Downunder Diary

[RMSteele]

Friday 3/3/23
My wife and I flew into Cairns at the end of February for our annual visit to our son and daughter-in-law. They live farther down the coast in Townsville. No sky views in Cairns because a tropical cyclone brought rain day and night. We did manage to visit the butterfly sanctuary at Karunda where the beautiful blue Ulysses Swallowtails took a fancy to my bald pate and kept landing there. A greyhound bus journey to Townsville brought clearer skies but the tropical humidity remained stifling. At my son’s house a cockroach, as big as a clockwork mouse, scuttled out of the curtains to welcome us on Wednesday evening. I got my first night sky view after I hurled our uninvited guest into the garden. The sky orientation here takes a little getting used to, for example the tropical Sun moves vertically through the field of view during my early morning Sun observations. But, as I look out northwards at Orion hanging upside down, the most unfamiliar aspect is that the sky view is flipped left/right. This means that Sirius is to the upper right of Orion with Canopus and Achernar farther round to the right (south); Mars and Aldebaran are to the lower left of Orion. On Thursday evening my son Steven had a striking view of the Jupiter/Venus conjunction in the deep orange dusk on his drive back home from work. My equipment here is crude, an f5 80mm achromatic refractor taped to an altaz mount for solar projection - very wobbly and awkward to use, and stopped down to 42mm to avoid heating issues. I also brought a Celestron 6x30 monocular with me, of which more anon. Bob

[jeff.stevens]

Bob, thanks for posting this. I look forward hearing more. I will set my Stellarium software to the same latitude and longitude to simulate your sky. I can't imagine looking at Orion like that - how fantastic it must be to see a different perspective. The cockroach has reminded me why I will probably never get to see Australia - along with the other fascinating wildlife in which you have to live in harmony with.

The 6x30's sound interesting. Binocular observing fascinates me - it's become my favourite style of observing over the last few years. Will you use the 80mm for night sky observing too?

Best wishes, Jeff.

[brian livesey]

We can only wonder Jeff, how Bob being down under, copes with the bloodrush to his head.

[RMSteele]

Friday 10/3/23
A cloudy, rainy week and the humidity is sky high. You can see it as a grey veil though 2 miles of air between Marabou Park where we walk the dog and the green flanks of Mount Stuart. The lotus beds are flowering at the edge of the Ross River. We are wet with sweat and Lady is panting. She is a powerful dog at 35 kilos. Resembling a New Zealand Huntaway she is strong and hard to hold back. My son rescued her two years ago. She was a living skeleton and weighed less than the cat. Tuesday is the first day this week with a clear spell, so I attempted a sunspot count in the late morning. Unfortunately the Sun is inconveniently high at that time and it’s hard to get my head around the image orientation. Tuesday to Thursday brings torrential rain; nevertheless we are pruning the rampant foliage around the property, so much of it that a skip is ordered and the truck gets stuck. Another truck arrives to tow it off the saturated grass. The men are doing a dance on the nature strip to flatten the wheel ruts and the rain intensifies. That night a clear spell revealed Orion reclining on clouds in the west, so I took the opportunity to test the field of view of my inexpensive Celestron OutlandX 6x30 monocular. With glasses on and the eye relief shroud screwed down when focus is achieved (my preferred viewing arrangement) I can just squeeze Rigel and Alnilam onto opposite edges of the field. I have seen the separation of Beta and Epsilon Orionis quoted as 8.8 degrees and I shall take that as the monocular’s practical fov for astronomical purposes. 10.5 degrees is printed on the monocular barrel. Friday is without rain, and clear spells allow a sunspot count in the late morning. A couple of clear intervals on Friday evening gives me the opportunity to glimpse Messier 41 in Canis Major with the 6x30, and in my son’s 8x40 binoculars it was large and granular. Sweeping across to Puppis with 8x40s reveals the sparse, speckly M47 and the dim smudge of M46 close by. The stated fov of the 8x40s is 8.2 degrees and with Rigel on the edge of the field Alnilam is just outside, so I conclude the stated field is correct in this case. Bob

[jeff.stevens]

Thanks for taking the time to post, Bob. I like reading about your adventures in the southern hemisphere.

I like the sound of Lady - she is a big doggy at 35Kgs. Does she accompany you on a stargazing night? Our doggy passed away last September, and I am lost without her.

I really like the sound of the 6x30 too. I have seen one in a photographic shop, near where I work, which looks very good quality. I might nip in next time and take a look through it.

I hope this weather clears up for you - although are you in an area that would welcome the rain?

Best wishes, Jeff.

[RMSteele]

Hello Jeff, the 6x30 was bought originally for observing bright variables, like Algol, in our light polluted sky and where you need to use comparison stars that are quite an angular distance away. It does help to fill that gap where formerly you could make unaided eye estimates, for nowadays even stars around 3rd mag are difficult to see from suburban areas. However it isn’t quite the scope I thought it was because the fov is nowhere near the advertised 10.5 degrees. Frankly, it’s not a versatile astronomical scope for older eyes as it won’t pick out deep sky fuzzies that are small or fainter than mag 4 or 5. It is compact enough to carry in a deep pocket with its fabric case for nature watching on the move and that’s really why I brought it with me. Sorry to hear about your dog Jeff. Lady charges into the garden to protect her property when I am outside and I worry she will knock the tripod over. it’s really a tropical rain forest climate between November and April, but the rest of the year is more or less a dry season. Most of the rain forest has been cut down north of here and there is only a small patch left near Cairns. Here’s a pic of Lady and Lesley in the local botanic gardens. Bob

C0BA2E40-CCEE-4632-98A3-7C746D912EA5.jpeg (160.61 KiB) Viewed 54 times

[jeff.stevens]

Lovely pic, Bob. What a great adventure to undertake each year.

I never thought about variable star comparison using a wider field instrument. Of course, that makes perfect sense.

I also keep forgetting that my 2" eyepiece, which fits my William Optics refractor, also gives a very wide field of view, but it's heavy and cumbersome to use, so I haven't used it for a couple of years. I'll have to dig it out of my astronomical box of tricks, and try again.

Best wishes, Jeff.

[brian livesey]

Those Southern Hemisphere Australian skies must be spectacular from dark sites. They see the richest parts of our galaxy, although people living on or about the equator, have the best of both hemispheres.
By the way, is it true that entertainer, Rolf Harris, was sent down by a kangaroo court?

[RMSteele]

Friday 17/3/23
Finishing off scalping our front hedge in the sweaty Sunday afternoon heat. I am standing in the street with a severed green frond in one hand and yellow electric hedge clippers in the other, and my jeans slide incontinently down round my knees. Our neighbour Steve is mowing his nature strip across the road. God knows what he is thinking. We hear about a man who was bitten by an Eastern brown snake while gardening today. There is a clear spell between 8 and 9 pm this evening, so with a belt firmly fastened around my waist I venture outside with 8x40s. Sirius is high. Passing the large and obvious Messier 41 I sweep towards Theta Canis Majoris and across the border into Monoceros. At twice the separation of the latter two stars I can just distinguish the dim blob of Messier 50 against the fuzz and clumpiness of the Milky Way.
Up at 6am on Monday to meet the people who are coming to remove a nine-metre Carpentaria. The palm’s copious fruit attracts bats and makes a mess on the neighbouring driveway. The job is done quickly and the stump is ground to mulch, watched over by the waning Moon.
Tuesday is another steam bath day but by 5pm the uv index is low enough for us to work at cutting down shrubs and uprooting scrubby ferns that have annexed a corner of the back yard. By 8pm the sky is brilliant with stars and I continue my binocular tour of Monoceros. The constellation stands at 70 degrees altitude here and I centre on Beta and Gamma Mon as my guide stars. Angling away to Delta Mon I find this is a very easy 4th and 5th magnitude line-of-sight double star. Back to Beta and Gamma then sweeping north to Epsilon Mon I can see the coarse speckle of hot “blue” O-type stars in NGC 2244 to the east. This is an open cluster surrounded by the larger Rosette Nebula that is not visible in the small binocular. The cluster itself is part of a large OB Association that includes the next star in our line of sweep, the A class supergiant, 13 Mon. Sweeping on brings us to S Monocerotis, a young, hot, massive binary O-star that appears to be between 4th and 5th magnitude, but of the associated open cluster NGC 2264 my old eyes can see no trace.
Leaving Monoceros and come Wednesday I resume my binocular sweeps on the opposite side of Canis Major. So, moving along a line from Sirius to Wezen and roughly the same distance beyond takes me deep into the constellation of Puppis, to its brightest star, 2nd magnitude Zeta (Naos), one of the brightest O-type supergiant stars in the galaxy. Close by I find what I am really seeking: The Eyes of Tiphys, or so I call them: two bright, adjacent open clusters, NGC 2451 and NGC 2477. Tiphys was the ill-fated helmsman of the argonauts and I imagine these clusters as the ghostly eyes of that mythical steersman staring out from the poop deck of the starry hulk. They are also known bizarrely as The Stinging Scorpion (2451) and The Termite Hole (2477). Obviously I prefer “The Eyes of Tiphys”; a 4th magnitude orange star, c Puppis, peeps from the centre of NGC 2451 and a similarly bright star glances sidelong near the edge of 2477.
Friday, and I continue to scan the tall, haunted timbers of Puppis. Messier 93 is a round, grey spot in the same field as Xi Puppis, a rare third magnitude G-type supergiant with a close fifth magnitude rusty looking companion. M93 also forms a right angle with Delta Canis Majoris (Wezen) and Eta Canis Majoris (Aludra). Sweeping farther north there I find two more Messier objects in Puppis (visible from parts of the UK in winter): M46 and M47. M47 is by far the coarser and more obvious of the two, while I find M46 very elusive despite being near the zenith and close to a convenient 4th or 5th magnitude star to the south east. Bob

[Cliff]

Bob
I it is very nice to know you are able to visit your Son, distant family members and also get some views of spectacular southern night skies.
Best of luck to you and the family, from Cliff

[RMSteele]

Thanks for your good wishes Cliff, I shall be continuing my tour of the sky, hopefully next with Carina, another part of the old constellation Argo. Hope all is well with you and yours. Bob