Reports - 2010
Astronomy Benalla - Baddaginnie Viewing Report - Saturday 17th April 2010
Once again we were fortunate to have a clear and dark sky for our monthly viewing night. With
the daylight saving over and the nights growing longer we were able to commence viewing by 6-
30pm. Twelve members plus visitors from Shepparton, Benalla and three Baddaginnians
enjoyed excellent views of many celestial objects through the six telescopes and were also given
a laser star sky tour by Astronomy Benalla’s President.
Just on dusk Rupe had his equatorial Newtonian that had been re-collimated earlier in the day,
guarantying sharp images, sighted close to the horizon on the three-day slim crescent moon. He
had focused on the 24km dia, 2.4 km deep impact-crater Picard in Mare Crisium, a truly
impressive sight.
Glenn brought his easily erected Newtonian and concentrated on the northern constellations Orion & Canis Major. David’s
300mm dia truss Dobsonian light bucket kept the visitors in awe with the bright images of Saturn’s rings and two of it’s
moons Titan and Rhea most of the evening. Saturn is moving retrograde this month in the Constellation of Virgo. Cynthia’s
70 mm refractor had the bright planet Venus central in it’s sights early in the night but after it dropped below the horizon she
moved on to our other neighbor, Mars which is this month in the Constellation of Cancer the Crab.
Anne’s new Gerber Delux binoculars saw their first light and she was truly astounded with their
performance. It was an excellent evening for all the binocular owners to concentrate on the major,
open & globular clusters plus the three planets Venus, Mars and Saturn. Anne’s delight for the
night was to see Mars in conjunction with the large Bee Hive cluster also known as M44.
To finish the night David swung his scope across to the South and picked up the ghostly Tarantula
Nebula aka 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 180,000 light years away. It is one of
the largest emission nebulae known and home to many super giant stars.
Photo by Jerry Lodriguss
Astropix
Tarantula Nebula - Danny
LaCrue - NASA
