by Matthew Marcus
I was in the lower of the clusters of observers Jane talked about. As she stated, Russ offerred fine views of the sun through his Coronado filter. It's nice to be able to see prominences without having to wait for an eclipse. The next objects for me were the obvious - Jupiter and the comet. It's still a fine comet, even though it's so low.
For most of the night, I looked at objects I'd seen before, therefore I didn't log them. The ones I did log were:
| 2911 | Galaxy in Leo. I started a Leo Survey based on NSOG and this was the first one on the list which I could reach with a C8. Aside from that, it's pretty unremarkable - small, faint. |
|---|---|
| 2916 | Another galaxy from the survey. Reasonably bright but not much condensation or structure. |
| 2964/2968 | A nice pair, contrasting in brightness, size and roundness (the fainter, 2968, is rounder). |
| 3367 | This one is notable mostly for being easy to find by galaxy-hopping, as it's 2deg N of M96. It's round, no bright core, and has two stars next to it. |
| 5897 | Leo was getting low so I decided to leave it (not before revisiting a few old friends to be named below) and start on the few remaining in my Deepmap 600 (dec > -43) list. This is a large, low-SB glob in Libra. No resolution. I should have waited a couple more hours. Oh, well - it made a nice change from galaxies. |
| I4756 | This is a naked-eye OC in lower Serpens. It would be as well-known as the Beehive were it better placed for N-hemi observers. I forget the dec, but it's pretty far S, and I got it too early. Still, it filled the lowest-power field of the C8, which is about 1.5deg. |
| 6144 | Now we're getting into Scorpius. By this time, people are leaving in droves or have already left. This is a large, unresolved GC a mere 37' NW of Antares. I wonder why I never stumbled onto it when looking for M4. |
| I4593 | Tiny PN in Her. I decided to start a survey in there, too. My copy of NSOG is starting to accumulate little checkmarks in all sorts of places. This one is only 12" across, so it can be hard to tell it from a star. |
| 6106 | Tiny GX in Her. My drawing of it shows it almost as small as that PN, so I probably only saw the core. |
| 6124 | An OC in the lower reaches of Scorpius. This is one of the Deepmap objects I was missing. This is one of those which seems to show a sort of shape, in this case an arrowhead. |
| 6153 | A tiny PN in Sco. It forms part of a mini- Delphinus. The stars it's near are of comparable brightness to the PN, making it easy to tell the difference. A pretty asterism. |
| 6242 | Another OC in lower Scorpius. This one looks kind of like two OCs superimposed, with a slight E-W offset. One OC is made of faint stars which gave only a hint of resolution, while the other is composed of brighter, individually-seen stars. Both are elongated N-S. There's a 7-mag red star at one end. Nearby is another I didn't log, but should have. It has three rows of stars and grabs attention when scanning. |
These 12 objects are but a small fraction of what I looked at. I'll list the unlogged mostly without comment:
I was going to get more in Sco when I noticed that I was having trouble seeing anything. Clouds had covered lower Scorpius and were massing elsewhere in the sky. It wasn't getting better, so I tore down. Naturally, the sky taunted me by clearing completely as I was driving down the hill. I left at ~4:30 DST, the last one out as often happens, and a tired but happy observer.