by Tom Campbell
| Observer | Tom Campbell |
|---|---|
| Location | Iola, Kansas (Long: 95 30' W Lat: 37 55' N) |
| Equipment | 8" Discovery DHQ dob |
| Eyepieces | 1.25" Plössls (25mm, 15mm, 10mm, 6.5mm, 4mm) |
| Time | 9:25pm - 12:00am CDT |
| Transparency | Clear |
| Seeing | Fairly Stable |
| Weather | Temperature in the upper 50s. There was little to no wind. |
Despite the weatherman's earlier predictions, tonight's sky was once again clear. Sometimes it's nice when they are wrong. My observing buddy Mike gave me a call this afternoon and said that he'd be driving up to Scopeville (a dark sky site about an hour's drive away, and home of the Great Plains Star Party) and spending the night, and I was welcome to come along. I had to be somewhere the next morning, but said I'd be happy to follow him up there and stay for a few hours. My new telescope had never been under a really dark sky yet, and I wanted to see exactly what my optics were capable of.
My mother wanted to come along as well. She knew the roads in that part of the country a lot better than I did, so I was glad for the company and the human navigator for finding my way back at night. But mostly, I think she wanted to take another look through Mike's 20" Starmaster.
The 8" OTA fit nicely between the wheel wells in the trunk of my car, which helped to hold it in place. I added a few strategically placed pillows and blankets, and it was ready to travel. Next, I seatbelted the telescope base into one of the back seats, threw in my eyepieces, red flashlight, 10x50 binoculars, star charts, and a small cooler of pop, I was ready to go. Oops! I forgot the two lawn chairs! Into the back seat they went, and we were off.
We arrived at Scopeville right at sunset, which gave us plenty of time to find a good spot and unpack our gear. There were already several other people there, also taking advantage of the unexpectedly good weather. Rick Singmaster (owner of Starmaster telescopes) and his wife and daughter were there, along with a 24" Starmaster he was startesting. Also present were several other members of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City (to which Scopeville belongs), with telescopes ranging from a 6" Starhopper to a 16" Meade Starfinder, and some other Starmasters of varying sizes. I thought my 8" Discovery DHQ was a good-sized telescope until it sat in the same field as all those other behemoths.
After all the introductions were made, we all settled down and waited for darkness to descend. I took advantage of the twilight to collimate my telescope and tweak my Telrad alignment on the crescent Moon. Mom brought her new digital camera along, and practiced taking a few afocal snapshots of the Moon, using the low-power eyepiece (49X) of my telescope. Finally, darkness arrived, and observing began in earnest.
| (Gx) NGC 4038/9 (Antennae) [Corvus] - 9:25pm CDT |
|---|
|
This pair of interacting galaxies is pretty easy to locate. Start at d Crv
and make a line through g Crv. Then continue the line about the same
distance, and drop it just slightly downward. The Antennae galaxies should
be within your low-power field of view. In my 8" reflector, the galaxies
were fairly faint and heart-shaped. I couldn't bump up the magnification too
high, because their low surface brightness began to lose contrast quickly at
higher magnifications. No other structure or detail was seen.
In the 20" Starmaster, the galaxies appeared larger, since he could increase the magnification significantly more than I could. Starting about 200X or so, some mottling could be seen in the cores of the galaxies. But not even the 20" reflector could bring out the faint "antennae" arms. |
| (GC) M68 [Hydra] |
| Since I was already in the area, I pointed my scope to M68. This is another pretty easy find, by using d Crv and b Crv as guide stars. In my 8", several stars could be resolved throughout the cluster, amidst a hazy glow. This appeared to be a pretty loose globular. Although it was nearly perfectly round, the fact that stars seemed to resolve in the center about as quickly as at the edges was more reminiscent of an open cluster. In the 20", many more stars were resolved and the amount of "nebulosity" was greatly reduced. |
| (Gx) M51 (Whirlpool) [Canes Venatici] |
|
This is by far the best view I've ever had of the Whirlpool. Both
interacting galaxies had definite shape to them, and in M51 itself, the
spiral structure could easily be discerned. This view alone was worth the
price of my telescope.
In the 20" Starmaster, the view was simply incredible. Although I only got a quick peek because of the small line forming behind me, I almost felt like I was there. The dust lanes and areas separating the arms were dark and tack-sharp and made the galaxy seem to jump out at you. |
| (Gx) NGC 4656 (Whale) [Canes Venatici] |
| Mike, the owner of the 20", decided to take a peek at the Whale galaxy. I saw this one from my home the other night in my 8", but the seeing washed it out. Tonight, in the 20", it looked marvelous, stretching across the entire field of view. The dust band gave it a mottled appearance across the middle, and the famous bulge was obvious. |
| (Gx) NGC 4631 (Hockey Stick) [Canes Venatici] |
| Mike nudged his telescope slightly and we next took a peek at the Hockey Stick galaxy. The bright core was extremely easy to pick out, as well as the one lopsided arm which had a nice hook on the end. This is also called the Fishhook galaxy, and both names are appropriate. I couldn't detect any sign of the arm on the other side of the galaxy's core, which added to the really strange appearance. |
| (GC) M13 (Great Hercules Cluster) [Hercules] |
| Throughout the evening, I kept taking peeks at this little beauty. Now that twilight was over, it really came into its own. Unexpectedly, the stars appeared more bluish to me than they ever had before in my telescope. When I first saw this cluster in a 7" Oak Classic Starmaster, I noted that the stars appeared blue, but I took this to be the result of an antireflection coating on the eyepieces that were being used. And indeed, when I first pointed at M13 in my 8" reflector, the stars were mostly white in color. But in this dark sky, they turned a medium blue, and even at 49X, stars could be resolved halfway to the core. |
By this time, the crescent moon was finally getting low enough in the sky that the stars in the east were really popping out. The head of Scorpius was just above the treeline, and Mars was playing hide-and-seek in the tree branches. But tommorrow was going to be a busy day, so I reluctantly packed it in for the evening and began the trek back home.