by Matthew Marcus
The night started with the traditional Dino-Q, with the traditional crowd (Albert, James, Phil, Denny, Kevin), all people I hadn't seen in a while because I'd been going North to Lake Sonoma. Good to see you all again, and all the others I missed. We had a smallish (for Dino) crowd.
It was relatively warm, and dry enough to keep dew off without the need for a dew shield. Good thing, too, as the wind kicked up a bit at times. The Song of the Windmills was often heard. The Coyote Chorus was also heard, right around sunset ("Children of the Night... SHUT UP!!" :-)
Of course, the first targets were the planets, and that's where I started to get that Bad Feeling. The seeing was so poor that Saturn looked like a lentil, with no separation between rings and planet. I hope next week is better, because I'd hate for that to be my last view of Saturn for the year. Jupiter showed no detail. One of the moons was close in and it would blink in and out. The air was so bad Venus twinkled - something I usually only see from here in Berzerkeley. Still, it was something to see three planets in a single binocular field, with Mercury not far away.
Mercury and Venus looked about as usual. A red filter removed much of the atmospheric chromatic dispersion, allowing a definite sighting of the half phase. In Kevin's Brandon, which is on a non-tracking mount, we could verify that the planet moved towards the round side, away from the flat side, as it should.
As it started to get dark, I turned to deepsky objects. The first test was M3, one of those objects which are good even in bright, unsteady skies. Someone ought to make lists of 'seeing-resistant' and 'brightness-resistant' objects for nights like this. Actually, transparency was good, with stars visible all the way to the horizon.
What do you look at when the seeing sucks? After big, coarse OCs like the Beehive, the next obvious choice is galaxies. I therefore went after 4036/4039 (pair in Virgo), 4027, 2903 (looked pretty good, despite seeing), M51 (good view) and 4565.
It was definitely satellite season. While I was looking at 4565 (always a winner), a very bright satellite passed through the FOV, headed N to "hit" Megrez (couldn't resolve the separation naked-eye), then skim by Polaris. I then went after Markarian's chain, and as I was looking at that centered equilateral triangle of which M84 is a vertex, a slow-moving satellite drifted across the 125x field, taking tens of seconds to go across.
A fun exercise is to refer to the chart of the Markarian's Chain region in NSOG and try to find every galaxy therein, by hopping, without changing powers. I did it at 125x (having used circles to get to M84), and found every galaxy marked with an open symbol. Those marked with crossed symbols are flagged as 'not reviewed in this chart', which I assume means they're *really* faint. I couldn't spot any of those.
After that excursion, I got Comet I-Z. Try as I might, I only got <~ 1deg of tail. I guess Lake Sonoma (cf. Jane's report) really is often a better site. It turned the head of Draco into a pretty good regular pentagon. It was near a star, and was visibly farther away when we packed up.
By that time, Centaurus was poised over Centaurus Notch, so I got Cen A and 5123, a fairly bright galaxy. I could barely see the dark lane in Cen A.
Then, bopping around the sky on impulses, I hit Leo for 3596, a mag 11.x galaxy whose main distinguishing feature is being close to a bright star, so it's easy to find.
Serpens Caput was up by that time, so I went for M5, another 'indestructable' object, and some more galaxies, 5921 and 5970.
Jumping the seasons, I hit the neighborhood of Antares for M4 and 6144, a small glob closer to Antares than M4 is. 6144 showed no hint of resolution. M4, despite the seeing, displayed the characteristic 'bar' across the middle.
It was getting late, and I was getting sated with galaxies, so I went after some more summer eye-candy. M11, in poor-seeing conditions shows a pattern like a thick, sans-serif uppercase M, kind of like the MTV logo. This isn't as apparent when the seeing is good and the fainter stars fill in.
M13 is always worth looking at, even though it didn't show the 'dark lanes' which in good conditions seem to trisect its core.
I caught M24 in binox, but figured I'd be disappointed with a scope view. It's always worth a look in any instrument.
M8 peeked over the hills, followed by the rest of the Teapot. Of course, once M8 is obvious, M20 is a natural next target. I could swear I saw a slight but real color difference between the two nebulae making up M20. This was at low mag and unfiltered. I didn't mag it up.
By that time, Kevin and I were (holding true to tradition) the only two left. I suggested a few 'seeing-resistant' targets to him, including M97 (we saw the eyes and confirmed their orientation), M101 (we saw the swirl, and independently got the direction right), and the North America Nebula (in his Brandon, with filter).
Kevin and I started packing up, and I finished first, whiling away the time till he finished up by scanning around with binox and simply enjoying the sky and the night.
We left at about 2:45. Despite the crappy seeing, and my only logging 4 objects, it was still a very pleasant night, well worth a two-hour drive home.