Coe. 21 Oct 2006

by Rob Jaworski

Here, I do need to mention what a beautiful evening it was. Temps were very mild, and the only layers I had on were a T-shirt and sweatshirt over it. No gloves, no thermals, although they were all in the car, just in case. San Jose was shining like crazy, creating a pretty big light dome. I'm not good yet at describing observing conditions, but it wasn't as dark as it could have been for Coe, and I overheard someone say there was a bit of haze to deal with. Didn't matter too much to me; it was just one incredibly nice night!

There were maybe over a dozen scopes already set up, with the east edge of the lot nearly full, and the middle with some vehicles already parked. I ended up nearest the gate, at the top of the lot. Here, I found the ground to be not very level, so I had to be careful where I set up my Dob. On a non-level surface, it had the tendency to want to tip rather than turn on it's az axis.

I'm still working on my M list, and I logged 5 that evening. But before I got down to some serious work, I wanted to check out some things I was reading about. Here are three.

I'd seen pictures of the coathanger asterism in a recent S&T, so I went and easily found it. It's even more appealing in person! Pretty.

A recent S&T article also talked about the double stars near Alpha Capricorni. I identified Alpha Cap, and thought to myself that the consituent stars in this system are quite far apart from each other. Same was true with Beta Cap. That was about it for my poking into the world of doubles. Maybe I need more challenging double star targets.

Later, as I was lamenting the fact I had no chart to find the comet Swan, someone used their pointer to show exactly where to find it. I swung my scope around to that area and found it, just off of Beta Bootis. Unfortunately, this area of the sky was awash in the lights of San Jose, and I think this affected the apparent object. It wasn't too impressive, as I didn't notice any tail or coloring. It looked a lot like a globular cluster with a very pronounced halo, and if I didn't know better, that's what I would have concluded it was.

Moving on to my real work, the slow progress toward logging all the M objects.

M52 Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
Found this cluster by lining up Beta Cassiopeiae and Iota Cephei, and expecting it to be nearly equidistant from the two (apparently speaking, of course!). Cambridge Star Atlas says this cluster is nearly on the galactic equator, which explains the extremely rich star field all around. M52 appears to be split in two. There is one part that is very dense while the other section is only perhaps one quarter as dense. To my eye, all the stars in both sections were resolvable by direct vision. Also in the field of view was a nice orangish star that the CSA identified as 4 Cas. There are also 3 smaller (fainter?) stars near 4.

M103 Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
There are four OCs in this area, so I had to make sure I was identifying the correct one! The CSA says that M103 is the first OC west of Delta Cas. It was a bit confusing, but I noted the shape and some other details before going to O'Meara to see what he had to say. Cool thing was I identified a Christmas tree shape, and that's exactly how he described it in his _Deep-Sky Companions: The Messier Objects_ book. This OC seemed to be a bit smaller than the others, too. There were five stars that stood out brighter than the rest: the three making up each point of the triangle, and two in the middle. My take was that this OC looked best under moderate power (120x).

M76 Planetary Nebula in Perseus (Little Dumbell)
Found this by triangulating Delta Cas, the double cluster (via naked eye!) and Phi Persei, just north of Phi Per. This object is very small, not very bright. With lower power (48x), not much detail is visible. At moderate power (120x), I was able to perceive two bulges, but just barely. When I went to 240x (with the Barlow), I could better make out the two bulges, but mainly with averted vision. The word 'smokey' popped into my mind while observing this nebula. I could probably get a better view from darker skies and more aperature.

M71 Globular Cluster in Sagitta
I found this GC quite easily between the two stars that make up the shaft in Sagitta. There is some nebulosity but the stars on top of that haziness are resolvable. While observing, I wrote: Seems to have legs. Dark skies may well bring out more detail.

M45 Pleiades
What is there to say about these Seven Sisters that hasn't already been said? I've been observing this cluster my entire life, educating people that it, in fact, is NOT the little dipper. All last week, going out onto the driveway before sun-up to fetch the paper, there they were, dazzlingly brilliant in the morning sky, right where they belong with our other wintertime friends. But I'll stick to what I observed this night. Once M45 had risen about 25 or 30 degrees above the eastern hills, I made observing it a test of eyesight, and observing the affects of upsidedown images at the eyepiece of my reflector. I was able to discern seven stars under the night's sky conditions, though O'Meara says that double that number is possible under the right conditions. There was maybe a slight bit of nebulosity among the consituent stars in the eyepiece, but it may have been my imagination, or perhaps some of the haziness mentioned by others. Hard to say for sure. I was able to make out the dipper asterism both in my finder scope, which produces an upsidedown image, and in a low power eyepiece. It was interesting to compare naked eye vs through the optics. The change in orientation was really apparent, more so, I'd say, than looking at a distant terrestrial object. Oh, but it was a bit of mind/eye fun as the night wore on for me.

That was it as far as serious observing went for me that night. As I was winding down, I messed around with the clusters in Auriga, then checked out Aldebaran for a while through the eyepiece for a while, but for no good reason. And then tried to hop from one bright star to the next in the Hyades without leaving the eyepiece. All this is part of my never ending effort to learn my way around, and remember by bearings for next time.

Quarter to midnight I was packed up and pulling out through the gate. What a remarkably nice evening it was at Coe.