by Jamie Dillon
Last night at Coe was just about pure fun. Great gang, really decent night, camaraderie for days, success in the deep and shallow skies. Extememly satisfying.
Transparency in the West and most of the South was around 5.8, but the seeing went from moderate, 3/5, to good, 4/5, by 11, with stretches of excellent. Mars was showing off all kinds of detail in the range of scopes. 29 scopes were counted, and any aperture queens had plenty to keep them interested. Nilesh was wielding Papa Joe at 12.5; Crilly and Everitt were working their new 15's side by side. Bob and Mars had their still sparkly big StarMasters. Sergeant was there with Zefren, his honking JMI. Newquist had moved up in aperture to a really fine 10" Discovery. Tobor the Great was showing off his stuff. Having judiciously picked the optimum aperture to start, I was there with Felix.
(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. Used the works.)
Started the night exploring the galaxies surrounding 6 Comae. This star is my habitual doorway into the Realm of the Galaxies. I'll start right there, visit M98 and M99, then make a beeline for M84 and M86 and work from there. Last night I stayed at the threshold and got to know the 7 galaxies within a couple of degrees of 6 Comae. 4212 to the South took the prize, a pretty spindle with a bright core. 4298 and 4302 are interesting, two close interacting galaxies. They're on Jim Shields' page of paired galaxies in Virgo, in Adventures in Deep Space. Dim in both Felix and Papa Joe, one round and one lozenge-shaped.
There were two objects on the top of my list I couldn't see last summer, Barnard's Galaxy and the Crescent Nebula. Plus for some reason I developed the bad habit of skipping the Saturn Nebula. They all having proper names, it was time to get busy. Barnard's Galaxy took some work, with Everitt, Dawes, Shah and Navarrete all checking and comparing impressions. Strange-looking, more an oval brightening of the sky than a distinct shape in Felix. Small, diffuse member of our Local Group, listed in SkyAtlas Companion as 12kly in size, less than 1/8 the size of the Milky Way. I've seen a distance estimate of 1.8 mly, closer than M31.
Now the Crescent Nebula is flat gorgeous in the OIII. Nilesh and I were comparing views, then Mark brought it up in his 18. A graceful arc, sure looks like a supernova remnant.
The Saturn Nebula is big and interesting in color, showing a pale purplish pink. We saw its ears. The night was full of successes. Jason found and confirmed Pluto, then went on to Uranus and Neptune (by Freeman's rules, now he can commence his Messier survey). Jeff Crilly got all 5 of Stephan's Quintet in his new scope, then Jim proceeded to follow suit. Tobor slewed in and showed a good view of the cluster.
Earlier, Mark had Mars at ca 700x in a red filter, while Jim had a devastating view of the False Comet in Scorpius. Lots of jostling and bickering over turns. Late at night, Rashad showed off M22 in his cool zoom lens, and even later showed off some fascinating structures on the Moon, crinkled mountains apparently off a plateau.
Milky Way was just fine overhead. Intoxicating night overall. Thanks for some fine company.