by Jamie Dillon
Liam and I went to Lassen for August New Moon, weekend of the 9th and 10th, having missed Shingletown. I was gonna not write up an observing report, but now 507 and partners have come up in discussion. Also, here are some ideas of what you can really see in a medium-sized scope.
We had two nights observing, Friday night at Bumpass and Saturday at Devastated. Both were real good, Bumpass was smooth great. I concentrated on objects that wanted a seriously dark sky. Started off Friday night with Palomar 8, the brightest Palomar globular and the first for me, just east of M25. A bright unresolved patch, a lot brighter than expected. Lovely stretch of sky along the top of the Teapot. Then explored the area around Alpheratz, alpha And, NE corner of the Great Square. NGC 1 lurks there. On a decent night at the Peak last spring, it had been subtle in Czerwinski's 14.5 and not there in Felix. Showed at Bumpass as little with a fairly bright core. NGC 16, another subtle pleasure, is right nearby.
A chunk of the night had gone by, I'd been at the eyepiece some 2 hours for 3 DSO's. What had taken up the time? Realized the next day in retrospect that I'd done the happy rookie trick of sitting and scanning over each stretch of sky, just digging the stars closer up. Some things you don't outgrow. Also saw Triton that night for the first time, with its PA verified. Jay had said Felix should be able to pick it up, and it's the only one of the outer planets' moons that's likely. This was cool, a moon some 4.5 billion kilometers out. (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.)
So Triton and NGC1, two more of what the BP blithely called novelty objects, along with Barnard's Star, Pluto, Alpha Centauri, Ceres and Vesta, and 3C273.
Then went back to the 507 cluster between beta And and M33. It was Christmastime 2000 when I'd gone there, on a fine night at the Peak with Blanchard and Ruyle. Had caught 507, 504, 499 and 494. Now added 508, 503 and 513 off a bit to the North. 508 is a close partner of 507 so that was esp satisfying. From 4 to 7 of 'em. Some 200 million ly's out, 4x farther away than downtown Virgo and out of our own supercluster.
Then the next night after a major big success of a public night, went back to Abell 2151, heart of the Hercules supercluster. On the Peak just 10 days before I'd gotten 5- 6 of those distant puppies, now systematically logged 8 total. Bright small stars that with time and patience sprout compact haloes. 10x farther away than the Virgo cluster, about 0.5 billion ly's out. Imagine those monsters at a reasonable distance.
Friday night, the limiting magnitude was 6.5 at minimum, with seeing 5/5 excellent more than half the night. The next night, after 11 it got right on up there. But around 2230 the first night at Bumpass was one of those times when the Milky Way was a wild extravagant presence. It was a fine weekend all around. My boy Liam and I had a grand time traveling together. Company at camp was great. Long drive from Salinas but boy what a sky.