Boulder Creek Observing Report 12/01
By Mike Shade

Taking advantage of the brief break in the weather, I set my 6" F/8 AP refractor out in the yard here in Boulder Creek to do some observing. Although the weather was clear and cool, there was a little haze and smoke so the sky transparency was not as goo d as is possible from this location. In spite of this, I could make out a magnitude 5.0 star in the Little Dipper. My first object of the evening was Saturn, well placed over my neighbor's chimney! After waiting a few minutes for the image to steady, I could make out the Cassini division during the brief periods of somewhat steady seeing, using 203X (6mm Vixen). After deciding that the seeing was not conducive to planetary work, I decided to so a little deep sky hunting. My first object was the galax y NGC 1023 at magnitude 12. Using a TV 13mm Plossl (94X), the core looked quite stellar with a very faint fuzzy glow surrounding it. The galaxy NCG 1058, at magnitude 11.5 seemed more diffuse than the previous object. It wa!s nicely placed in a triangle of dim stars. NGC 1161 at magnitude 12.6 was very small and diffuse. In fact I was not able to detect this object until I used the 13mm eyepiece. There was a pair of stars of equal brightness very near. After searching fo r some faint objects it was time to look at some brighter objects. The open cluster M34 was a little gem at 49X (25mm). The planetary nebula M76 looked like two almost triangular sections. The two "sections" seemed to taper toward the center. I search ed for the diffuse nebula NGC 1333 but am not sure I did actually see this object. I did see a star that looked sort of fuzzy, almost like a star through a telescope with a dewed up corrector plate or lens (the lens was clear of dew). About this time th e haze had become thick enough to put a stop to my brief tour of the stars. Of course the temperature didn't help: this transplant from Southern California was quite chilly at 37 degrees!