by Jamie Dillon
For once I'll at least start an observing report within a day. Richard gave the roster at Coe Thursday night. As Jay arrived he said, "The usual suspects," appropriately.
My whole list was in the south, and thankfully once not only Jay but Marsha had left, the south cleared completely. Meanwhile I found two new clusters, one in Cassiopeia, just of epsilon Cas, 637, a little gang of about a dozen stars. Then Navarrete's Cluster, a distant neighbor of M38 - 1907, compact and distinct once you look.
Then later the new objects came in a set, between 10:30 and 12:30.
M78 was giving trouble because I was going north from Alnitak, zeta Ori. It's NE, on a right angle from the Belt. We were wondering whether it's an emission or a reflection nebula. Burnham's turns out not to help, calling it a 'bright diffuse' nebula. Shapely band around a pair of bright stars.
On the way I spotted the Flame Nebula for the first time. That'll take a long set of careful studies at the eyepiece, complex. The big surprise of the night was seeing 6 stars in the Trapezium for the first time. Rashad at the other end of the lot up and said, "6 stars easy." I went "right, Rashad" and headed there. The new eyepiece sure showed its stuff, see below. Afraid I made some noise over that (am I a moaner or a yelper, you tell me).
M79, globular in Lepus. Turns out to be 50,000 ly away. Saw a bright core and tendrils in 3 directions.
M47 was a big surprise. Just knew about it as a place on the chart, never seen it before. Hollered and jumped up and down. Bright, splashy cluster, very beautiful. It's neighbor cluster within a degree is NGC 2423, not M46. Found this out the hard way from trying to eke out the planetary that lives in M46. M46 is about 2 deg to the E. Big ole planetary, 2438. At high mag I could see a star dead center, maybe the source star.
This was all with Felix the 11" Celestron Dobs, with a brand new high mag EP, a 6mm Radian. Also starring a 26mm SMA, a 17.5 Plossl, Celestrons, and a 10mm Orion Plossl.
The last new treat was M67 in Cancer, right E of alpha Can. Was patting myself on the back for beating Wagner there, then later read in the Montobello News that he'd just been there on the night before. Oh well. He'll age quicker than me, likely, catch up those 2 years.
The company was just superb. Richard gave the roster. Funny, companionable, helpful. I guy named Billy was up camping with his dog, came by and did some peeking. He walked in hardly knowing a planet from a star. Quick on the uptake, he left knowing something about stellar parallax, no kidding. Good gossip, good friends. Ken Head has to be one of the funniest people on the planet.