Steve Caron wrote:
The rock-solid GM100 laughs at the wind. Jay's G11 also stood up to the wind. Only the die-hard observers remained, James said it best: this is "X-treme Astronomy". Hey, at least there was no dew.....
Steve's minivan also served as a partial windblock for my 7 inch Starmaster last night at Coe. The little Dob sits low enough to the ground that I set up last night despite the strong winds. The biggest challenge was keeping the charts and observing books tied down. Gusts were strong enough at times to pick up and toss around a heavy volume of the Night Sky Observer's guide, and to blow any loose papers to kingdom come. However, with charts pinned to my lap, I was able to hunt down lots of interesting new objects from the Hershel II list. Favorites of the night were:
ngc7742 (simple circlular puff but juxtaposition to nearby field stars made a pretty pattern)
ngc125, ngc128, an interesting galaxy pair. 128 is easier, elongated N-S, and brightening to a mottled core. 125 is visible in the same field as a smaller more circular puff near a faint double star.
The NGC 182 galaxy cluster. This was a challenge in the 7 inch scope. NGC194 was the easiest, visible with direct vision about 5 or 6 minutes south of a bright field star. With averted vision, I could pull out NGC 198 and 200 as fainter smaller glows to the south and southeast in the same field of view. NGC 182 is located west of the other galaxies, in an adjacent field of view.
When hunting down some other targets, I noticed a prominent symbol for NGC 246 on the HB Astroatlas. I had seen this before but swung over to take another look. NGC 246 is a beautiful large textured planetary nebula floating superimposed on 4 or 5 stars. This is one of the brightest, biggest, and most interesting planetaries I have seen that has not been awarded a common name. Take a look at this pretty planetary in Cetus if you haven't seen it before.
Finding NGC 246 again last night was a good example of why I like star hopping with the HB atlas. For every object I found on the Hershel II list, I found at least as many other objects nearby on the charts to observe. The chart symbols make it easy to gauge the brightness and orientation of objects and the separation of double stars. You can thus usually tell at a glance whether it might be worth making a detour to other objects on a particular page.
After several hours of observing in high winds, I was pretty beat by about 12:30. I finished up with some bright stuff like M42, Jupiter, and Saturn, and started packing up around 1 am. When I carried the scope and base back to the car, I returned to my observing site to find a 6 x 8 foot heavy ground tarp vanished. As I searched the bushes, I kept thinking about something James Turley had said earlier in the night:
This is extreme Astronomy. You guys are NUTS, NUTS.
True, but it was a fun night. I finally located the tarp in the bushes, finished packing, and drove back home to Palo Alto through the downed branches and flying debris.