Canberra Astronomical Society - The Nebulous Award

The Nebulous Award

A challenge issued to all CAS Members by John Morland

The JM Nebulous Award is the CAS yearly award to encourage challenging, dedicated, innovative or unusual observations that do not necessarily require huge light buckets to achieve. The winner receives a bottle of a reasonable Scotch whisky (or equivalent fortified/distilled alcoholic beverage) and their name is imprinted on a shield for posterity. The prize is presented at the CAS Christmas Barbecue in early December.

The award winners so far are:

1995		Peter Bobroff for seeing the Horsehead Nebula through his 20" telescope on a particular hazy deep sky night after all other telescopes had failed;
1996		John Morland for seeing the California Nebula after the 1996 Xmas barbecue through binoculars;
1997		Albert Brakel for recording the most number of Eta Aquariids using the naked eye;
1998		Grant Murphy for recording the most number of Leonids (using a radio receiver);
1999		Jenny Kay for her detailed monthly reporting of deep sky objects through her 12.5" (an inspiration to all of us);
2000		Peter Ogilvie for successfully seeing (through the CAS's 14"), and Steve Crouch (through his C14) CCD imaging of, the Waterfall Nebula which was alleged to be out of range of amateur equipment;
2001		Vello Tabur for discovering two comets using an 8" f4;
2002		Albert Brakel for seeing the most number of monthly challenge objects published in the Southern Cross newsletter, through his C-8;
2003		Andrew White and John Morland, joint winners, for seeing with the naked eye the oldest or newest Moon.
2004		Velo Tabur for seeing the oldest Venus and Peter Olgilvie for seeing the longest black drop effect and the youngest Venus.
2005		Albert Brakel for seeing the most Martian features on the last opposition.

The Challenge for 2006

This year John has decided to go to a past-favourite type of object - the double star. These became fashionable for the amateur observer throught the 19th century and for the first 2/3rds of the 20th - Hartung, you will notice, lists quite a few doubles in his observing guide.

In the later 20th century, the Dobsonian revolution emphasised faint fuzzies &ndash you too could (dimly) see 15th magnitude galaxies. The mediocre optical quality in a lot of big dobs, and mediocre optical quality in many smaller and moderate-sized commercially available telescopes, encouraged a decline in amateur interest in doubles. They do, after all, benefit (aesthetically) and are easier to see with very good optics that produce clean sharp star images without much scattered light.

So in making double stars this year's subject for the John Morland Nebulous Award we're looking at rather non-nebulous objects - and those members who want to attempt the more difficult pairs will do well to use telescopes of high optical quality that are also well-collimated, able to produce high quality images when the seeing allows.

The pairs range from easy binocular objects to pairs that will challenge the observer, and in a couple of cases will need a 25 to 35 cm scope as well as good seeing. Some pairs are very close and others, though wider, might be hard because of the brightness difference between the stars.

So get started, and good luck!