by Jamie Dillon
San Juan Grade Road winds into the Gabilans east of Salinas and makes the back way into San Juan Bautista. A narrow pretty road thru open hills and a couple of cattle ranches. Definitely out of the city.
After Saturday night's minimalist star party at the Peak I was raring to go. Also, the last time I'd observed from Fremont's Peak was 11 Nov, soon after I'd put in a new better focuser, and I'd muxed with the secondary to the point where collimation was way off. So that night had been a binocular night.
Now I had bigger fish to fry, with two galaxies in the southern winter sky right on top of the list.
The sky was about 5.5 transparency overhead, with seeing good-moderate, moving to moderate as the night progressed, with bands of cirrus moving quickly across, esp to the north and west. The west stayed hazy 15-20 deg above the horizon thru the night, the north was a mess.
It was just Felix and I in front of the Observatory (he being an 11" Celestron Dobs, with a CEO helical focuser, and EP's 26mm (SMA), 17.5 Plossl, 10mm Plossl, and a 6mm Radian. Add a Lumicon OIII. The Barlow stayed in the case with those high winds. After I'd set up I found out there were two guys from Oregon, Tom Carrico and his pal John Something, doing astrophotog stuff at Coulter. We yakked a bit. Their group setup west of Bend is in the Feb Sky and Telescope, p. 134!
These are all first-finds:
M77 was first, once I'd reviewed the shape of Cetus. Made out spiral arms and dust lanes.
NGC 253 was the big target of the night and the most satisfying, up to the very last find (beta Mon). I'd seen this galaxy once thru Mark Wagner's 18" (18, right?) and had been astounded at 253's diameter. As you know, it's just outside our Local Group, close, tilted some 30 deg off edge-on. Took up 40' of the wide-angle view easy, structure for days. Commanding. We're gonna spend some time together.
M74 was easier than I'd figured. Actually, Wagner had pointed out directions last Thursday up at Coe. It was fairly dim for a Messier object in Mark's scope, and dim in the 11". Could just make out that it was a spiral. (Meanwhile, Tom across the way was getting some arresting shots of M74 with his CCD.)
- Stopped by gamma Ari, the Headlights Double. Would wake anyone up.
Over to Perseus for French's tour out of the Jan S&T. Could make out the shape of the California Nebula in the binocs but not thru the scope. Go figure.
Sure enough, eta Per is a gorgeous double. Who knew?! Orange and blue. Then on to the neighborhood of lambda Per for 1528, a pretty little bright cluster, deep with stars, and then 1545, with arms extending out.
I'd been for some reason chicken over M76, being real new with planetaries, but sure enough it's big and shapely. With bipolar fans.
Took a gander at Jupiter, and whoa Io's shadow had just started into the disk. Cool! Could just barely make out the form of the moon itself ahead of the shadow.
Saturn had a lovely pattern of five moons around it like a crown. The Cassini division was clear about 60% at 210x.
Then at the prompting of Neuschafer and now Freeman, headed to the Attic to catch the Rosette. Yup, I could just make out the nebulosity nekked eye, and there was a full sweep in the eyepiece with the OIII. This'll drive me to Burnham's and a warm chair.
It was into the 20's now and my toes were starting to complain. Ran over to the Cone Nebula and with the OIII could just make out the dark shading around the bright star. This was without explicit verbal guiding - checked Jay's story right now and sure enough the shading was in the right place. On the way discovered a lovely blue-white contrasting double, and then found that puppy, 8 Mon! Scanned the Milky Way thru Monoceros.
Ran down to Canis Major to tau, watched layers of stars in 2362 pop into averted vision, while I faded out for a bit into what Larry Niven called the "far look." Worth the danger. Just up to h3945, where Kingsley had just been, which was a gorgeous blue and orangey gold.
After staring at M42 for a while in the Radian, swept for one last target, beta Monoceroti (dig that genitive?). From the chart to the eyepiece, remember I was getting chilly, I'd forgotten the big kick here. It's a knockout triple! Way bright. Spectacular. You'd like it.
Looking forward to ever more of this.