Dave Writes:-

A few of us (Brendan and I) went up to Combe Gibbet. It was a fantastic
evening! After months of sitting in our respective observatories looking at
computer screens we had the the chance to view with our own eyes the
splendour and magnificence of the heavens.

On opening the car doors our eyes were overcome with the light from the
billions of stars set within our own galaxy the Milky way. With our shadows
cast on the ground from the almost 3D cloud of stars above we ventured out
into the warm evening.

We setup the 12" dob within 3 minutes and whipped it straight round to
Mars. It's disk so bright the diffraction spikes reached far out to the edge
of eyepiece. Next we swept the Milky way with bins. Brendan's new bins proved
finding objects are easy and the view crystal clear.

Through both the dob and bins we viewed the double cluster in Perseus as
well as M31, M110, M36, M37, M38, M57 amongst others. The highlight of the
night had to be our first view of M42 as it rose above the horizon in what
I now remember to be the vast constellation of Orion.

At 2am we packed up and headed off for hours drive home.

Next time I hope more of us can experience the wonder of the night sky at
Combe Gibbet.

Best Wishes
Dave
Chairman
Basingstoke Astronomical Society
 

Brendan Writes:-

I can only second Dave's enthusiasm for Combe Gibbet - it's great! The Milky
Way was fantastic, even to my miserable eyes. All the watery "things"
(Aquarius, Cetus, Capricorn) were very obviously constellations in their own
right - from my back-garden they're just vaguely blankish areas of the sky,
maybe with the odd star or two. Sagitta was a clear little arrow, Delphinus
(another watery thing I guess!) leapt off the page and I could even trace
the outline of Vulpecula (using my trusty Norton's).

Dave was having problems recognising the constellations and at first I
couldn't understand why, then it dawned on me, there were so many stars
visible to Dave's eyes that they were masking the main stars! Not a problem
for me of course - I could still only see six or seven stars inside the
Square of Pegasus, though this is about six or seven more than I usually see
:) M31 was easily visible to the naked-eye, ditto the Double Cluster and
Dave could see M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga.

Through my new big bins (20x80) M31 was wonderful and, much to my delight,
M110 was also easy. Dave could see M32 as well - I perhaps could, though I
suspect it was mostly averted imagination on my part. M33 was a big glowing
patch. The Dumbell was easy-peasy, clearly fainter in one corner. I then
switched to looking for M1, not really expecting to see it, but there it
was, very easy. A fine place for a binocular Messier Marathon I suggest. I
wish I'd tried M81 and M82, but didn't think of them until we were on the
way home.

There were a lot of sporadics about, I counted a dozen or more without
looking for them. And there was one very fine mag minus-5 meteor (which
makes it a fireball) that had the temerity to shoot across the sky behind
Dave's back! It left a clear train for three or four seconds. A fine sight,
a fine site!

About 12:30 I said, "I spy something beginning with O". 'twas Orion, rising
out of the fields. We couldn't see the sword with the naked-eye, but Dave
got the Dob on it in no time flat and there was M42, complete with the
Trapezium. Except we could only see three stars! However, M42 was about
three degrees above the horizon at this point, which highlights both the
excellent horizons and the superb seeing (stars were just not wobbling at
all). I don't know if this seeing is typical, but I rather suspect the lack
of hundreds of houses pumping out heat helps enormously. 15 minutes later,
with M42 about five degrees above the horizon, all four Trapezium stars were
obvious and beautifully steady.

From a (very!) tentative identification of field stars in the southern-most
part of the Double-Cluster I think we were seeing stars down to mag 14
through the 12" Dob. And we weren't trying especially hard.

This is a great site and we really should make more use of it. If you can't
get to the top, up past the Gibbet, then there is a lower car-park where the
skies are just as good, though it suffers a little from the lights of passing
cars. All in all however, well worth a visit.  If you haven't been, go! We
had an excellent meteor-watching session there last year - maybe we should
try again this year?


Brendan