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Moon Phase Guide
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Waxing Gibbous
Last New Moon:
27/12/08 12:22 UTC
Next New Moon:
26/01/09 07:55 UTC
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Written by Peter Parish
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Sunday, 30 September 2007 |
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We’d discussed going there for years. Perhaps over a beer or viewing through light polluted skies. Now thanks especially to Bob Tollervey and Graham Curtis, MKAS visited La Palma from the 9th to the 16th September 2007.
At our villa near San Pedro it was warm but generally overcast. We visited several places including the capital Santa Cruz. John Mills our La Palma mentor, formerly the R.G.O recommended some restaurants. But our goal was always the mountain top, one and a half hours drive from our villa. The summit at 8000 feet offered dark skies and clarity that defies description. The Milky Way almost invisible from Medway shone like a bright celestial arch across the sky. Dust Lanes stood out and areas of various intensities were clear. Bob, Graham and Ian Hargraves took slides, pictures and CCD images. Mike Phillips, Nazim Rajan and myself assisted where possible and provided refreshments. Towards sunset the temperature nose dived. The lighting drop as the Sun disappeared recalled the onset of a Total Eclipse. Watching the sunset we were disappointed not to see the green flash. After dark it was bitterly cold. We needed all our winter clothes. My aim was seeing celestial gems with the naked eye I’ve only seen before with optical aid or not at all.
 Our Villa
10th September
The road up the mountain late that afternoon was a mass of dizzying hairpin bends and your ears popping regularly was a constant reminder your height was changing. With towering cliffs one side and a yawning drop the other, the hour drive each way was an adventure. Near the top the low Sun blinded us. Naz, Mike and myself were in one car. Ian, Graham and Bob occupied the other. The pressure difference caused Ian’s unopened crisp packet to explode. Then our car bottoms were hammered by rocks. Mike our geologist indicated various types of lava flows as well as the vesicled basalt. At the top the view was spectacular. The volcanic caldera at the Roque de los Muchachos formed several million years ago. Now thankfully dormant, it’s filled with cloud. The sight was awesome. Rocks extend in all directions and girding the mountain below, the clouds stretched away in an endless sea of white. Towering above them the distant Mount Teidi on Tenerife loomed impressively. Mount Teidi I learnt was about 75 miles away. You were reminded of your altitude. Hurrying at one point I found I was panting. I’m not that out of condition. Bob experienced difficulty filling his lungs. Ian hastening to catch us up felt breathless. He and I walked uphill at our villa near sea level. We weren’t breathing hard and Ian’s fitter than me.
Our observing parking place was perhaps two hundred feet below the summit. Uneven, strewn with stones, although right by the road, the silence was absolute. In the dry air I constantly licked my lips. We’d brought white plastic chairs. Touching one seat after dark, we saw a bright glow round my finger. Please no jokes about E.T. Despite the observatories a quarter of a mile away there was a sense of desolation. From about 11pm at night, I and others saw :-
 The view around our observing car park
M8 (NGC 6523) The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius was visible with the naked eye. This gaseous emission nebula is about 5,000 light years away. In Graham’s 18x50 stabilizer binoculars and Ken Baker’s 10x 30 stabilizer binoculars (stabs) it was obvious.
M20 (NGC 6514) The Trifid Nebula, - also gaseous, at the same distance. It was visible nearby in Ken’s stabs but at mag +6.3, not with unaided vision. Ian took some spectacular images of the Trifid and Lagoon using his MX7C Starlight Express in conjunction with his ETX-125.
M7 (NGC 6475) This mag +3.0 open star cluster was an easy naked eye object in Scorpio looking like a bright diffuse knot of light against the milky way. M7 is 950 light years away. This shows well on Bob’s images of Scorpio and Sagittarius with his DSLR using Agamemnon. Graham took some stunning slides with his Olympus OM10, 35m/m SLR using the societies new 80m/m Williams Optics/TMB APO Refractor.
M31 (NGC 224) This mag +3.5 giant spiral galaxy in Andromeda was very easy with the naked eye looking like a bright elliptical fuzz. It was so obvious you could not miss it. In Grahams stabs it spanned the full field of view. It’s the largest galaxy in our local cluster. (Our galaxy is second.) M31 is 2.4 million light years away. Graham also photographed M31.
M13 (NGC 6205) with the naked eye Bob and I could see this mag +5.5 globular cluster in Hercules. With the unaided eye it resembled a tiny misty star. The globular comprising of about 300,000 stars is 25,200 light years away.
C14 (NGC 869 and 884) The Double Cluster in Perseus is clearly visible with the naked eye resembling a bright elongated fuzz against the Milky Way. Without optical aid Graham and I thought it complimented M7 looking similar in brightness and height on the opposite side of the sky. This pair of open star clusters is 7,300 light years away. Ian and Bob also imaged C14.
Brocchi’s Cluster (Collinder 399) The Coat hanger. This striking group of stars is a chance alignment only. Binoculars immediately reveal the characteristic coat hanger. Although this shape is not resolvable without optical aid, Graham and I saw the group easily with the naked eye as a tiny elliptical patch of light near Sagitta.
Returning that evening we got lost. We drove round Santa Cruz for between one and two hours. Thanks to skilful navigation by Mike and Naz it wasn’t longer.
12th September 2007
 At our observing car park
51 Pegasus mag +5.5 was clearly visible with the naked eye below the much brighter stars Mu and Lambda. It’s of similar brightness and colour to our Sun. In 1995 it was one of the first stars discovered to have an attendant planet. The companion planet is thought to be about half the mass of Jupiter although it’s orbital period is under 5 days. 51 Pegasus is 45 light years away.
M33 (NGC 598) By 1.30am in the early hours of Sept 13th I saw M33 mag +5.7 in triangulum with the unaided eye. Appearing as an elusive fuzz. I could also hold it in my sight. This face on spiral galaxy named the Pinwheel is 2.7 million light years away. Apart from M31 and our Milky way, it’s the largest galaxy in our local cluster. In Ken’s stabs the galaxy looked like a large dim luminous patch, easily visible against the dark sky. This is the furthest object I’ve seen with unaided vision.
15th September 2007
The penultimate day of our holiday was in many ways the best. John Mills, kindly showed us over the William Herschel Telescope (W.H.T) (164 inch mirror), the Isaac Newton Telescope (100 inch mirror) (I.N.T) and the Jacobson Kapteyn Telescope (39 inch mirror). (J.K.T). He also operated them for us. We were amazed how smoothly they moved. The W.H.T weighing 190 tons glided like a feather. The public don’t see this. For ourselves and the society, we are grateful to John. Standing in the shade of the W.H.T, I showed everyone Venus with the unaided eye. It was 12.30pm and the Sun was some 60 degrees high. The planet, easy to see without optical aid resembled a star like speck in the blue sky. In Ken’s stabs the crescent was clear. Unlike the UK, the sky is blue even close to the Sun. That evening around midnight using Graham’s stabs, we saw :-
C33 and C34 (NGC 6992 and 6995) the Veil Nebular in Cygnus. The trail of gas from this ancient supernova remnant is over 80 light years long and is normally only visible with much larger instruments using an Oxygen 3 filter. To Graham, myself and others it looked like a luminous letter C. It was easy in Graham’s stabs without filters. The Veil is 2,500 light years away.
 Sunset at our observing car park
Uranus reached opposition on Sept 9th. The planet’s mag was +5.7. Thanks to Ian’s help with Starry Night and that the planet was just a degree west (to the right) of the naked eye star Phi Aquarius (mag +4.2), I knew the planets exact position. In Ken’s stabs I saw it very easily although the planet looked like a star. Tonight for the first time I saw it with the naked eye. It was not that difficult to see. Checking repeatedly I saw Uranus with averted and direct vision, resembling a faint star.
We’d been fortified with coffee Mike thoughtfully provided and were winding down for the night. Then Ian, Bob and Graham had a visitor! A huge (wild) dog loomed out of the darkness and tried to steal our sun cushion. It fled (fortunately) when they shouted and chased it. On descending previous nights we encountered wild dogs by the road. They were large and looked vicious. One bounded beside our car. Ian said one attacked theirs.
What we astronomers do to get clear skies!!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 June 2008 )
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