Sonoma V

After a 13 months hiatus, we went back at Lake Sonoma. The plan was to do visual astronomy enhanced by night vision devices (my Sionyx Aurora Pro and my friend's PVS-7). I made an observation list with a lot of nebulas and other DSOs including the comet C/2022 E3 ZTF.

We left around 4:30pm, but there was a lot of traffic on a Friday evening and we stopped for dinner, so ended up arriving around 7pm or so. We set up the telescopes in the dark and then got started.

I tried the Sionyx hand held for a short while but it did not really improve the view much. For instance, it did not make seem to improve the way the Milky Way looked.

I had the Sionyx afocally mounted on the Baader Zoom set to 24 mm using the Baader MicroStage adapter for a focal ration of f/3.33. I also had the Williams Binoviewers ready. I left adapters to the focuser attached to both the Sionyx and the binos to make switching faster.

I started in Orion and the views were actually more enjoyable with the Binoviewers (more immersive with both eyes). I went through M42 Orion Nebula (always stunning under a dark sky), NGC 1975 Running Man Nebula (slightly visible with the binos but not with the Sionyx), NGC 2024 Flame Nebula (barely with Sionyx, better with binos), IC 434 Horsehead Nebula (could not see it either way), M78 Casper the Friendly Ghost Nebula (barely with the Sionyx, better with binos).

I moved to M45 Pleiades, Jupiter (could see two bands with binos, it was too bright with the Sionyx), Mars (could tell it was not full but could not see any feature with the binos, again too bright with the Sionyx).

I moved to M81 Bode's Galaxy and M82 Cigar Galaxy in Ursa Major, could see both with the binos or the Sionyx.

In the meantime, my friend was done aligning its EQ mount and realized the battery on his PVS-7 was dead (maybe it had been left on). We still tried C20 North America Nebula on his 6" with the Sionyx but could not see anything. We had quick looks at the M39 Open Cluster in Cygnus and again at M81 and M82 galaxies in Ursa Major.

Next we tried to see the M108 Surfboard galaxy in Ursa Major we had a hard time on both telescopes with or without the Sionyx. We also tried the M97 Owl Nebula nearby and it was even harder to see.

I had a look at M31 Andromeda Galaxy (quite nice with the binos, not better with the Sionyx) and its neighbors M32 and M110.

At that point, I was ready to put away the Sionyx since it didn't seem to help much or at all. I remembered I had brought a recently purchase 40mm eye piece. I decided to mount the Sionyx on it which should give me a faster focal ratio (f/2) in theory 3.33^2/2^2 = 2.8x more light at the same frame rate. And it actually made a big difference, views were now superior to the binos in all cases! Also the 40mm brings the magnification down to 31x on the Dobs and 19x on the 6" and that made locating objects very easy.

I spend the rest of the evening almost only observing through the Sionyx.

I returned to M31, M32 and M110 in Andromeda.

I went back to Orion and observed M42 Orion Nebula, M43 de Mairan's Nebula, NGC 1975 Running Man Nebula, NGC 2024 Flame Nebula and M78 Casper the Friendly Ghost Nebula.
I was still unable to see IC 434 Horsehead Nebula (can't ask for too much!).

Next I was back in Ursa Major to observe M81 Bode's Galaxy, M82 Cigar Galaxy, M108 Surfboard Galaxy (now easier to see) and M97 Owl Nebula (that one remained hard but got better once we used the ZWO Duo band filter).

After that I covered a lot of ground: M33 Triangulum Galaxy, C28 Open Cluster Andromeda, M34 Open Cluster Perseus, C14 Double Cluster Perseus, M103 Open Cluster Cassiopeia.

With the unexpected performance of the Sionyx, I decided to try a nebula from my observation list. I tried the C4 Iris Nebula Cepheus and can't really say I could see the nebulosity.

Checking the time, I realized the Comet ZTF was above the horizon so I went looking for it with the 12x70 binoculars and did spot. It was clearly recognizable as not being star although it did not have much of a tail.

I went back to the telescope and observed M1 Crab Nebula Taurus, M37, M36, M38 and NGC 1907 open clusters in Auriga - so easy to locate and observe with a good sky. I also observed M79 Globular Cluster in Lepus.

I tried my luck on C50 Rosette Nebula but could only see the open cluster within not the nebulosity.

So I went next to C58 Caroline's Cluster Canis Major, M47 and M46 open clusters in Puppis - I could see NGC 2438 planetary nebula within - and M48 in Hydra.

Noticing that Leo was up in the sky, I observed Leo Triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628 Hamburger Galaxy) with the Sionyx and the binos (fainter).

At that point, I pointed the telescope to the Comet ZTF and observed it with the Sionyx and the binos.

I went back to using the Sinonyx only and observed M51 Whirlpool galaxy and M101 Pinwheel galaxy in Ursa Major and M106 galaxy in the nearby constellation of Canes Venatici.

Back in Leo, I rushed the star hopping and to get to M95 and end up seeing NGC 3412.

It was running late, so I did some quick observations to wrap up the night: M94 Croc's Eye galaxy, the Comet ZTF again, M63 Sunflower galaxy, M67 Golden Eye open cluster and M44 Beehive Cluster Cancer, M53 Globular Cluster and M64 Black Eye galaxy in Coma Berenice.

All and all, it was a solid and satisfying evening of visual astronomy and an unexpected performance by the Sionyx Aurora Pro. Digital Night Vision needs to improve a bit before I commit to it but I believe it will get there.

Images

I wrote a script to automate processing the video files through Siril (for registration and stacking) and ImageMagick (for conversion of TIFF to JPG with contrast stretching - because somehow saving to JPG gives black images in Siril).

None of the pictures were cropped to show what the real-time view looked like. All images are f/2 unless otherwise specified.

Of course images are not as good as with "classic" EAA but one has to keep in mind that they are stacks from short videos taken at 7.5 fps (i.e. 133ms per frame) with no tracking on a sensor that has just under 1 megapixels.