20 inch telescope in New Zealand -3, North to South

[Chanlunlun]

Dear Star Lovers,

We waked up very early this morning to catch the interislander ferry to cross the strait from North Island to South Island. Afterward we had to drive for 7 hours to reach the our destination today - small town Oamaru.

Oamaru had one very special feature – the small blue penguins. These little cute animals will come onshore at night and walking along the roads back to their nest. One would see them walking on the streets at night in the town – what an unusual experience. Of course if you were willing to pay you could go to the platform to see large amount coming onshore but it is still extraordinary to see penguins walking on the street inside a town.

The night we stayed in Oamaru was also another clear night.( occasional clouds passing). The sky in Oamaru was obviously darker than that of Wellington. The Milky Way was much more obvious and the LMC and SMC were no more averted vision objects. They were both seen distinctly by direct vision and became very nice binocular objects. I again set up 4 inch RFT ( at 12X by Vixen LVW24.5 mm eyepiece) to see what was happening in the sky. Tonight I observed solo because other friends were to exhausted that they went bed.

1. NGC3324 – Keyhole Nebula ( Eta Carina). It’s quite high in the sky after midnight. Bright, big and easy to look at. Red color was not obvious and the keyhole was invisible. But the background sky was vivid black and the embedded star cluster was readily seen.

2. Large Magellan Cloud – Whole galaxy just fitted into the F.O.V. Although it could be seen naked eye, it is rather dim inside the 4 inch RFT. But the Tarantula Nebula was very bright. Numerous white spots inside the LMC were noticed. They were the nebulae inside. Though dim in appearance, outer stars in LMC were resolved.

3. NGC104 – or called Tucan 47. It is a giant globular cluster with extreme brightness. At night sky of Oamaru NGC104 was seen by unaided as a star next to the Small Magellan Cloud. Inside the 4 inch RFT it was a very bright smog, without stars resolved, however.

4. Small Magellan Cloud - though by naked eye SMC was dimmer than LMC but inside the RFT it was obvious brighter, reason unknown. 3 small smog was noticed inside SMC, there were nebulae inside. No stars were resolved in SMC.

5. NGC4755 – the famous “Jewel Box”. Very small but very bright inside the 4 incher. The color of stars were not obvious. I might change into a higher power but I didn’t because I would rather enjoy wider angle view to see the richer star background of milky way.

6. The Coal Sag – Extremely obvious by unaided eye, just under the Southern Cross. It was so black that one might feel it was darker than the background sky.

7. IC2602 – The Southern Pleiades, a very bright open cluster twice the size of moon. It was unquestionably sighted by unaided eye and gave a breathtaking view even inside a small 4 incher. Very rich, bright and busy, IC2602 made a splendid view inside large binocular.

8. The Milky Way – Oamaru was such a small town that its degree of light pollution was very low. It is better than any places in Hong Kong. The Winter milky way was very obvious even inside our campervan park. No averted vision was required.

9. Comet Love Joy – we miss it !! What a pity !!!

It was very late in the morning and another road trip was waiting for me. I better stopped here before I was getting too tired to drive a truck.

Best regards
Chan Yuk Lun
23 Dec 2014.

[Chanlunlun]

more pictures

[anyone]

[Eddy So]

X2

[littleming]

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[bingsze]

When will you write the next one? Expecting you.

[Chanlunlun]

When will you write the next one? Expecting you.

Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, depending on how fast I mark my papers.