by Jamie Dillon
The wind never did die down at the Peak last night, but so long as you didn't leave anything loose the stargazing was tolerable. The FPOA board sure did make the members feel appreciated with a feast. There was plenty on the table, but one couldn't help notice that not much was left over. Barbecued salmon filets no less.
Outside, there was a steady flow of interested gazers. One couple in particular who were camping out stuck around thru a chunk of the evening with Felix. Lee from Sacramento and Barbara from Redwood City. They were fascinated at the sky, taking views in the scope and finding out what they were seeing. Barbara even took a lesson in following a planet in a Dobs.
Transparency was only OK, ca 5.2 at best, and the seeing was moderate>fair, 3/5 to 2/5. Jupiter never stopped boiling, never saw Cassini. Zeta Aquarii played coy with me one more time, got lumpy at 250x but wouldn't split.
Did get in some new deepsky, though. Started with NGC 7027, a bright planetary in Cygnus I'd been eyeing in the charts. It's just SE of Deneb, nonstellar at 50x, a nice bright blue at 80x. Jumped out in the OIII.
Last night I stuck to my star party eyepieces, keeping gear real simple in the wind and light traffic. (Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 25mm Celestron SMA, 16mm UO Koenig, a 10mm Orion Sirius Plossl and a TV 2x Barlow, with a Lumicon OIII.) Nick Barth did in fact help out substantially on the 30", showing off planets to visitors and maintaining safety. His Dad mooched views steadily. I got acquainted with Pat Donnelly and a Dutch astronomer from Ames named Peter (Pieter?). He said the Dutch export good chocolate, art and astronomers. No kidding, dudes with names like Bok, Kuiper and Oort.
After visitors were gone, I looked over to the North and lo and behold there was Camelopardis winking at me, dimly. First found NGC 1503, sure enough a pretty compact cluster, with that chain of bright stars going by, Kemble's Cascade. Just west is Stock 23, another pretty OC, long neglected, nicknamed Pazmino's Cluster after the NY astro amateur who rediscovered it in 1977.
Best find of the night was NGC 2403, a galaxy way out in the back country. There were no naked eye stars within 5 degrees. But Dickinson was right, it's big and bright. Has two foreground stars acting as bookends. After a bit, swirls and arms started to come out. Looked to be almost face-on. Sure enough, this matched the picture in Jane's TNSOG and the view in the 30".
Fun night, so good to see stars after so many nights of overcast in town. Hope the gang at Coe had decent conditions.
Hey, Thursday to the Gabilan foothills for a school star party, then LSA Friday. Life's good.