by David Staples
| Observer | Dave Staples |
|---|---|
| Date | 08 June 2002 |
| Time | 2100-0030 PDT |
| Location | Lake Sonoma CA, 38°43'N 123°02'W Elev ~1500 (Lone Rock Flat) |
| Weather | Mid 50's, wind early dying out later, seemed colder though |
| Seeing | 6/10 |
| Trans | 8/10 |
| Equipment | C8, 15x70 Binoc's, various eyepieces |
Pulled into the lot at Lone Rock to see a passel o' scopes. I think I counted 23 scope there on Saturday, the most I've seen at Lake Sonoma. I set up my C8 in "Dob Hollow" the north end of the lot and commenced visiting. A short walk up to the south end of the lot to meet Jane and Mojo and a crew from SFAA, then back to the hollow to finish setting up.
Set up was interrupted with call of "there's Omega Centauri!" so I took a look with my binoc's, WOW it's huge. Of course it wasn't resolved in a pair of hand held 15x70's, but it makes M13 look puny. I wasn't able to resolve any stars even in my C8 at 169x, then again it wasn't more than 3 degrees above the horizon.
I had planned on a short night and already one of my objectives had been met. I really didn't have much of a plan other than taking a look at the galaxy group east of M5 that Jamie D. had pointed out and chalking up NGC 4565 on my own.
I did get a look at a couple of neat asterism courtesy Norm and Linda Mahan (sp?), the Stargate asterism and the Flying Owl cluster? I think.
Stargate looked something like this, with the center triangle being tighter:
*
* *
*
* *
One of the coolest asterisms I've seen yet.
On with the observations,
NGC5139 Omega Centauri - It's huge! a big dim fuzzy patch. I was pretty excited to finally get a look at it.
NGG5846 - Circular blob, no sign of 5846a at 67x, I was just able to detect it at 169x
NGC5850 - Checking this morning it seems this one is a ringed barred spiral, quite pretty in the DSS image, I was only able to detect elongation.
NGC5831 - East and south of 5846, not much to note other than it was there.
NGC5813 - By itself this galaxy would be unremarkable, but it is bracketed by 3 mag 12 stars, east west and south and a mag 8.9 star away to the north that made it look like an upside down kite.
NGC5806 - In the same low power field as 5813 elongated nearly north south.
NGC5838 - dim elongated to the northwest
NGC5854/5864 - Not in the same field of view but they looked nearly identical to me with just a hint of elongation sensed with averted vision.
NGC4559 - A mistake whilst hunting for 4565, but a nice one. Elongated with mottling on the southwest end.
NGC4565 - What to say that hasn't already been said many times. Although a look at it through Mojo's light bucket didn't help cool aperture fever.
It was a short night that saw me doing more visiting that observing, but still well worth the lack of sleep.