by Robert Leyland
A lovely day in Northern California lead to a great evening at the Lake. I arrived around 7:30, and while still going over my lists David Silva and Adam Shiffman pulled in. Shortly followed by Dick Flasck who had persuaded his friend Rich to join us, they had taken the longer two hour drive to get here from Benitia.
I knew that many of the SCAS regulars would be at the Palmieri site, the majority of TACos would be at Mt Lassen, and there was a star party at Mt Tamalpais in Marin, so I wasn't expecting a big turnout.
Local equestrians had a camp set up at the other end of the large parking area, but were not using a lot of light. They came over early to see what we were up to, and we had a good chat, explaining what we were doing, and talking about local conditions (perhaps they were relieved that the big pieces of metal weren't bizarre weaponry). We offered to show them some views later if they would like to come down, but I think that after a hard day of riding around the park they probably went to sleep early.
Just as the sun set, Duane Frybarger pulled in with his buddy Brian. So we had two newcomers, and a total of 7 telescopes set up, ranging from an ST-80 to a 17.5" Dob, and including two CI 9.25" SCTs.
Early in the evening we traded off views of big bright beauties, while the gentle dusk breeze settled into a night time calm. The last few nights in Novato had been very nice and this felt even better.
| Observer | Robert Leyland |
|---|---|
| Date | 21 July 2001 |
| Time | 2130-0130 PDT (UT -7, or 0430-0830 20 July 2001 UT) |
| Location | Lake Sonoma CA, 38°43'N 123°02'W Elev ~1400 (Lone Rock Flat) |
| Weather | 22°C Temp 50% Humidity, moving to 16°C and 60% by 0130 |
| Seeing | LM 6.5, transparency 10/10 |
| Equipment | 8" F6 Dob, Telrad + 7x50 finder scope, Pentax XL EPs |
Easily the best conditions we've had so far this year. Almost no haze, low humidity, and in the late evening we could see the Milky Way from horizon to horizon. We had a few nights last year that were better, and the only down side to the evening was an amazing stream of cars leaving the park between about 12 and 12:15 PM.
For the last couple of sessions I've been working my way through the constellation Boötes, which has a good collection of galaxies, mostly on the faint and fuzzy side.
First up was NGC 5533 this was a lot easier to find than last week, and thus a good indication that the condition really had improved. This galaxy is a faint oval with a star like core, that to my eyes looked a little off center in the coma, quite distinct with direct vision.
A short hop directly North above A BOO brings up galaxy NGC 5557, which is compact and bright, possibly two points inside the core, easy to find next to a mag 8(?) star.
Continuing further up that side off Boötes leads to NGC 5614 which is a nice oval galaxy, easy direct vision at 55x, and very nice in the 14mm Pentax (85x). It too is compact, but larger than 5557; close to a mag 9 star, it is easy to find by projecting off 'A Boo' towards the constellation line.
Projecting further along this path, and right on the "line" in my charts is NGC 5656, this turns out to be a small oval galaxy with a very dim (mag 15?) star very close by. Faint and hard to find at the end of a sickle shaped asterism.
One more hop, and now inside the the "ice cream" just south of Gamma BOO, we come to NGC 5695 which is very faint with an extended coma. This is hard to find, because as well as being faint, it is close to a couple of bright stars. Moving them out of the FOV and increasing the magnification to 115x, I could hold the galaxy with averted vision.
Last time I had tried to find some of the galaxies near Arcturus, and since I had practiced a little with holding the FOV away when viewing 5695, I went to have a go at the ones I had missed last week. The glare of Arcturus is overwhelming through the eyepiece, well worth playing keeping away, if you want to save your night vision.
I found NGC 5492, which is adjacent to a small triangle of stars next to Arcturus, I initially mistook a close pair of faint stars inside the triangle, but couldn't get any fuzziness. Re-scanning the area, and bouncing back and forth with the charts, all the while juggling to keep the big A out of view... Phew! ... there it is, a very faint smudge, needing averted vision to even spot, and nudging the telescope to make out any shape. Definitely the hardest object to find tonight.
I took a little break here, and checked out views in some of the other telescopes assembled. Dick Flasck gets a big thank you here, as here generously shares views with his telescope (the largest present) even while continuing to follow his own program of observing.
Dick had a really nice edge on galaxy in Draco (NGC 5907), this is really sharp, and shows a great dust lane in his telescope. It is bright enough that I thought I could get it in the 8" too, and only 4° away from Iota Drconis, it's any easy find with the Telrad and finder scope. In the 8" it was great, and we traded views. The dust lane that was obvious in the 17.5", might have been visible in the 8", with each of us thinking we had spotted it, but neither willing to go too far out on a limb.
I tried to find the NGC 5490 group, but I think these are way too dim/small , and even in Dick's telescope we couldn't definitively confirm them.
So back to the top of Boötes ice cream cone, and NGC 5772, which is easy to find by following an arc of stars off Beta BOO, with the last star in the arc an optical double. It is a nice, but faint, oval streak, needing averted vision to spot and hold, but after a few minutes I was able to view it directly. It looks small and faint, without a definite core.
Then NGC 5582, which is a nice easy to find galaxy, off Gamma BOO. Follow the large arc of bright stars to the E and N of Gamma, and the galaxy forms a triangle with the second and third stars in the arc. There are numerous field stars in the area, but the arc of bright stars is easy to follow in the finder scope. 5582, is an easy direct view at 115x, with a nice bright central core.
It's now 12:45, and time to start packing up. It's been really nice tonight, and I would stay later if I wasn't supposed to play soccer in the morning. We ended the evening with eye candy, a really nice view of the Swan nebula in Rich's 9.25 with an Ultrablock filter showing great swirls of nebulosity leading up and away from the nebula proper. This was followed by the Lagoon with an O-III, in Dick's 17.5. Superb detail, easy to see the dusty swirls and and wisps of star stuff.
It is such a treat to see these amazing sights.