us alone. And this time, I'll make sure that if I can find it, I definitely saw it and nail the thing.

The forecast for tonight is mist and cloud, so I'm not sure there'll be any observing, just have to see what actually turns up.

On the kit front, I now have a set of tube rings. I can just about squeeze the rear one onto the outer rim of the focusser, which probably isn't the best of places, but the rear of the RDF gets in the way for any other part of the tube. It seems to be pretty sturdy clamped on there, so I think it'll work, and the scope isn't really all that heavy. Now all I need is a dovetail, probably have to go for a medium length one, so that I can balance the scope, there's no chance of moving the scope in the rings to balance, there's just no play. And of course, a mount to put it on. I have yet to hear back from the man with the eq2, the heavier mount, being a seben, I have learned isn't worth going for.