by Jamie Dillon
There were several pleasant surprises and firsts that night. Liam announced late that he was coming along and was great company. I'd never observed with Archer before. Nilesh forgot the adapter to his laptop, so he used paper charts for the very first time. And it was my first time down at the Point, skipping the horse paddock area. Oh yeah, first time looking thru Jay's new Mak-Cass, apparently a fine scope.
Also - boy this list goes on - there was some new grownup gear in Annie Jump, given that I'd run to Orion in Watsonville after the New Year. Finally coughed up for an observing chair, the kind with the runners. Ah the luxury. And my trusty old beloved stargazing Swift 7x50's are now backpacking binocs. Got some Orion 10x50 UltraViews. The Vistas while very nice don't run to focus for my myopic eyes. The UltraViews are very good, with decent contrast and sharp star images. Plus I can now use a simple L-bracket on the tripod.
Those Swifts were my sole astro gear for some 18 years. Saw Jupiter's moons, the Double Cluster, the OC's in Auriga, the Keyhole Nebula, Alpha Centauri all for the first time thru those binoculars. Spent endless hours staring at Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp thru 'em. Plus they studied Dave Stewart's and Eckersley's windups innumerable times.
Now for the real juicy stuff. We had dark skies till after midnight, as mentioned 6.0-6.2 transparency. My list was around northern Orion and Gemini, starting with the lately eminent Poor Man's Double Cluster, just over into Taurus. 1807 has a T-shape and showed two pretty, tight doubles along the leg of the T. 1817 was obviously denser under a dark sky. SkyAtlas Companion, a lovely Christmas present, says 1807 is probably an asterism. This is a very pretty view.
These are all going to be NGC's. 1746 I hadn't found from the backyard, and it turned out to be all big and loose. The other OC that had eluded me from home was 1857, south of Capella. Missed it again by misreading the chart and assuming it's a degree from lambda Aur. It's some 2 deg away; the dim little circle we were gazing at wasn't the target. SAC quotes Scotty Houston, describing it as surrounding an orange 7.4 mag star. Sounds pretty. The SkyAtlas Companion is coming with me from here out.
Wagner had gone on about two OC's in Orion's club. 2194 was gorgeous, a tight bright dense little cluster with nebulosity trailing over to a neighbor patch, some 20' away. Showed off its stuff best at 79x. That next cluster, 2169, is a sharp compact trapezoid. I counted 18 stars in it.
This was with Felix, 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, with a Lumicon OIII.
Switched off and hunted two planetaries. The Eskimo nebula, 2392, was something, beautiful at 158x (16mm with Barlow). Central star was bright, disk spread out, with a faint hint of green (Nilesh and Archer concurring on the color, Archer grudgingly). 2022 is the PN just off Orion's head, showed some structure at 158x with the OIII, splayed-out.
In Gemini, 2266 is a tight triangle with one very bright border. Nice at 158x with a dense pack of stars in the middle, all ca 10 deg across. The reason I was using the Barlow was that at 210x with the Radian the seeing was past its limit. We were feeling warmer and colder fronts coming thru, and of course we had the privilege of seeing the results. 2420, east of the Eskimo, was a lovely dense bunch in a wide field at 57x.
Ended with the bigger farther stuff, over in Ursa Major. 3027 is a galaxy over north of M81 that has eluded me since last summer. The sky was good and dark over there, so for dessert I got a breathtaking view of M81 and M82. 2985 is a favorite, a bright mottled galaxy about 3 deg due north of M82. 3027 is right in that neighborhood. Nilesh came over and helped when I stared whining. He saw it first, a big very dim patch. I could see it ca 20% of the time with averted vision. It's listed at mv 11.8. Wagner later found a listing of surface brightness of 13.8, which explains a lot. 14.0 at optimum looks to be the limit for extended objects in Felix.
Just after midnight, Jay hollered "clouds to the West." We rolled. I packed slowly and was gone by 1:30, at which point the first dew had set in. A really fine night in all. I wanna do more of this telescope observing, this stuff is fun.