by Jamie Dillon
Mary Brenning is a buddy of mine at work, a fine speech pathologist and originally a nice Irish girl from Boston. Last week when we were comparing notes on the impending weekend and I was describing the scene at Coe, she up and said "Ah, don't look now, geeks with lenses."
Wouldn't that look great on a T-shirt?
And yes, the lens crew were out and bundled up on Saturday night. I had a guest, Chris Spurrell, a serious joke teller who makes a living as a first-rate corrosion chemist. We've been friends 24 years now, and he was excited to see the Great Vast. Only his 3rd or 4th time looking thru a telescope.
It's fun to show people off to each other. The biggest impression Chris came away with was the congeniality of Doug Davis and New Guy Pete. The TAC gang as a whole really are great ambassadors for the One True Hobby.
Felix showed off a sampler: a near galaxy, a far galaxy, a supernova remnant, a globular and several OC's, the Big Planets, some doubles, a triple, and two quadruples. On the rocks, stirred not shaken. These were respectively M31, NGC 891, M1, M15, M37, 38 & 36, M35, then the obvious, then to Albireo, gamma And, iota Cas, sigma Ori and the highly regarded Triangulum.
This was with a Celestron 11" Dobs, with a 26mm SMA and 17mm, 10mm and 7.5 mm Plossls, and a Lumicon OIII.
Was selfish enough to find two new objects between sharing: iota Cassiopeia and NGC 891. It was last January on the Peak that I first saw iota Cas thru Paul Sterngold's refractor, and here across from him I figured it was about time to catch that system in Felix. With fair-to-decent seeing, the close pair was split (at 2.4") about half the time at 170x. Captivating set.
891 is the galaxy about halfway between M34 and gamma Andromeda, an edge-on spiral with a pronounced dust lane. I'd looked for it in the backyard and was right on top of the field without being able to see it. No wonder. But at Coe it was lovely and clear, with the dust lane jumping out. Doug set it up in his scope and we compared back and forth. Spurrell, who is an observant person, flat couldn't see it in spite of numerous patient efforts. This is another quantum jump in starhopping for me. At Pacheco on 9 Oct, I needed help to run down 7479, off of Markab in Pegasus; on Saturday found 891 independently.
At one point, Paul announced he was starting an exposure for an hour. Doug figured on sticking around. Turned to my guest and said, "Howya doin'?" His reply, "Stiff and cold." No night owl he. But for a short night it was pure fun. We all watched a shadow transit of Io. Just before packing up, couldn't resist another peek, and whoa. Io had just left the Jovian disk, but the shadow was about 80% of the way across. Oblique sun. Grand 3D effect. Several of us jumped up and down.