| Reports | TAC | Join mailing list |
I had been looking forward to this July trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park for months. Mt. Lassen is the last volcano is a string of volcanoes in the Cascade Range. Mt. Rainier in Washington, and Crater Lake in Oregon are also part of this chain. Four nights of (hopefully) gloriously dark skies awaited my friends and I. After a four-hour caravan, a quick campsite set-up, and a fast meal, we were off to the observing area.
I brought my 12.5" Meade dob. I've only had this scope since November, and I think I may have spent more time upgrading it than looking through it! I used a 22 Panoptic eyepiece for most of my star hopping, and 12mm and 9mm Naglers when higher power was needed. I also used a Telrad, 8x50 finder, and occasionally Lumicon DSC's. I enjoy star hopping, but sometimes it's nice to just land right on an object. I was using a Hershel 400 list, The Sky level V on a laptop, The Night Sky Observer's Guide, and The Universe from Your Backyard for planning my observing sessions and charting needs.
I spent time every night looking at Messier and bright NGC objects. The Veil nebula was a particularly stunning object in all the scopes. The very dark and transparent skies allowed the Veil to show intricate detail as I had never seen them in a telescope before. I was blown away with what I saw in my dob with a UHC filter. Then I went over to Mark Wagner's 18 inch Obsession and was transfixed. The clarity and detail of the 'waterfall' portion of the Veil was stunning. I think we were all delighted by the seeing. Another highlight was the Cat's Eye nebula (NGC 6543) in Draco in Ray Gralik's 18" dob. I saw, for the first time, the central star in the Dumbbell nebula through Michelle Stone's 11" SCT. Too be honest, I'd never looked for it before. The North America nebula was inspiring in Rich Neushaefer's new AP 90mm stowaway. It looked like a black and white photograph. Dean Linebarger again showed his observing skill and shared views of faint galaxy groups with me. M11, the Wild Duck, in Scutum was also incredible in my dob and a bino-viewer. I had never really noticed the dark areas that cut their way through this compact open cluster. A truly awe inspiring view!
The last night was Public Night, and we all set up our scopes to share views with campers and others in the park. I stuck with Messier objects, even setting up the bino-viewer in my 8" SCT. Only two people were unable to fuse the image. Near the beginning of the night, two young couples came to my scope. Each of them was holding a Corona beer. I told them that they were required to give a beer to the owner of each scope they looked through. One of the girls piped up "Okay!" Then she looked down the row of big telescopes, thought a bit and said. "We just made a beer run, we've got enough for everybody." I laughed and told her I was just kidding. I treated them to a view of M57. They were suitably impressed and went on to look through other scopes. I never saw them again, but when I went back to my car later that evening, I found a Corona sitting on my tailgate.
I found 52 new objects over the course of the first three nights, plus took some piggyback astrophotos with Michelle Stone on her G-11 mount. Those photos came out very well, and I hope we can get them up on a web page soon. The dimmest object I saw was UGC 9856, a mag 15.3 galaxy. I had a great time observing with my friends, and only regret that I can't go back again next month.
The first night I worked the Herschel 400 list for Draco. All magnitudes listed are from The Sky software.
NGC 5673 is a small, faint 13.9 galaxy. In the same field was IC 1029, a 13.6 galaxy that was harder for me to see.
NGC 5466, a loose globular which I had looked for previously in brighter skies, but had not been able to find.
NGC 5557, a fairly bright, round galaxy. Mag 12.2. I noted a bright star in the field.
NGC's 5676, 5660 made a pretty pair in the 22 Panoptic. Mag 11.8 and 11.8!
NGC 5689 was an obvious spiral galaxy with a dim companion NGC 5693 at mag 14.1.
NGC 5907 was a treat. Very big and bright edge on. Mag 11.3
NGC 5879 mag 12 galaxy was bright and elongated with a chain of brighter stars on one side of the field.
NGC 5905 and 5908, mags 12.6 and 13, were fairly bright and had a pretty star field between them.
The last Draco group for this evening was NGC 5982 (12.2), 5985 (11.7) and 5981 (14.1) These were all in a line with 5985 the largest and brightest in the group. A very interesting field!
I jumped over the border from Draco to Ursa Major and found...
NGC 5473 a round 11.4 mag galaxy
NGC 5474 a large and diffuse 11.4 mag galaxy
NGC 5422 a small, bright, elongated mag 12.8 galaxy an eyepiece field away from M101
NGC 5631 a small, round galaxy with a bright center at mag 12.5
I finished up the evening with a long look at NGC 7789 in Cassiopeia, one of my favorite open clusters.
The second night I started with NGC 6543, the Cat's eye nebula that I had enjoyed in Ray's scope the night before. I also noticed NGC 6552 in the same field. A small, faint mag 14.2 galaxy. I always enjoy more than one object in an eyepiece field!
I jumped over to Ursa Minor for NGC 6217. A mag 12.1 galaxy that appeared irregular to me and I thought there was a brightening in the middle.
For some reason I decided to switch parts of the sky and went over to Scutum for a look at NGC 6664, a nice open cluster near M11. More eye candy. :)
On to Ophiucus for some globulars. None were terribly impressive after views of M13, M22, M15 and the like, but each was unique in it's own way. None were difficult to see or find. NGC 6235, 6284, 6287, 6293 and my favorite of this group 6304, which was well resolved with lots of bright pairs of stars in the field.
Aquila showed me NGC 6755 and 6756. 6755 is much larger and brighter at mag 7.5. 6756 was in the same field in a 22 Panoptic. The entire field was quite pretty.
NGC 6781 was another little gem. A bright mag 12 planetary with an irregular shape.
In Cygnus I found NGC 6826, the Blinking Planetary, which I had seen many times before. It's always a pretty sight.
I also observed three open clusters in Cygnus. NGC 6834, 6823 and 6830. Nice to look at, and pretty, but for some reason these open clusters in the rich of Milky Way don't inspire me as much as some other objects. At over 8000 feet, the entire Milky Way is an open cluster!
The final object for the night was NGC 40. It's a mag 11 planetary nebula in Cepheus. Small and almost stellar.
Whew! Another great night of observing.
This was the last night I would spend searching for new objects. I was getting tired, and the public was attending the fourth night. I also was interested in doing some astrophotograpy. Mark, Dean and I went through The Night Sky Observer's Guide and chose a sampling of objects in Aquila and Bootes to observe and compare views in different size scopes. Mark and Dean were more successful than I. I was going back and forth between my dob and Michelle Stones telescope for astrophotography.
Lots of planetaries in Aquila. I found and observed NGC 6781 which was large and faint.
NGC 6772 which was a bit brighter.
PK 47 which was another big and dim planetary.
NGC 6760 a mag 9.1 globular which was nicely mottled.
NGC 6741 a small 11.4 planetary.
Many of the items we choose for Bootes I had observed on previous nights. Browsing through the Night Sky Observer's Guide really impressed upon me with the number of galactic fields in Bootes. I never really thought much about Bootes as a deep sky kind of constellation.
I found NGC 5434, a mag 13.4 galaxy, but according to The Sky software, there were 17 galaxies at mag 14.5 and dimmer in the field! I only saw the one in my scope, but managed a few more in Mark's 18" Obsession.
NGC 5248 was elongated and large at mag 10.2
NGC 5490 was faint for me. This too was an interesting field, but I was unable to see any other galaxies. I think partially due to lack of aperture, but also due to the fact that the field was getting low in the west at the time I was observing.
NGC 5795 (mag 14.2) 5815 (mag 14.5) and MCG-3-38-42 (mag 14.5) all showed faintly in my 12.5" dob and a 22 Panoptic. Not bad!
Another fun find for me was another galaxy rich field. NGC 5899 (11.8) 5900 (14.8) and 5893 (mag 14) again showed in the same field. The last two were faint, but definitely observable.
The last new object was probably the most difficult. NGC 5929 and 5930, mag 14.4 and 13, appear to be an interacting pair. I just noticed them as a "funny shape" in my observing notes, but they were obviously two galaxies, one almost on top of the other, in the 18" Obsession. In the field was also UGC 9856, a mag 15.3 galaxy. Mark told me it was there, but I didn't look at the chart. I looked and waited and finally a long smudge popped in and out. Barely. I described the field to Mark and he verified it on The Sky. I usually find that most of my friends have better sight for these dim objects than I do, so I felt a real sense of accomplishment detecting this faint galaxy.
I can't wait to go back to Lassen next year!