by Jamie Dillon
There were three big tarantulas that I observed and purposely missed on the way up to Coe Saturday night the 23rd. Nowhere near Ozer's nine, but still impressive. Saw a lovely young doe on the way out as well.
Then at the overflow lot there was a forest of telescopes. 30 easy. Rashad and Glenn and Maria made welcome and I set up midlot. The sky at Coe was astro-strange, in that the transparency was never real good, but the seeing ran to excellent. Used the HB atlas' BM charts, one of the dream items in that atlas, to measure transparency. This set shows magnitude for all the naked-eye stars. To the NE, in the best parts of the sky, 5.0 stars came and went, and the best were around 5.5. As Phil noted, the smog was above us. Yuck. But the seeing was good to excellent, 4/5 to 5/5. Phil and I were both looking at big planets around 400x more than once to good effect. 6 stars in the Trapezium were easy at 210x.
I finished my wishlist in the parts of Sagittarius and Scorpius that are sinking into the West. NGC 6441 is a bright dense compact globular right by G Sco, interesting next to the bright star. 6723 is right on the southern Sag border, big, lots of resolved stars, resolving way toward its center. Looked sparkly in Rashad's Blondie.
Then formed character by looking for 6539, a globular in southern Ophiuchus. Was right on the field and saw no fuzzies. Steve Caron the Wonder Boy also couldn't find it. Funny moment, at that point a nice young couple sauntered by, and the guy asked, "Whatcha guys doin'"? Normally I'd give a genial general reply, but this cat got, "What in the world does it look like?" (They did stick around, I steered them toward M&G's new refractor.)
Finally I thought, "setting circles" and asked Rashad to work his electronic charms. Sure enough, in Blondie's 12" there was the faintest hint of a concentration of stars, which wouldn't show in Felix. OK, more of my youth gone, up to Aquila for a couple of OC's, 6755 and 6756, then another globular, 6760, dense with even core, some resolution at the edges. Nilesh called it "another distant globular" which for me is a contradiction in terms. I have not yet met a globular I didn't like. The fact of their existence blows me away. Anyway, Nilesh has plenty of room to talk, spending his whole night chasing planetaries. Went to M13 for comfort.
Then for the Big Event, drum roll please. Rashad went, "Phwoo, look at
this!" He'd found NGC 1023, a big nearby galaxy in Perseus. Spent the next
hour gazing at that thing in my scope and three others, finishing with
Wagner's 18. Big bright fat nucleus, looks like it sure ought to be an
active galactic nucleus (AGN). Rashad and I measured the arms to be ca 10'
wide (
Dawdled around in Cassiopeia, sweeping up some of the open clusters I had
never seen yet, near kappa Cas. The prize went to NGC 129 which is a lovely
slender wedge. Nilesh helped locate NGC 103 (not to confused with M103), the
former being notable for its dark nebulosity.
This was with Felix the 11" Celestron f/4.5 Dobs with the bright Discovery
primary, using a 22 Pan, a UO 16 Koenig and a 6mm Radian with a TV 2x
Barlow. This is the telescope of my dreams; it'll take many years for me to
get to its limits.
Jim Everett who really is a hell of a guy had a new Orion Short Tube which
has really nice crisp optics, and he made a splash by getting the whole Veil
in one arresting view. Maria and Glenn found the same view later in their
new travelscope. Dr Sergeant was very busy indeed with Zefran, his NGT, 2nd
time out since Lassen. You should know, this man blew off a complete
bacchanal in La Honda for crying out loud to come up to Coe.
And I want to thank Greg Edwards for sharing views in his marvelous binocs.
My first view of the general shape of the actual Horsehead.
Want to amplify what Phil said about people driving themselves off mountain
roads in the dark. This is the 2nd time in a year I myself have seen someone
leave the road at a darksky spot. This was the scary one: 4-5 more feet and
we might have been looking at fiery death which would have spoiled all our
fun, and perhaps future fun. Driving blind at night on a mountain without a
guide is plain stupid. This person clearly had no idea where he was heading
when he missed the gate, and has patently, if anonymously, earned the Head
Memorial Bucket-of-Members Award.
For a late dessert, found NGC 253 in Sculptor (Everett helped in my dotage),
for the first time since last January. A real favorite, looking that night
long and svelte with smart lanes. Then on to M42 which was splendid and
clear at 3 am. At 210x, studied the flare that extends to the SE, which
showed depth and sweep, astounding. I know we all know this, but there is
nothing in the world like the Orion Nebula. First deepsky nonstellar object
I ever saw in my own scope, way inexhaustible.