Henry Coe 19 Aug 2006

by Sean McCauliff

The original plan was Coyote, but turned around when I saw that fog had already overrun the hills at the Gilroy outlet malls. My wife Heather and I setup at the East side at the end next to the tree. Near by was a new person who's name I've forgotten, Albert and Matthew. Later on a camper decided to setup at tent under the tree and shine flash lights at us from time to time. Initially there was some wind which died down later. The temperature was good warm enough to only use a sweater about half the time. Fog had started to cover up Gilroy and San Jose at twilight, later they would cover much more, but was never thick enough to completely block the light.

177P/Barnard - This was in Hercules at the time. A circular fuzz, larger than M13 that had a slightly mottled appearance, brighter in the middle. It could have been the globular cluster NGC 6229. But it turns out that 6229 is very a very small and bright glob, nothing like the comet. Some stars could be resolved in 6229 averted vision at higher power.

Neptune - After trying to find it for a half hour Matthew showed me the correct location of Iota Cap. At 360x it would be still at times. I sketched the location of near by stars and later confirmed that one of them was actually Triton; first time for me. It was visible with direct vision in the 15" Plettstone, but dim. Hallo northern sky has it at mag 13.5

NGC 55 - Found in the muck at that low dec. It was a thick and lop sided edge on galaxy. The core was quite large and had dark regions within.

-Sean

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