August 1, 2008 @ Henry Coe

Iain Cunningham

I'm new to TAC and tiptoeing into the hobby, but I've seen these done a few times now and thought I'd file my own observing report.

I spent the recent new moon on August 1st up at Henry Coe with two other gentlemen (Rogelio and Jim). The evening started with fairly moderate but warm winds; cars were parked to shield mounts from the breeze. The wind continued fairly late into the evening but I don't seem to recall much of it after around 12:30am and it was nice and calm when I left just after 2am. The wind was annoying but didn't spoil the evening.

This was my first time at Henry Coe so I can't comment on the observing conditions much. My initial impressions are that the site offers good horizons except for a very large tree that blocks much of the south view. Light domes are another matter and are very apparent in the west, south, and even slightly in the east to some degree. The western light dome coming off San Jose is enormous and I estimated that it obscures maybe 40 degrees of the western view (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/iainandclaire/2725168135/in/pool-tac). The light dome from Gilroy in the south is also very apparent. Some light is seen from the Central Valley in the east but it isn't much of a factor at least to my eyes.

Excellent views are available in the north-east to south-east and up to the zenith. We had a nice summer Milky Way although I got the feeling that the views were affected by some haze. There was quite a bit of turbulence seen in the lights from the Santa Clara Valley.

I've posted some photos to the TAC Flickr account (posting under iainandclaire): http://www.flickr.com/groups/tac/

--Iain Personal Observing Log:

2008-08-01 ? Henry Coe Astro Lot
? Conditions breezy but warm. Goal to view Messier objects and various targets in Cepheus.
? Using 80 mm Celestron ED refractor on EQ-2 mount; wind unfortunately shakes mount but not TOO bad.
? M3 glob (Canes Venatici): very compact, bright center; visible in binocs but not quite with naked eye; fuzz extending outward about a full diameter of the core; averted vision is perhaps barely able to resolve outside stars
? M5 glob (Serpens Caput): bright center; outside fuzz extends not much farther outward than diameter of core; averted vision shows definite speckles but only minimal resolution of stars; shooting star passes right through center of M5 ? pretty cool; longer view shows definite stellar resolution in outer edges
? M31 galaxy (Andromeda): nucleus clearly visible; fuzz surrounding nucleus; cannot confirm any spiral features ? any such spiral is probably my imagination
? Delta Cephei: pretty double separated by 41?; could not make out 13th magnitude C companion (no surprise)
? Mu Cephei: Herschel?s Garnet Star stands out as a dramatic red in the wide field view at 2.3 degrees; gorgeous; looks like a stop sign up in the heavens
? M39 open cluster (Cygnus): very large open cluster; count approx. 22 main stars; emptiness in center of cluster looks like baby?s belly; nice jewel box in the sky
? M27 nebula (Vulpecula): brighter than expected but not quite as bright as M3 or M5; not quite a dumbbell but definite bowing towards the center with both direct and averted aversion; otherwise looks like a square fuzzy
? M29 open cluster (Cygnus): slightly underwhelming because it is a loose collection of approx. 8 bright stars and some dimmer stars; most interesting is that I missed it in the scope, but saw it clearly in binoculars; without magnification it more clearly looks like a fuzzy that needs further investigation and it?s easy to see why Messier included it on his list
? M57 nebula (Lyra): slightly brighter at Henry Coe than from my front yard; stands out well against black background; not many surrounding stars; hallow center is clear with averted vision but no center star
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