Members of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, (founded in 1881), will display several telescopes for viewing the Moon and Saturn, if clear. There will also be an illustrated talk on astronomy. ***** This event is free, and is open to all members of the public.

For more information contact:-

Sefton Rangers - 01704 570173

Liverpool Astronomical Society

Geoff Regan, Observatory Director - 0151 292 7165

Dave Owen, LAS Sidewalk Astronomers 07778 454524 *** http://angelfire.com/pokemon2/pirsig/sidewalk.html *** dowenlas@yahoo.com

EVENT REPORT - Dave Owen - I arrived, slightly late, at about 19:35, with Jim Lawler, in his Volvo Estate car. This allowed me to bring my 16 inch f6 Dobsonian reflector. This took about 20 minutes to assemble and several people commented that they could see some of the colours in the Orion Nebula.

The next object I pointed the 16 inch at was the large star cluster M35, in Gemini. I was also able to see the much smaller, and fainter, cluster NGC 2158, just outside the field of the 2 inch 40mm eyepiece I was using. As the wind was quite strong, I did not use any higher powers or attempt to put the cloth shroud around the open tube. Occasionally, the wind would kick the 16 inch scope about 5 to 10 degrees, but this problem might have been much worse if the shroud was used.

The double cluster was well seen in the 16 inch but when someone mentioned the Rosette Nebula I commented that this site was so dark that we should easily be able to see it in the 16 inch. What makes this an easy object to find is that there is a bright star cluster at the centre of this 1.5 degree diameter circle of glowing hydrogen gas and dust. This cluster was easily visible to my naked eye so I was able to quickly locate it in the 10x50 findescope on the 16 inch. There was a noticable pinkish hue to this nebula that was commented on by several people.

Another indication of the darkness of this site, and the very transparent nature of the conditions, was the easy naked eye visibility of M44, the Beehive star cluster in Cancer.

Brendan Martin was able to find the spiral galaxy M51 in the 16 inch but the view was fairly washed out, probably due to light pollution shining down the open tube.

On the way to M97, the Owl Nebula, I stopped off for a brief look at the edge on galaxy M108, only about 0.75 degrees NW of M97.

M67, the other bright star cluster in Cancer, was a fine sight in the 16 inch but the sight that impressed me the most in the 16 inch was the rich star cluster NGC 7789. This stood out much better than the usual view in the LAS Robertson 16 inch Reflector at Pex Hill. An indication of how the local light pollution at Pex Hill affects faint objects like NGC 7789.

I finished this viewing session by looking at M103, NGC 663 and NGC 654, three star clusters in Cassiopeia that are seperated by no more than about 1.5 degrees from each other. NGC 654 usually impresses me the most as it has a bright, 7th magnitude, star on its border while the rest of its stars are about 2 or 3 magnitudes fainter.

Other scopes that entertained the small crowd of about 25 people were two 10 inch Dobsonians, An 8 inch Schmidt Cassegrain, a Celestron C6 and an 85 mm refractor.

As usual, the main indoor entertainment was provided by Geoff Regan, who delayed doing an illustrated talk until about 20:30, in order to allow the visitors plenty of time to look through the telescopes.

At about 21:30, partly due to increasing cloud, we started to pack our telescopes away. We are looking forward to returning on Fri 6 Mar 2009.

EVENT PICTURES by Jim Stacey:

Hightown 7 Mar 2008 Photos

HOW TO FIND THE ALT CENTRE - Maps from www.multimap.com

ALT CENTRE - HIGHTOWN - MAP 1

ALT CENTRE - HIGHTOWN - MAP 2

ALT CENTRE - HIGHTOWN - MAP 3