by Jamie Dillon
Liam and I spent the past weekend camping at this stretch of wild foothills out of Mariposa. Woods, meadows, timid bears, a creek, piles of wildflowers now. There were a dozen other people there this time, mostly kids, and it was set up as a nature retreat for the kids, with stargazing featured. Both Friday and Saturday nights we had binocs as well as Lucy the Discovery RFT90 on tripods, along with Felix. These were mostly old friends of ours, several of whom had never looked thru a scope before. Saturn, Jupiter, and M3 were big hits, as well as the Beehive in Lucy, and M42 in both.
(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians.)
Friday night the transparency was 5.8, measured carefully, and the seeing was 3/5, moderate. The Cassini division was murky at any speed. But by 10pm everyone else had gone off to the woods to sleep, and it was Felix and me. Went back to Sextans, to the close pair 3166-9. Did find the bright neighbor 3156, but 3165, in the same field as the first two, wasn't there (its numbers in DSFG show it as just within Felix's range on a good night). Found two more galaxies in southern Leo, 3640 and 3630, then went after 3611 a bit to the North and didn't find it. At V=12.2 and SB of 13.3, it should show. Went after a set Rashad had mentioned west of Regulus, around 3020. Nix. Figured out I was the problem; I don't usually even go out Friday nights for this very reason.
Plopped down in my Rich Neuschafer signature model sling chair, gazed at the stars, and you guessed it, passed out. Woke up a bit later and the stars had wheeled. Went over to M5 for a treat, first time this spring. Now there's this galaxy that's been beckoning to me, just W of M5, off the Edmund's Mag 6 chart a long time, 5846. There were more galaxies in the field. Yeah. Found 9 in the close vicinity, all charted in SkyAtlas, 5 of which are in the same actual 5846 group. 5813 was esp arresting, exactly framed by a pretty diamond of little stars. Great way to end the night, not before visiting M13, also for the first time this year. Whoaaa. Didn't hafta break down, and our tent was a few hundred feet off.
Next night the transparency didn't get better than 5.5, but the seeing was better, 4/5, good. After another enthusiastic group thang, Chris Pearson stuck around and asked if he could see more of Virgo. Plopped him in the middle of Downtown, he glued his eye to the 22, and I just sat down and let him go. That was fun; the guy hardly breathed for an hour. He shows real talent, and was awed by the scope of what he was looking at.
By 11 or so I was ready for a brief treat, went first to 4565, which I hadn't seen in a while. Then picked out 5005 off the Dickinson (Edmund's) chart. Was reminded, off my margin notes in SkyAtlas, this is a favorite of Albert's. A proper galaxy, long body, looks like a barred spiral, with a long bright midline stripe, with dust lanes along the length of the body. Wanna go back there in a darker sky. 5033, just off to the East, looked face-on, almost round, with alternating light and dark areas around a complex core.
Really fun weekend in all, refreshing. Christi Pearson, Chris' wife, wrote me yesterday to tell me it snowed Monday morning. We so lucked out, with warm breezes and easy nights. Plus, I'm very glad all the TACos had fun at night, all over the map.
More, more!