Early morning on January 3rd was the best time to see the Quadrantid meteor shower, so I went outside at 5:30 to try to see them. They did not disappoint. My first impression was that these were travelling at very high rates of speed, they flashed across the sky as quickly as any meteor I have ever seen. There was one thirty second interval in which I saw three, but there were a few in each 5-minute interval until the sun came up at 6:30. Very impressive!
Since I am visiting my father in central Florida I decided to try to see Omega Centauri for the first time. I have a pair of binoculars (8x42) and my WO 80mm scope with several EPs with me. But the cluster is not easy to find! It is not near any bright stars, and I don't know the southern constellations very well being from New Hampshire. Still, the Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas came in handy. I could see Corvus very clearly, and Omega Centauri is to the SE of Corvus about twice the distance between the two lower stars in Corvus. It turned out to be easy to find in the binoculars, but it took a while to find it in the 80mm even using the 35mm Panoptic EP. But I finally located it in both. Unfortunately it was quite washed out by the light pollution and by being fairly low in the sky. But it was very obvious that this object is big! I would estimate it at 10 times the area of M13, so I can't wait to try again tomorrow morning a little earlier when the sky is darker and I am more familiar with the stars in its area. All in all a very satisfying first glimpse of an object I have wanted to see for a long time.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
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