by Paul LeFevre
Tuesday night, however, my local hosts took me to dinner in the hills above Adelaide, and the sky cleared for a few hours. I had brought along my 10x50 binoculars to at least have a chance at seeing some southern wonders...and as it turned out it was worth the extra weight to bring them along!
There's something that seems "right" about seeing Scorpius upside-down and right at the zenith -- having the center of the galaxy be right in the center of the sky just seems to make sense. The densest part of the milky way was thick across the sky, and I saw more of it from semi-suburban skies that I usually do from dark skies here up north. We waited long enough for the Southern Cross to rise fairly high, then spent an hour in the back of the restaurant's parking lot cruising the sky for treasure.
My local hosts were amazed that I was able to quickly locate so many objects with no star charts or references, and frankly so was I! I guess it comes from many hours spent looking at SkyMap Pro set to central Australia, and dreaming about being able to see all that neat stuff. Spent a few minutes just soaking in the Southern Cross, and at the colorful little Jewel Box cluster nestled within it with sparking diamonds of color. A quick hop north revealed the splendor of Omega Centauri, big even in the binoculars and easy to pick out. Of course I've seen it and imaged it from California when it peeks above the horizon briefly in March, but had never seen it as clear and high as on this night. Sliding back to the Cross, and slipping South and down into Carina, Eta Carina and the Keyhole Nebula were clearly visible. This small area is packed with clusters and nebulosity, a dense playground for the eyes! Scanning eastward above the horizon with the binoculars, I was almost startled to run head-on into the Large Magellanic Cloud -- at first I thought my bearings were off and I had turned back into the Milky Way, it was so star-filled and colorful! Taking my eyes away from the optics, however, showed the full extent of it, so I eagerly went back to the magified view to take in the neighborhood. Several binocular fields of colorful stars, clusters, and hints of nebulosity kept me entranced, but as time was limited I headed north-east to pick out our neighboring galaxy's little brother, the Small Magellanic cloud. Not nearly as dense (or large, as the name implies!), it was still easy naked-eye, and was truly more like a cloud even in binoculars than it's bigger brother.
I spent some time wandering the Milky Way and marveling at the great view of old favorites like M8/M20 and M16 so high up in the sky, then repeated the sweep I'd done starting at Crux with others at the binoculars, weaving them through the wonders in their own sky that they had never seen. This was a group of programmers/game developers who lived in Adelaide, and none of them were much aware of astronomy -- at least, they weren't before my visit :) All of them let out several "oohs" and "ahhs" at what they saw, and I hope I sparked a little interest in them during our little tour.
Given the business nature of the trip, it appears I'll be back down under fairly soon, this time for longer. I'm already making plans to bring a "real" telescope with me, and am trying to figure out a way to bring my imaging gear. It was immediately clear to my why folks like John Gleason make the long trek down south with a bunch of gear in tow -- the skies are astounding, and there's so much new to see! I can't wait to go back.
Canis Australis finally lives up to his name .!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Aug 22, 2004 12:31:29 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 08, 2005 20:50:04 PT