by Jamie Dillon
Sunday night the 17th there was a tangible sense of welcome driving up the old San Benito county road G1 on the way to the Peak. Jeff Blanchard and Jon Ruyle were already there. One of my colleagues from Gonzales came to mooch views and share some deadly brownies. That night I got to places I hadn't been before.
Before, dim galaxies I'd looked at had been in the region around brighter members, like NGC 7331 or M61. But here I started with NGC 507, which isn't a beacon in the first place. It's on a line between Mirach, beta Andromedae and M33. Ed Erbeck and I'd been yakking about this area in e-mail, so it was time to take a dare. Only Crazy Ed will see how much I'm plagiarizing myself here.
First found 507 sure enough in between beta And and M33. Blanchard came over and said, look, there's a dim neighbor (504). Playing around the field I got onto a bright spindle, 499. Then after even more staring I stumbled onto 494, in the other direction. The Herald-Bobroff Astroatlas helped. Jeff looked up the field in his Starry Night, helped sort out which was which. Also the first time I've been onto a field that really called for a laptop. The galaxies run from 11.2 in order down to ca 13.8.
The HB shows a big jumble here, which hinted to me why a person sitting on more aperture would get excited in this neck of the woods. More aperture would show a crowd of 'em. Felix will get to about 14.0, and even at that point Jeff and I could both see areas of suggestive mottling.
I'd thought maybe I'd gotten onto the brighter part of a cluster out of our local Virgo supercluster (like in Coma or Perseus). Checked out the area in NED, and this bunch isn't so romantic but still interesting. Turns out they're local, but just small galaxies.
First, though, please run up the flag, I finished my current list in Cygnus after several misses this month! Applause is appropriate. NGC 6866 is between gamma Cyg, Sadr (the breast) and delta Cyg, the western wingtip. It got a whoa out of me, a beautiful dense sparkle of little stars, very rich toward the center. Whole cluster forms a very shapely arrowhead. Then finally found the Blinking Planetary, 6826, big and fuzzy. Did blink just a hair. Oohed and aahed meanwhile at omicron Cyg, a justifiably well-known triple, looking white, pale orange and lustrous blue. It's just W of 16 Cygni, which is a pretty, even, white double and a handy signpost.
There was some other tourism going on that made for fun in the cold. Jon showed me NGC 55 at the southern border of Sculptor, one of the objects I'm making Mexican fantasies about. It was huge, almost a degree across in Felix, a big slim spindle, central bulge, dust lane. Also visited NGC 7789 off the W in Cassiopeia and 752 in Andromeda, which I'm mentioning because they're both spectacular in any scope and must be seen.
Both M35 and NGC 752 were naked eye at zenith at times, but the sky in general was at 5.8 transparency at best. Seeing was moderate, 3/5. (Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, a 6mm Radian and a TV 2x Barlow.)
A followup night Monday will show up next.
Everyone have fun!