Fun night at Willow Springs 2/10/08

Greg LaFlamme

Preface:

My wife and I took off to Aptos for the weekend and even did a little observing on the beach Friday night. I used my little 90mm semi-apo that I had picked up for light duty (no pun) astrophotography to find a few o.c's in Monoceros. Bunch of fun there so I screwed on the OIII then found the Rosette, Gum and Hubble's variable (80% sure on that one) . I checked out the other greats nearby then hit the sac around 11:00 Pm. I wanted to build up some love points with Sherri before my pending trip to Willow Springs. I hesitated all week about Saturday night observing locations because weather reports were all so iffy but if you may get skunked, might as well be somewhere super dark.

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Saturday afternoon, I met Steve Gottlieb in San Juan Bautista. He gave me some quick hand written directions just in case we got separated. I oriented the gps and off we went. Kevin Ritschel's place is neat and located really well for this hobby. For a moment we considered heading up another 600' to Bob Ayers property but the sky wasn't perfect anyway and there was a 14' tall dob that had my name all over it. We decided to stay put. I love being out in the country, to me its one of those things that makes this hobby even more enjoyable. Just something right about it.... Before it got dark, I had my picture taken next to the HUGE 33: f/5.

http://www.fototime.com/4B2817F49C02A66/orig.jpg

It's not every day you see something like that. I can walk under a dob! For a moment I thought I shrunk ;-) We set up our scopes and other equipment, had some dinner and awaited the night.

There were some cirrus clouds, long warped con trails cris crossing the sky and it looked like the night would go down in my personal history as a "practice night", like an astronomer's version of a fire drill. Anyway, the company couldn't be beat and the whole trip would have been worth while even if the sky had never cleared. Again, I always learn so much with Steve and this trip was no different. For one thing I learned that Pete Santangeli was right about the Ethos, its a fascinating eyepiece.. I got to spend some time with Steve's Ethos in my 15 f5, it's a heck of a view! I compared it directly with my 13 T6 and it look's the same as far as sharpness/contrast goes but much a wider f.o.v. and pretty dang sharp right out the edge! Like Albert said, its not for eyeglass wearers:-( I can avoid spending money on the Ethos because 13mm is not my "go-to" eyepiece but,,, if its offered in 7 or 9mm, I'll have to throw down some bucko's;-) I did a mess of socializing with Kevin, Bob Ayers and Steve, took observing very casually until around 10:30 when the sky cleared. By then Luna had disappeared, best SQM was 21.49 (by my meter) and it was all business at the eyepiece. Kevin and Steve both shared many of their views with me and I logged many objects particularly galaxies throughout Uma.

I'm still a bit haunted by views of NGC 2438 near or in M46. It's a beautiful planetary in my scope but a brain teaser in a 33". I spent a lot of time with this one unfiltered in all three scopes and came to the conclusion that there is more than one star in there. Maybe four stars were blinking in and out but one was right at the edge of my imagination so I can't confirm that guy but there were three visible stars including one SW, mid way from the central star and another right on the Northern edge. I compared my notes and poor sketch I made to an astrophoto to confirm my findings and son of a gun, there they are,,, but wait,, Might be that I never saw the actual central star. Judging from a photo, it appears that the likely candidate for 2438's offset central star is foreground star as well because its way brighter and the central star is centered (if I'm looking at the picture correctly) http://www.fototime.com/52E78519C363490/orig.jpg Hmm,,I will go after ngc 2438 more in-depth next time out and really draw it up right. Besides, I always do a better the second time;-) Nice bounty for what started out as a doubtful evening. Thanks to Steve Gottlieb, Bob Ayers and Kevin Ritschel, I had a great time.

GML