I did some more work on my Herschel 400 survey with Refractor Red, my 55 mm Vixen fluorite refractor, over the last few days. I won't bore you with a complete list, but I have now logged about 60 entries, most from 11 to 13 hours right ascension, mostly more southerly objects.

On Tuesday I spent another evening in my yard in Palo Alto, California. Our weather continued improved from El Nino, but a thin, low, layer of haze developed after sunset, so sky transparency was best only for a few hours in early evening. Then on Wednesday, 18 June, 1998, I joined fellow observers for a close-in star party in the hills southwest of Palo Alto, at the Montebello Open Space Area's main parking lot. We were above the marine layer -- I could see the top of the haze faintly, below me, as I drove up to the site. The sky above was very clear and transparent, so the light wall from Bay Area cities was less bothersome than usual. I was observing with exit pupils of 1.5 mm or less, so my sensitivity to light pollution was in any case reduced.

Some people have asked about my observing set-up with Refractor Red. The telescope came with tube rings and a 6x30 finder, which I have retained. I use a mouning I bought used. It seems to have the head of a late-model Vixen altazimuth mounting -- like what came with the Vixen-manufactured Celestron FirstScope 80 "Premium" -- with custom tripod legs that are less bulky and heavy than the standard units. The mount has slow motions in both axes. It is not perfect -- I had to wrap brass shim stock between the moving parts of the altazimuth slow motion to take up slack, and I need wrench and screwdriver handy to keep other slop-affecting adjustments just so. But I usually don't have to adjust things more often than once an evening, and slow motions are very useful, so I do like the mount.

I have a few eyepieces and stuff in a little pouch, much smaller than my regular eyepiece box, for high-portability observing. Pouch and mounted telescope together are a one-hand carry. At the moment, it contains a 5 mm Celestron Orthoscopic, 8 and 12 mm Brandons, a 20 mm Meade Research-Grade Erfle, a 28 mm Meade Research-Grade Orthoscopic, and a Celestron 2x Ultima Barlow. Those give a magnification range of over 11:1, with exit pupils at the Vixen's f/8 of 0.31 mm to 3.75 mm. I leave a star diagonal in the focuser -- I happen to use a mirror type, though f/8 is slow enough that a prism would probably be adequate, and would certainly have higher throughput than old aluminum coatings.

I have a light aluminum two-step ladder, such as many people use for hight shelves at home, just for observing sessions. I use it as ladder or chair, as occasion warrants. I have not gotten a fancy observing chair, just because they cannot double as ladders.

I keep warm clothes, a red flashlight, and a cheapie Tasco 7x35 binocular in my car, where they are always handy.

For charts and observing lists, I have been using three things. First, I have a print-out of the Herschel 400 list, which I use as an observing guide, checking things as I find them, and crossing them off as I enter the observations in my logbook.

Second, I have been using the new _Millennium_Star_Atlas_ for star-hopping. In general, I rate this atlas a failure, unless you happen to need bookends: It does not adequately deal with all the entries from the NGC and IC catalogs, and I therefore consider it a poor choice for serious deep-sky work. Yet its 11th magnitude stellar limit includes approximately all the stars I can easily see with direct vision with the Vixen 55 (I can see lots fainter stuff when I use averted vision and patience), so it is in fact handy for my tiny instrument. Everyone who buys a drug-store refractor needs a _Millennium_Star_Atlas_ to go with it. :-)

Third, I use an old _Norton's_Star_Atlas_, which I have had almost as long as my Teddy Bear, as an orientation atlas. It answers questions like "just where in the sky is 18 Sextans, anyway?"

One advantage of a small telescope is quick setup time. Even with the Vixen optical tube assembly removed from the mount for transport, I was ready to observe less than five minutes after I arrived at the Montebello site. The sky wasn't dark yet, so I took a few minutes to enjoy the gathering twilight and watch Arcturus, Spica, and Regulus appear. Then I hauled out my binocular and started looking for target areas. I had a couple "twilight challenge" objects in mind, that were about to become too close to the Sun to observe. I found mu Hydrae while the sky was till identifiably blue, and had planetary nebula NGC 3242, sometimes called The Ghost of Jupiter, in the field by the time it was dark enough to see it. This bright planetary was quite obvious at 37x, with the 12 mm Brandon, but 88x -- the 5 mm Celestron Orthoscopic -- made it more obviously non-stellar. Next I moved north and picked up NGC 3115, the Spindle Galaxy, not far from 18 Sextans. It was visible and noticeably elongated, both at 37x and at 88x.

As I worked my way east through Leo, Virgo, and Coma Bernices, I was pleased to note occasional detail in the objects viewed. Many galaxies were visibly elongated -- NGC 4559 and 4565 particularly so. NGC 4565 is a wonderful galaxy, one of my favorites. I was delighted that at only 37x, the 55 mm fluorite showed its tiny needle, brighter at the middle and -- with averted vision -- even revealed a hint of the dark lane down the middle.

Also in Coma Bernices, I noted the tiny globular cluster, NGC 4147. It showed no trace of resolution or granularity, not at 37x.

In Virgo, I started from the giant Messier galaxies M84 and M86, and worked my way out Markarian's chain, which trends somewhat to the north of east from those two objects. At 37x, I was pleased to be able to find all the galaxies usually considered part of it: These are NGC 4435, 4438, 4458, 4461, 4473, and 4477. Some might consider NGC 4459 part of that list -- I found it, too. NGC 4458 and 4461 are not part of the Herschel 400.

I logged twenty-five objects in less than two hours, then packed up and drove home. It had been a fine and promising night. And I wasn't entirely kidding about drug-store refractors, a few paragraphs above. Allowing for rather high reflective losses off the uncoated fluorite element of Refractor Red, and remembering that I am using an old mirror-type star diagonal, the throughput of the little Vixen comes out to be about the same as that of a 60 mm beginner refractor with no low-reflection-coated surfaces at all. Many of these have focal lengths of 700 mm, and come with a 20 mm eyepiece which offers 35x -- about the same as my 12 mm Brandon, though probably with a bit less field of view. Thus all of the work that I have described here could probably be done with a 60 mm Tasco, straight out of the box. Just be sure to get one that has an achromatic objective...