by Bruce Jensen
Thursday evening, December 30, found Paul Sterngold and I out at the Del Valle observing site south of Livermore, California, for a short evening of easy relaxed viewing. Since Paul and I both, for one reason or another, were without our big guns, we both found ourselves using smaller instruments. Paul had his 80mm binoculars, and I used an Orion Shorttube 80 on the Orion deluxe equatorial mount.
Weather conditions were less than optimal at 8 PM, with considerable low-level moisture haze up to about 1,600 feet in depth, and scattered high clouds that would occasionally pass by. Due to the elevation of the site, about 1,300 feet, the haze did not create problems for viewing from the zenith down to about 15 degrees above horizontal; but the horizons up to 15 degrees were significantly obscured. Nonetheless, we were able to extract reasonably good performance out of our instruments that evening.
Many thanks to Paul for his wonderful enthusiastic company and his indulgence, especially for his endurance of 90 zany minutes of Spike Jones and the City Slickers, and another 90 minutes of classical music (which we both agreed was pleasant to listen to).
Unless otherwise noted, the eyepiece used was a 7mm TeleVue Nagler eyepiece for a magnification of 57 diameters, and the occasional Ultrablock or O-III filter. The following reporting format is used, and the objects are presented in no particular order:
| Object | Type | Mag | Obs Aids | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NGC 2438 | Planetary nebula | 11.00 | Ultrablock Filter | The ST80 telescope gave a fine view of this pair of objects, the cluster a fine speckling of pinpoint stars, and the tiny planetary nebula superimposed over its northern end. With averted vision, the little nebula betrayed its annular-shape. |
| M 46 | Open cluster | 6.10 | ||
| M 108 | Galaxy | 10.00 | This pair of Messier objects were some of the dimmer objects we viewed; the M97 Owl Nebula was a barely visible fuzzy disc, and M108 was a cigar-shaped wisp in the same field of view. | |
| M 97 | Planetary nebula | 11.00 | Ultrablock Filter | |
| NGC 2359 | Bright nebula | – | Ultrablock Filter | Thor’s Helmet stood out as a gently-illuminated specter in the shape of a duck’s head, more or less. Little of the extravagant detail visible in larger telescopes showed, and the view is much better from a darker location, even in the small telescope. |
| NGC 2024 | Bright nebula | – | The Tank Tracks Nebula next to Zeta Orionis in Orion was faintly visible, without much detail but still showing the ragged dark lane that crosses it’s center. Nebula filters seem to do little for this object, although under some circumstances a Deep Sky Filter seems to perk it up a bit. | |
| M 78 | Bright nebula | 8.00 | The overlooked Messier object in Orion, M78 plainly showed its fan shape and two of three involved stellar components. | |
| NGC 2976 | Galaxy | 10.20 | These galaxies were almost all visible in one field of view, dominated by the brilliant spiral M81 and its irregular cigar-shaped companion M82, the latter of which is one of the most interesting objects in the sky for large scopes, with its highly chaotic-appearing shape. The other two close companions, both at 10th magnitude, were less easy to see, but once pinpointed stood out from the background. NGC 3077 was located very close to two stars, and appeared as a fairly large faint haze. NGC 2976 was more compact, a small moderately faint disc. | |
| NGC 3077 | Galaxy | 9.90 | ||
| M 82 | Galaxy | 8.40 | ||
| M 81 | Galaxy | 6.90 | ||
| NGC 2237 | Bright nebula | 5.50 | O-III filter | The Rosette Nebula. For this one, I replaced the 7mm with a 9mm Nagler eyepiece and used the O-III filter, which has served well in the past on this object. Wrapped around the bright cluster of stars in the center, the Rosette glowed faintly, without revealing the wreathlike detail so visible in larger instruments. |
| M 76 | Planetary nebula | 11.00 | The Little Dumbbell or Cork Nebula, easily visible as a bright oblong patch in Perseus, but not readily showing the two lobes which are distinctive enough to merit two separate NGC designations. | |
| M 33 | Galaxy | 5.70 | The quality of this view was surprising; the Pinwheel Galaxy nearly filled the view, with a bright core, and the spiral arms gave the appearance of almost concentric circles or shells around the nucleus. The small bright knot of nebulosity in one of its arms, NGC 604, was visible with averted vision. The fact that the galaxy was nearly overhead surely helped, but the level of detail in this small instrument was unexpected. | |
| NGC 604 | Bright nebula | – | ||
| NGC 2175 | Bright nebula | 6.80 | Ultrablock Filter | Although both are listed as nebulae, 2175 is actually a star cluster associated with the nebulosity and shines rather brightly. The stars are enough to illuminate the tattered shape of the nebula, which appeared here as a gentle irregular glow. In larger scopes, it remains as one of my favorites, with much detail and interest. |
| NGC 2174 | Bright nebula | -- | Ultrablock Filter | |
| M 110 | Galaxy | 8.10 | The Andromeda Galaxy and close associates. Large field-filling images of these objects, which were bright, easy and moderately detailed. Very pretty. | |
| M 32 | Galaxy | 8.10 | ||
| M 31 | Galaxy | 3.40 | ||
| NGC 2158 | Open cluster | 8.60 | M35 appeared as a large irregular mass of stars, with a noticeable arc of about eight stars across one side, and a large apparently vacant area in the center. Tiny 2158, a close optical companion (but five times farther away!) appeared as a small moderately faint haze; the two make a nice pair in a wide field. | |
| M 35 | Open cluster | 5.10 | ||
| M 1 | Supernova remnant | 8.40 | The Crab Nebula - this supernova remnant appeared as a small oval haze, which is probably much the way Messier saw it when he first turned his tiny primitive refractor toward this object more than 200 years ago, and gave it the number one spot on his list. | |
| M 42 | Bright nebula | 4.00 | Thoroughly delightful as always, the extravagant tendrils and clouds of the Orion Nebula never disappoint. The four main Trapezium stars were evident at 57x. |
Paul had excellent fortune with his observing program that evening as well, racking up several fairly faint galaxies and other objects with gusto. Paul and I packed it in about 11:30-ish, satisfied with our efforts and anticipating great things for the year 2000 as the 1900's drew to a close.