Observing At Magellan, NSW, Australia

by Shneor Sherman

I thought that I must brought an enormous wtorm which hit Sydney and the surrounding area the day I arrived: Oil takners were washed up on shore, people dies in floods, but I nevertheless drove in driving rain and wind Friday night from Sydney to Goulburn in a bit over 2 hours. I stayed at a motel there, and proceeded the next day to Magellan Observatory. That first night was a washout although a huge sucker hole got me out of bed at one point. But last night was terrific, although the sky washed out toward the end of the evening.

Equipment at Magellan includes a 24" f/3.7 telescope with Argo Navis and Servo Cat in a dome. Viewing is normally done with a Paracorr in the focuser. There is a Televue binoviewer with a Siebert OCX (1.2x), a 27 Pan, 16 Nag, 12 Nag, 9 Nag, and for the binoviewer, pairs of Meade Superwide 24.5 mm and 18mm, and 13mm Nags. The dome needs to be rotated when the telescope slews.

I was just learning how to use the setup at first, and viewed the Tarantula nebula, then a number of nebulae and globulars in the LMC. Zane, the owner of Magellen, showed me NGC5189 (hope mymemory is accurate!) a very neat nebula that at first looks like a barred spiral. There appear to be detached portions of this nebulas, and it's a nice object. I looked at the Centaurus Galaxy cluster, and counted just 6 galaxies, as it's spread out and you really need to pan around to see more. I viewed a beautiful pair of large galaxies in the same field using the 12mm, in Crater - N3512 and 3513 - one a large edge-on, the other a nice spiral.

Magellan's skies are very dark - and at least mag 6.5 last night. The seeing was steady and allowed consisten use of the 9mm (giving 300X with the Paracorr). The sky was very transparent until about 10:30 or 11 (I started viewing at about 6:30). I spent the evening looking at objects, mostly galaxies, in Hydra, Centaurus, Corvus and Crater, but included some globs and nebulae on the way. The whiskers in the Antennae in Corvus were on the verge of visibility. It was almost overhead, but the transparency had dropped a bit by then. I also spend some time on the SMC - The view of 47 Tucanae in the binos was just spectacular. Eta Carinae was incredible in the binos, and you could see the yellow around Eta. The nebulosity was 3-D, like rippled wide noodles, with dark nebulosity spparating different parts. Of course, you had to pan around to see everything.

I had to look at some summer favorites in Sagittarius as they were higher in the sky - M8, M16 and M17 are looked good, particularly with a UHC. Hope to post a more detailed report in a day or two, if the weather clears up. I'm going to try going after Southern Abells.

Clear skies,
Shneor

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