01-29-09 Shingle Springs, CA

Alvin Huey

Looking up on Monday afternoon, I noticed that the skies were pretty blue. Checking the forecast and seeing that it’ll be clear all week, so I decided to call Marsha and Bill and see if they wanted to get some eyepiece time on Wednesday night. We all agreed to meet at Bill’s home in Shingle Springs. It turned out that it is only 7 air miles SE from my home.

I decided to leave my reflector at home and brought my 6” f/6.5 refractor. Marsha brought her 14.5” Starmaster and Bill Porte rolled out his 18” Plettstone. I used a very limited set of eyepieces in this session; 35mm Pan, 13 and 8mm Ethos and 5mm Tak LE.

The skies were okay for the night. It started out pretty good, and then transparency dropped a bit. It mostly recovered by 10PM. NELM was about 5.5 to 5.8. I think it has potential to reach at least 6.0 to 6.2 on a good night. We packed up at 11:30.

I decided to use my old AstroCards that I got way back in the 80’s. The original hand drawn cards by Kepple and Sanner. Got them while I was in high school. So I left everything else in my box.

The stuff I looked at are as follows;

Looked at the trapezium at 198x, Bill and I picked off all 6 stars pretty easily.

NGC 1501 (04h 07.0m +60°55’ 52” 11.5v CS 14.45 PNe in Camelopardalis)
6” (76 and 124x and O-III filter) – Showed up as a faint, but well defined round annular planetary. The central star was intermittent.

NGC 1514 (04h09.2m +30°47’ 114” 10.9p CS 9.4v Crystal Ball Nebula in Taurus)
6” (76 and 124x and O-III filter) – Pretty faint large low surface brightness round glow. The edges are not defined at all. The surface appeared somewhat mottled and of uneven brightness. It was brighter on the east and west edges. The central star was very bright, even with the O-III filter in place.

NGC 1535 (04h14.2m -12°44’ 18” 9.6p CS 11.6v PNe in Eridanus)
6” (76, 124 and 198x and O-III filter) – Pretty bright very small round disk. I had to use the blink method at 76x to confirm that I located the right “star”. At 198x without the O-III filter, it was distinctly blue in color with well defined edges. I’m not sure that I saw the central star as it was lost in the glow.

M79 (05h 24.5m -24°33’ 8.7’ 7.8v Globular Cluster in Lepus)
6” (76, 124 and 198x) – Bright round glow. Kicked the mag up to 198x partially resolved the cluster. It appears pretty compact with a bright center.

M42 (05h35.4m -05°27’ Orion Nebula)
6” (76 and 124x) – I decided to view this with the H-beta and O-III filter and see what the difference is. With the H-beta, the east filament was more prominent than the west. Both filaments almost make a complete loop into each other on the south edge. The structural detail is astounding. With the O-III filter, the east edge is far more prominent than then west edge. There is more detail seen with the O-III versus the H-beta. Anyhow the level of detail is excellent with both filters, just different .

M78 (05h46.7m +00°03’ 8x6’ 10.3v Diffuse nebula in Orion)
6” (76 and 124x) – Appears as a faint irregular glow. It does not respond very well to any filter (O-III, H-beta or UHC)

NGC 2024 (05h40.7m 02°27’ 30’ Flame Nebula in Orion)
6” (76 and 124x with UHC filter) – Faint irregular round glow with many dark lanes crossing across the disk.

IC434 and Barnard 33 (05h40.9m -02°28’ Horsehead nebula in Orion)
6” (76x with H-beta) – IC434 was pretty easily seen as a glow on the west side. The edge of the glow runs from the 7.7 mag star up north going to the 7.9 mag star to the south. The notch was fairly easily discernable at 76x. I did not try any other magnifications. Bill and Marsha confirmed that the notch was observed. We are all pretty surprised that it was visible at all through a 6” scope under NELM 5.5 skies.

Abell 12 (06h02.4m +09°09’ 12.0v CS 19.1 PNe in Orion)
6” (76, 124 and 198x with O-III filter) –The field was very easily found, but the PNe was not detected at any magnification

M1 (05h34.5m +22°01’ 6x4’ 8.4 Crab Nebula in Taurus)
6” (76 and 124x with UHC and O-III filters) – The Crab shows an irregular elongated glow. At 124x, the edges showed signs of very faint filaments. The UHC gave better views than the O-III filter.

IC 2149 (05h56.3m +46°07’ 8” 10.7v PNe in Auriga)
6” (76 and 124x with O-III filter) – Stellar. Confirmed by flicking the filter in and out.

Abell 21 (07h29.0m +13°15’ 10’ Medusa Nebula in Gemini)
6” (28x with O-III filter) – easily detected as a crescent even surface brightness glow. The outer edge was better defined than the inner edge.

NGC 2237, 8 and 9 (06h32.3m +05°03’ 80x60’ Rosette Nebula in Monoceros)
6” (76x with UHC and O-III filter) – The Rosette was not quite visible without a filter. The UHC brings the nebula out pretty well. The O-III is even better. The edges were not even at all. The NW section is the brightest of all, while the NE edge is the faintest section. Very impressive object.

NGC 2264 (06h41.1m +09°53’ Cone nebula complex in Monoceros)
6” (76x with UHC filter) – The cone was barely visible, but there. Panning around the region revealed nebulosity all over the place.

I looked at other objects, but didn’t record them.