Orion and Auriga

It is getting cold at night here in California, but I ventured out a couple of nights ago as the forecast is for cloud and rain for the next two weeks.

I got my 1st view of Orion in the CPC 1100 since getting the telescope a year ago - and my observing skills have progressed substantially since then. M42 and M43 looked great at all magnifications – particularly through the Ethos 13, where the Trapezium and surrounding nebulosity were very clear and impressive. I tried out the Orion Ultrablock (H-beta and OIII) filter on these nebulas. Although the nebulas were definitely more defined with the filter, I didn't find the difference to be really substantial.

I then moved over to M78, but couldn't see it - even with the filter in place. I don't think this was an issue with the goto, as many other objects were placed clearly inside the FOV - so I imagine this was a function of local light pollution and perhaps the poor transparency that evening (clouds were coming in throughout the observing session). That being said, I will certainly try for M78 again as soon as we get a clear night.

I next turned my attention to some of Orion's double stars. Meissa (Lambda Orionis) was easily split as it is only a 4.4 arc second separation. There is a noticeable difference in magnitude between the two stars. Meissa is part of the Collinder 69 cluster, which contains a striking 3-star asterism.

Sigma Orionis is a 5-star system, four of which were easily resolved - but I couldn't split A and B, as they are only 0.25 arc seconds apart.

I then shifted over to open clusters in and around Orion and Auriga: NGC 1981, M35, M36, M37 and M38. M37 was my favorite - clearly the brightest of the bunch, containing around 500 stars.

My last target of the night was the Crab Nebula, M1. Again, as with M78, no luck - even with the nebula filter. M1 has very low surface brightness, so will probably require a dark site location to snag this one.

Controlling the CPC 1100 telescope from a laptop

Although the CPC 1100 has a very good handset for selecting target objects for Goto, the "holy grail" for amateur observational astronomy is to direct the telescope using a planetarium application. Why? Because planetarium software gives you tremendous flexibility in planning an observing session, understanding the context of what you are observing, and just simply exploring the sky.

Tonight was my first attempt and, thanks to some helpful directions on the cloudynights forum, it look less than 1/2 hr to get everything configured.

I use Stellarium (see below) as my planetarium application, and connected my laptop to the telescope handset through a USB-to-serial converter cable. The next step would be to invest in a bluetooth receiver, which would remove the need for wires (never much fun fiddling with wires in the dark).

Unfortunately the clouds rolled in soon after I had everything working. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun to the see the telescope location pointer slewing across the screen in step with the motion of the scope itself. I am very much looking forward to giving this a good workout on a clear night. I can already see that the laptop-driven approach will substantially enhance my observing experiences.