Circumstances had led me to a job in Australia and this in turn was going to lead to an observing project which would take years to complete. With lots of adventures and great fun along the way!
If you are a keen observer like me and looking for a new challenge then look no further. Put away those Messier Cards and forget about the Caldwell Catalogue, how about the Karkoschka 250!
It all started in December 1994 whilst observing from Siding Spring Mountain in New South Wales, Australia. I had been lucky enough to land a job at the United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope and as a keen amateur observer as well this was simply heaven!
I became friends with Rob McNaught from whom I constantly borrowed bits and pieces. In particular there was a pair of wide field 10 x 80 binoculars, ex military I think, the field of view was large and the images were quite soft towards the edge but I liked them, indeed I liked them a LOT! Observing with them was tremendous fun. (The southern skies are beyond comparison and I would urge anyone to dig deep into their pockets and head off down under. You won't be disappointed!). I had purchased a copy the "The Southern Skies" By Will Tirion from the bookshop in Coonabarabran just after I had arrived (some eleven months earlier) and for some fun I'd been observing the objects listed in it.
One particular night Rob and myself were up the mountain where we had been using the Uppsala Schmidt Telescope. Afterwards I had been using the 10 x 80's to scan the sky whilst Rob got into a sleeping bag lay down on a recliner and proceeded to watch for meteors. Standing under the stars at this particular location NEVER failed to impress or inspire, indeed it was almost spiritual! As I swept across the sky I happened on a faint patch of light. It looked just like a little comet (it turned out to be M78, which really does look like a little comet.) What astonished me was how obvious it was. This struck me. The difference between here, a remote dark site, and my back garden in Scotland could not be greater. For a start at Siding Spring you at least get to see the stars on a regular basis because it's not raining all the flipping time! Further at home on the few nights it's not raining/cloudy the sky is a horrid browny yellow from all the light pollution but out here at the top of Siding Spring Mountain it truly was another world. This incident made me recall how on several, well actually many, occasions throughout my stay in Australia I had lamented at how bright objects appeared when viewed from here as compared to seeing the same thing through even significantly larger instruments back home. I tried not to dwell on this too much and continued on my way around the sky.
After returning home to Scotland, one wet Saturday afternoon in Glasgow I went into one of the big bookstores in the city and looked over the astronomy section to see if there was anything of interest, on this occasion there was...… "The Observers Sky Atlas" by E Karkoschka. "A pocket sized guide to the whole sky including 250 celestial objects for small telescopes". "Mmm" I thought, "not noticed this before". On picking up the book I flicked through the pages, "nice little finder charts… all the info on the deep sky objects… a bit of chat about the stars and constellations… oh there's M78". Instantly I remembered standing on the mountain with Rob, as I looked out the shop window at the pouring rain, "I having this" I said to myself.
When I got home I opened the booked and put a little tick next to M78 and "Dec 94, Oz" I marked off some of the other observations I had made using "Southern Skies" and thought how nice it would be to return and view the southern skies again. Little did I know that this was an adventure in the making!
After a meeting of the Scottish Astronomers Group (SAG) in 1995 I got talking to a man called Douglas Cooper. He told me that he had a 6in Astrophysics refractor and I was suitably impressed! At that time my own scope was a little 80mm f6.3 refractor which had a 2 in focusser on it. This, with a Tele Vue 32mm Widefield and 9mm Nagler eyepieces, was an impressive performer for its size. I was now hoping that I could use my 2in eyepieces on the 6in scope sometime.
I liked the size and scope of the Karkoschka book and for the next year or so every time I went out observing I would take my little scope and Karkoschka would come too. The plan was simple, I observed objects as they presented themselves and gave them a little tick. It wasn't that long before I had viewed about a quarter of them. On occasion whilst peering through the light pollution I would flick through the maps of the southern sky and remember the gloriously dark skies and magnificent sights of "down under".
During 1996 Comet Hyakutake graced the skies and this prompted a lot of observing and much to my delight in 1997 Hale Bopp was turning out to be a spectacular sight. To make the most of this I set off with a couple of friends to the island of La Palma. I had only taken a pair of binoculars but my friend Iain had borrowed a spotting scope and from near the summit of Roque de los Muchachos the views were simply stunning. Once more it was apparent that even with a modest instrument, providing one was observing from a really dark site, what could be seen was simply astounding. The difference between a good dark sky and back home was yet again depressingly obvious! Lurking in my camera bag was Karkoschka and those dark skies offered the chance to observe some of the more difficult and more southerly objects, tick, tick, tick...
La Palma is a very beautiful island and from an observing point of view turned out to be quite fruitful so I promised myself a return visit.
I met up with Douglas again after another SAG meeting and we talked about me coming to use his 6 inch Astrophysics refractor. I had now come to refer to this telescope as just the "AP". The first time I looked through that telescope I was shocked. The views were spectacular. The combination of the AP and the 2 inch 45mm Masuyama eyepiece I had was outstanding. I remember one winters night in particular. I was hopping around galaxies in Ursa Major. After a couple of hours I noticed that the scope had finally succumbed to dewing, well not so much dew as ice! The whole tube was covered in a layer of ice. That was a cold one! But none the less good progress! More good observations and ticks in the book.
I enjoy being out under the stars and try to observe regularly and as time went by I was making good headway. I had now observed over one third of the objects. My little project was coming along nicely.
By December 1998 things had changed just a bit. I had made a conscious decision to "do the whole sky" so I decided to head off back down under and meet up with Rob once again. The journey was as traumatic as could be imagined with long delays, aircraft problems and crew difficulties, however every cloud has it's silver lining and spending a day in the Dubai Hilton was quite nice! But the duration of that trip was a real strain, although I reckoned that it was a day and a half "real time" with the various time changes it really did feel like the three days that had apparently slipped by. Thirty six hours with no real sleep is not very nice!
Mid summer in Australia is HOT and there are numerous thunder storms which are spectacular in their own right but don't do much for observing. After getting out to Coonabarabran the weather was not great and I was feeling the heat, the jet lag and a little frustration and not being able to observe as much as I wanted to. The weather did improve during the last week of my stay and Rob once again provided me with his binoculars. I also used an old 4 inch guide scope (which had been taken off of a now dismantled 16 inch reflector that I had used in 1994). The views through this 4 inch scope were once more nothing short of spectacular. Eta Carina is indescribable, as is the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic cloud. With Karkoschka in my pocket again I observed many of the southern objects and I was extremely pleased with my new tally.
With autumn 1999 came Comet Lee. I like comets so I thought that return trip to La Palma might be in order. It would be nice to see it from a dark site maybe get a few pictures if possible. It's the only comet I'd seen where I knew the discoverer, Steve Lee, from my time in Australia. Circumstances took over which led me to the Observatory at Calar Alto in Southern Spain, just north of Almeria. This was the biggest piece of luck I have ever had. After exchanging a few emails the next thing I knew I was driving up to Calar Alto to be met by Kurt Birkle, who turned out to be the ex director of the observatory and had arranged for me to use the 1m Schmidt Telescope. This was an impressive telescope but sadly due to modern technology eclipsing the photographic plate it was being de commissioned. This was a one off last chance to use the scope before it was finally shut down! When I had secured the pictures of the comet I reached into my bag for Karkoschka and took the opportunity to use up the remainder of my film on some of my favourite Karkoschka objects.
One night I had gone out on to the catwalk to check the weather and I was absolutely overwhelmed by the view. The stars looked so bright it was as if you could reach out and touch them, it was just incredible. The sky was black and the stars shone like I'd never seen before. Now this really was a spiritual experience! By the end of my visit I had been treated to six spectacular nights and a view of the sky I will never forget.
Come 2000 my little Karkoschka book was looking a bit dog eared now and covered in little ticks, some notes and the odd cross where I hadn't been able to positively identify an object.
The following year I had arranged another trip to Australia in July. This time it was mid winter and it gets very COLD in Coonabarabran but this was more than compensated for by Rob letting me use his real binoculars on this trip. These were 20 x 120mm, monsters which weighed, well lots, and I was going to find out just how heavy they were very soon! In the evening I could catch the Virgo galaxy cluster and I set about navigating my way around and got to the point where I was just one galaxy short of completing the whole cluster list.
Now Rob did warn me about the delicacy of the balance of the "big bins" and how flimsy the mount was but engrossed in my quest I had been moving the binoculars further and further up and over. When I realised what was going to happen it was already happening! The binoculars tilted backwards at a great rate of knots, and suddenly being terrified that the whole lot would topple over and smash on the ground I lurched forward to try and arrest this now unstoppable movement. SMACK! The eyepiece end of the binoculars caught me right on the chin just as I got my arm under and around the body of them. A major profanity was uttered in a somewhat muffled manner as I realised I could taste blood! I literally wrestled the binoculars to the ground allowing then to come round onto my chest, turning and laying the binoculars the tripod and myself onto the ground. As I stood up and staggered backwards I spat out some blood. I could feel where a tooth had cut my tongue and the inside of my cheek. I did however feel somewhat relieved that disaster had been avoided but decided to call it a night.
When I departed Australia on this occasion I had almost completed the whole of the southern sky. Again I was pleased my little observing project was moving on apace with well over three-quarters of the objects observed. Back home and back to the usual poor weather but I did actually manage to observe a few more of the fainter objects with the help of the "AP".
Whilst browsing on the internet I saw an advert for ridiculously cheap flights to Sydney in December, I didn't even hesitate although I was concerned that there might be some sort of catch, extra expenses and the usual holiday insurance rip off's. Amazingly it was all above board and a couple of weeks later I was back in Rob's car yet again heading from Sydney to the outback. Australia twice in one year, this was jet set astronomy! Things were going to get even better as Rob had left his 12.5 inch Dobsonian reflector at the house where I was staying. It had been in storage for quite some time and the mirror coating wasn't in good nick but after a clean things were looking better. Rob decided to wash the whole scope down just to make sure there were no Redback spiders or other nasties to give me a surprise whilst observing.
It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic! I don't think visual observing gets any better than using a big scope to look at such things at Omega Centauri, 47 Tuc, the Magellanic clouds and the milky way in general, especially from Crux through Centaurus. What's more I actually finished off all of the objects in the southern charts in Karkoshca. My total was now 230 out of 250 I could hardly believe it, I was nearly there.
Over the course of 2000 using a newly acquired 105mm refractor and VC200L as well as the "AP" I whittled the number outstanding to just 9 objects. Come 2002 I would set off on one more trip to see if I could finish what I now called the "Karkoschka 250"
Another comet was to be the stimuli for my final trip of this adventure. Comet Ikeya Zhang had appeared in the sky and I decided to go back to La Palma once more with Karkoschka tucked away in my rucksack.
Dark of moon in mid March, perfect for catching those last few objects, or so I thought. After arriving and checking in to my hotel I was exhausted after the trip which had involved an overnight bus to Manchester Airport before even getting on a plane. I went and bought some domestic supplies and fell asleep. The next day was beautifully clear and I took myself off on a drive up to the summit to where the observatory was. I was going to be officially visiting here later in the week but at the moment I was just enjoying the clear blue sky and sunshine. The road to the summit is very awkward to drive; it gives a whole new meaning to the word twisty. And the part that runs round the caldera at the summit is treacherous, with rockfalls and dust blowing about. Some of the overhangs looked plain dangerous! As the day progressed the cloud moved in and that was that! The weather was fairly poor for the whole time I was there. It was fairly pleasant at sea level but on some days there were really strong winds which whipped the sea into crashing against the sea wall causing 10 metre surges to come splashing down onto the main road out of town. Driving up to the summit at night the visibility could fall to zero in the blink of an eye as the fog and wind blown volcanic dust swirled around the car. This was quite un-nerving. I spent a couple of extremely cold and unpleasant evenings trying to peek through the clouds and fog at the summit and even lower down things weren't much better. By the end of my stay I had made an attempt at every object outstanding but three of them were right on the edge of visibility in my small scope. Could I be sure that I'd actually seen the things? I left La Palma not knowing if I was happy or sad.
Back home to "the weather's been lovely while you've been away, really clear nights…" This is not what I had wanted to hear but it's typical. I WAS a bit disappointed and rather annoyed but I just kept telling myself that this is just a bit of fun (that never really seems to work though, does it...?) However things did actually improve shortly thereafter and there was a spell of a few nights of really clear weather, a rarity in this part of the world, so this was it.
I packed up the scopes and headed off for one last time. When I arrived at my usual site a few miles out of town I surveyed they sky and contemplated nearly eight years of frustration at the weather and the joy that seeing the stars bring. I got out Karkoschka and after about an hour searching, doing all the usual mental gymnastics with reversed and inverted fields of view, checking the notes against what I was seeing and that was that, success, completion, utter joy the last few ticks and then an unexpected anti climax of "so thats it then, well what's next?"
So in the eight years that I've owned my copy of the "The Observers Sky Atlas" I've been to Australia three times, La Palma twice and mainland Spain once. Made dozen's of trip's around Scotland trying to dodge the clouds and spent hundred's of hours out under the night sky (and probably more money than is sane!). Once I had overcome the surprise anti climax it did feel good, a subtle feeling of success and that I'd genuinely experienced something, been part of a bigger picture and a bit more understanding about where we really are in that picture. Experiences' which personally I don't think can be obtained in any other way. I have loved astronomy since I was at school, just being outside at night under the stars feels special.
Indeed what IS next…? I don't quite know yet but whatever it is it'll probably involve bigger telescopes and yet more faint fuzzies, maybe I'll do the whole lot again with just one instrument to see how they all compare, who know's.
In doing this I've used a battery of telescopes and binoculars. These have included a 16inch Cassegrain reflector, 16 inch Dobsonian, 12.5 inch Dobsonian, 155mm refractor, 105mm refractor, 100mm refractor, 80mm refractor, 10x50's, 10x80's and 20x120's and several others, each providing it's own unique view of the sky.
I've had a tremendous amount of fun and many unforgettable experiences whilst pursuing this observing project but the reality is that it was only through the kindness and friendship of others which made it all possible so I would like to publicly thank them here.
Firstly I have to say the biggest thank you to Rob McNaught who has chauffeured me around the place, put me up and let me play with his fabulous toys. Thanks to Helen Stevens and Di Suthons for looking after me on all my trips to Coonabarabran. Thanks to Douglas Cooper for letting me loose with his "AP" and other scopes. I would also like to say thank you to Fred Watson, the Astronomer in Charge at the UK Schmidt, for allowing me access to the darkroom facilities in the Schmidt Building. Paul Cass (also of UKSTU) for doing film hypering for me and everyone else at the AAT and Australian National University facilities for making my visits so enjoyable. Siding Spring Mountain and the observatory, which sits atop it, is a very special place.
My thanks to Kurt Birkle for his kind help in making all the arrangements for me and teaching me how to use the Calar Alto Schmidt Telescope and to Roland Gredel, the Director of the Calar Alto Observatory for allowing me the use of the facilities there.
And finally to Javier Mendez, Mavi Hernandez and the other staff for their help at the Issac Newton Group of Telescopes on La Palma
I think that E Karkoschka's book The Observer's Sky Atlas is probably the best practical observing guide to bright(ish) objects that there is and I recommend it thoroughly. It contains all the data on lots of deep sky objects, good charts and lots of other information on the individual stars and double/multiple/variable stars in each of the constellations covered in the charts. It always surprises me that when I ask people if they have a copy the answer is generally no!, if you actually want to go and have a look at what is out there it is the best £16 you'll ever spend. Being an armchair type is ok but there is NO substitute for actually going out and having a look.
This is the briefest of outlines of what has been a great personal adventure around the heavens. I'm looking forward to the next one...
Bill Ward FRAS. JULY 2002
BACK to Bill's Page.