by Andrew Pierce
Observing on the evening of 7-30-01 began on the pier at the Cousteau resort, near the town of Savusavu. That was the best place to see Omega Cen, away from the ubiquitous palm trees. A nice big glow in the big binos.
I then tried to align and calibrate the Skyview Deluxe mount that the Intes 6" inch scope was on. What a piece of $#@ !! The mount basically can't be used at low latitudes because the motor or the diagonal will hit something whichever side of the meridian you try to use. I had this problem in Hawaii last year, but it was worse in Fiji at about 16 degrees south.
I was just about ready to dump the mount in the Koro Sea when I realized I could still see Omega Cen if I pretended the pole was due west. Since it isn't an equatorial mount and the drive is useless in this configuration I would have been better off with LeFevre or Highe style porta-Dob -- but so it goes.
Omega Cen was a little washed out from the moon but lovely, as expected. It was naked eye visible as well, despite the bright gibbous moon.
The constellation Triangulum Aus was pretty obvious next to Alpha Cen (its the one that looks like a triangle) so I checked out NGC 6025 an open cluster with about 20 bright stars. Then it clouded up and I went to bed.
At 3:00 a.m. I looked out at a pristine dark moonless sky. No chart was needed as the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds were easy naked eye reference points. Looking toward the LMC in the 15 x 70 binos, I saw instead 47 Tucanae, the globular cluster just to the west. Wow! This may be the best glob for visual observers. In the 6" Mak it has an incredibly bright center surrounded by misty light and hundreds of resolvable stars. As clouds went by it would be reduced to the core and then restored to full glory -- a priceless sight.
In the SMC I saw some bright details in both scope and binos that I confirmed as nebulae (or HII regions) NGC 371 and 346. I also saw globulars NGC 416, which is part of the SMC, and nearby NGC 362 which is part of our galaxy.
Around this time the Milky way was spread along the S and SW horizon. It was hard to tell if dark patches were galactic or atmospheric nebulae.
Several meteors flashed by. A bright cluster to the north was the Pleiades, surrounded in a bluish glow as seen in the binos. Soon it was raining despite stars being directly overhead.
After packing up in quickly developing showers I stepped outside again about
Other late night sights were Canopus, Achernar, Sirius and an upside down Orion. M42 and NGC 1977 were easy in the binos.
I ended the night by checking the rising planets. Jupiter was nice, but low. Saturn was worth a high power view. It had noticeably higher contast in its bands than during its last apparition. I later learned from the shallow sky list that others have noted this change. A great way to end a great night -- first view of Saturn this season.