by Jamie Dillon
It was the night after Dennyfest II, I'd finished up gardening chores, was fixing to start the barbecue, the phone rings and it's Czerwinski, asking Joey, "Can Jamie come out to play?"
So sure enough after dinner I packed up and headed to the Peak. Lo and behold there was a decent sized crowd there. Elena and Craig were there, the Rocket People, and Andy Pierce and Tom Wynne and his imaging partner whose name I think is Greg. Funny companionable guys, these latter two have been on the Peak a lot this past spring and summer, turns out Tom comes down from Sunnyvale. The lot was framed by a couple of guys who stayed in front of their laptops doing dark incantations.
Turned out to be a fine observing night. Sky was past a limiting magnitude of 6.0, seeing excellent 5/5. Nice and warm with an occasional soft SE breeze. I spent the whole time in Pegasus running down fresh galaxies. Coupla highlights there: 7769 is single in SkyAtlas but has partners in Uranometria. Sure enough, first thing I caught in Felix (my 11" Dobs) was a pair of galaxies, 7769 a bright swatch with a fairly concentrated core, 7771 a bright ragged crescent. Then 7771 turned out to have a little partner, 7770, just south, a distinct blip, clear at 210x in a 6mm Radian. We had fun with this set, taking turns gazing. In Bob's 14.5 the trio were all really well defined.
Just north of Markab, 7497 showed as long, narrow and dim. Big, maybe 5' long. Sure enough, it's listed as 4.3 arcminutes long, but at a distance of 85 mly! We did the math and figured it'd have to be in the size range of M31, which is an unusually long spiral. But this guy is 40x farther away.
By just before moonrise, Perseus was well up and for dessert I went and visited NGC 1023, a real solid favorite, here with a bright core and long arms. Interestingly, after moonrise no one made a move to leave. Elena, Craig, Bob and I just hung around hypnotized by the beauty of the night.
Great time. Bob and I really were musing about infinite space and eternity. Now last night up at the Peak was considerable as well. Yes we studied NGC 383 and neighbors. Report to follow, please stay tuned. I'm going to bed.