by Jamie Dillon
Well, Dogs, Tips and Denny and I met up at Coe last night. The high haze didn't dissipate; neither did the wind. Gusts kept blowing the scopes around (nothing severe, maybe up to 20 knots, but enough to shake views). The seeing was moderate to fair, 3/5 to 2/5. Transparency was a good night in the backyard: 24 CVn, the star I use to point at M51, was blinking in and out of direct vision, and it's 4.7. Ursa Major was in the best part of the sky.
So much for the whining. I did have some excitement, along with the ribald conversation from two very funny maniacs. Saw iota Cancri for the first time, a real jewel, bright blue and orange.
Then started exploring in earnest in the Bowl of the Dipper. Started with NGC 3610. When you draw a diagonal across the Bowl from Phecda to Dubhe, then a perpendicular from Merak to that line, 3610 is right by that point, handy. This is going to be my starting point in mapping out this rich pile of galaxies. 3610 is itself along a leg of a bright trapezoid; it showed long with dark lanes, swirly. It's classed as E2p. Just off to the East is 3690, which showed in Felix as a wide splotch, but with a close neighbor, IC 694. They're interacting, making Arp 299. Over the half hour or so I spent right here, 3690 faded in and out with the haze (it's classed at a photo magn of 12.0).
All these are well within Felix's range in a fairly dark sky. Reason I'm being so specific here is that when I panned to the NE a bit, looking for 3642, the other galaxy SkyAtlas shows in these parts, I came up with two bright cores some 20-30' apart, with tenuous bodies. James took a peek and was also sure these were galaxies.
All thru here the HB atlas was a huge help, as it drills down to a D-page here, D35. Right where we were finding these cores is where 3642 and IC 691 are charted. 3642 is listed as ca 11.5 magn. Lots of reasons to come back here amid darker skies.
(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan and a 16mm UO Koenig, mooching use of Turley's 10mm Radian for the close work. His typical limit for resolving a galaxy is right around 14.0.)
All this was within a 2 degree radius of 3610, 5 interesting galaxies. I have my project for this spring picked out. Also figured I'll start out scanning the Bowl for a while using the 22, at 57x. At 126x with a 10mm, there are too many galaxies in there to ever get my initial bearings. This is going to be fun.
By 10:30 or so last night, the sky had settled in around 4.5 transparency in the darkest spots and we collectively wussed out. Packed up and drank coffee and talked about life. Along with great company, the new explorations in Ursa Major made for a very worthwhile trip. It's gotta warm up around here sometime. Just got back from Houge introducing Jo to the gang, and it was biting cold there! C'mon spring.