Mercury Rising

by Jane Houston Jones

The sunset cast a soft red glow on the northwest-trending coastal hills below Palmieri Observatory, the dark sky site of the Sonoma County Astronomical Society. The one day old crescent moon distorted as it sank beneath the weathered ridges of the Mayacamas Mountain range on Saturday night, July 21, 2001. Our first star, planet and moon of the long night had just been observed and logged.

Mars came next, showing a little polar ice cap and an indistinct Syrtis Major smudge. Our red planet Mars was right at the end of the inky black Pipe Nebula. Comet Linear C2001 A2 was our next target, as we watched the horizon to horizon Milky Way brighten to an unaccustomed sparkling clarity. The comet was easy in binos and beautiful in the telescopes, and frequent observations as the night progressed showed movement of the comet against the background stars. Bright meteors, many which flared multiple times, caught our attention throughout the night.

Ophiuchus was high enough that by 11:00 p.m. we were Pluto bound. Armed with the RASC Observers Handbook and the Sky and Telescope annual and very reliable Pluto finder chart, we were soon able to observe and sketch our Pluto candidate (at 188X with a 19 Panoptic plus barlow in the 14.5 telescope and a 9 Nagler in the 17.5 incher for 222X), and show it to several of our observing companions. As is our annual custom, we will verify the tiny planet by observing its position the next night at a dark sky site. But the star field is not cluttered, the chart is very easy to use, and the project is not daunting. We gave ourselves the secret handshake created exclusively by and for the local members of F.L.O.P, the Fraternal and Loyal Order of Plutocrats, who have located, observed and verified the planet Pluto.

We had high hopes for a nine planet night now. We brought along SkyMap Pro 7 charts for Uranus and Neptune, in addition to those we had already used for Pluto and the comet. Neptune was a pretty blue disc in both telescopes and again we hollered for anyone to come over and see it.

Uranus would look better later when it was higher in the sky and so we tackled some personal deep sky projects while waiting for the smiley face (or bikini bottom...your choice) shaped constellation of Capricornus to fully rise.

Mojo poked around Aquarius and I brought two of my favorite Deep Sky magazines and tackled some projects of my own while waiting for planets to appear. Using DS#32 I hunted for Pease 1, the faint planetary nebula inside M15. The article gives great starhopping and identifying guideposts, a finderchart of M15 showing Pease 1, stellar magnitudes of surrounding stars, plus a photo of the object, and with my 17.5 inch mirror, a 9 Nagler and barlow plus O111 and UHC filters and plenty of patience I was able to detect the tiny planetary at 444X. Pease 1 is one of only a handful of planetaries within globular clusters and is an important object for understanding stellar evolution.

That project took enough time that when I was done, the full shape of Capricornus was as high as it gets and the green blue hued planet Uranus was easy to spot. I continued with my deep sky projects in Pegasus from DS#32, looked at some pretty summer carbon stars, and kept my eye on the eastern horizon.

The North America Nebula looked great in some mounted binos nearby, and we took a half hour and showed the others how to see it, putting a UHC filter in one bino eyecup for better contrast. We also spotted the asteroid Ceres near the handle of the Sagittarius teapot.

At 2:30, an hour before the first morning planet was due to rise, we had a double delight shared with the only two other observers still there. Two satellites moving in tandem right past Capella caught all of our attention. We were all looking in the right place at the right time and watched the two objects for nearly a minute. We surmised that it was the undocked ISS/shuttle STS-104, and a computer check in the morning verified our suspicions.

An hour later, at 3:30 a.m. we glimpsed Saturn rising with three moons visible through our telescopes. This was followed by Venus at 4:00 a.m., Jupiter and three moons (sans Callisto, but with a bit of red spot) at 4:45 a.m. and then as the sky brightened we waited anxiously for planet number nine. It was really getting bright at 5:30 a.m. and we kept our binoculars aimed anxiously at the horizon below Jupiter. At 533 a.m. I hollered to Mojo, "Mercury!"

After he took a look at Mercury the planet, he removed the cork from the bottle of Mercury Rising, Cinnabar Winery's rich 1998 Bordeaux-style red wine. We had saved a splash from the bottle to celebrate our hoped for ninth planet morning conquest. We started the planet quest nearly eight hours earlier with a larger glass of the ruddy elixir. Cinnabar, the beautiful red mineral of mercury, was the most inspirational material to the alchemists of old. Local amateur astronomer and telescope maker Tom Mudd's 30 acre vineyard is his inspiration, from it he turns rainwater and grapes into wonderful wine.

Our nine planet quest was complete, and we headed home a little tired but deeply satisfied. The next night we were back out again, this time at Lake Sonoma, the same distance but an easier drive as Palmieri (70 miles) to view the dance on the ecliptic plane and verify our ninth planet, Pluto. We quickly spotted our suspect, and were delighted to see it had moved with respect to the background stars on the sketch from the night before!

With that confirmation, I moved out of our galaxy to look at some extragalactic action along the summer Milky Way, using a project from Deep Sky Magazine #31. Faint galaxies I hunted and suspect I saw were mag 13 NGC6000 near Lupus, mag 15.6 Zwicky397.014 near Altair, and mag 15.3 Zwicky447.001 in Sagitta, plus a few brighter objects. For these dim objects I alternated between my 9 Nagler and 6mm Lanthanum eyepieces and a 2x barlow for between 222X and over 500X, and we left for the night at 12:30 a.m. a couple of real happy Plutocrats.

For those of you interested in Cinnabar Winery's 1998 Mercury Rising red wine, here is the link: http://WebWinery.com/Webuser/displaywine.taf?function=form&Wineid=1192

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