by Jamie Dillon
There was some murk up about 10 deg to the West and South, but looking north and east and overhead it was past 6.2. The Milky Way at 3 am had all kinds of structure. North American and Pelican nebulae were distinct naked eye. M13 was naked eye thru the night which has been rare for me personally. Nothing in the way of any light dome. Seeing in Felix was remarkable, 5/5.
(Felix is a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with a primary made by Discovery. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians and a TV 2x Barlow, with a Lumicon OIII.)
It'd been a long time since a really good sky, so I spent a whole lot of time just plain looking up. As I mentioned in the teaser, it was amazing that there were other people coming out of the blue, out in the middle of nowhere. The other observers were young, to be charitable. They all got good and wired and yakked nonstop. They were far enough away, on the point of the Ridge, that they could be tuned out, except for the occasional burst of pseudoscientific BS. ...Life in California.
I spent a big chunk of the night in the tail of Leo, contentedly seeing how deep I could get in that triangle. For a warmup went to see M63 and M94, both big galaxies in Canes Venatici that I'd only seen once each, last spring. M63, the Sunflower Galaxy, was real interesting; I'll wanna go back there more than once. Looked like a barred spiral this time (which it's not, it's an Sb) with long distinct arms and a very long slim halo going NW>SE. Then M94 showed a very bright core with halo spread out, almost circular. Looking back, it was at Coe last April Fools that Paul LeFevre were swapping views of this galaxy. Looks to be almost face-on, which it also isn't (Sbp). The p (peculiar) may be partly due to its big halo.
Oh yeah, and we compared colors on xi Bootis, and had the same differences. Blanchard saw gold and red, where I saw blue and red. Then along came Turley who saw blue and red, first time someone else has seen the primary in blue. Tips and I are of an age, so I now feel better.
Before it got too late, omega Centauri got lots of attention. One of the folks at the end of the ridge had brought a 16" Orion sonotube, with a Discovery primary. Omega Cen was breathtaking in it. I went back to Felix and had fun staring some more. Then caught Cen A, which looked more or less open on one end this time, with the bright body of the galaxy more tenuous on that end, past the dust lane, looking like it was taking a very big bite.
Leo's tail: up from Chertan, went looking for 3655, the one galaxy in that triangle that's charted on Edmund's Mag 6 (Dickinson's atlas). Ran right onto a set of 3 in a straight row, 3686-84-81, all within less than a degree. 3686 showed the most structure, with a hint of arms. 3659 in the neighborhood showed a bright core with a hint of swirly arms, mostly face-on, at 79x. With 3659 and 3691 also in that neck of the woods, turned out that 3655, the original target, was the 2nd dimmest of the 6.
This was getting to be too much fun. Over to 3607-8, which had been mentioned lately in reports. 3607 showed some arms, 3608 looked more elliptical. 3626 and 3599 lie E and W of the pair. Big fun was when I jumped up from 79x with the Koenig to 126x with my new 10mm, on 3607-8. A hint of fuzziness off the end jumped into direct vision as another galaxy just off 3607, charted in HB as 3605. So for the price of one galaxy I ended up with 11. Was amazed at how much time had passed when I stood up.
Answered another question, this one from Dinosaur Point, at the end of Markarian's Chain. Jay had mentioned 4 galaxies off the bright one at the end of the Chain. 4468 was the one just to the East I hadn't found before, this time direct vision, a largish lozenge (mag 13.0). 4446-7 were off just to the West by implication only, <20% of the time (mag 15, and Felix will really will do up to just around 14.0).
Played around some more in Virgo, saw the Wild Duck in Jeff's fine scope, views of the Swan in James and Jeff's and in Felix. Did a cook's tour of the big sights in Sagittarius. By then it was getting onto 4. Pegasus was up. M15! A real favorite. That was it, sky was lightening to the East and it wasn't the Moon. Jeff and I talked about life then crashed. The yakkers had long since quit. Some night. Long stretch between swapping tunes on the guitar before supper, to watching Venus come up under Pegasus.
1) Mercury showed a satisfying crescent after sundown. Visitors found it esp intriguing.
2) We all stared at Jupiter boiling merrily, with three moons in order. It was sharpeyed ole Tips Turley who spotted a moon transiting, at the edge of the disk just around 2030 our time. Felix still was cooling off; I could catch the image only after knowing where to look.
3) Dunno if Albert checked out Mars, but there was some discussion going on after about 2 am, when Jeff sat down and got Mars in one of his Brandons in that StarMaster, lots of detail. Dark band circling around the South Pole, Utopia as I understand. I sat down with Felix as well and stared at the red desert with the dry ice poles.
Just do you don't think we're completely orthodox deepsky types. As you can tell from our pictures, we're sophisticated in our rustic sorta way.