by Dave Barosso
Okay Mike, I guess you have made a point. So I'd like to talk about a couple of observations that others might possibly find interesting. Since I'm still basically a 'visual' observer I have written my GOTO code in such a fashion that it allows me to do a survey of a given area that I select. Once I select an area I simply sit at the monitor and key my way through 50 or 60 intergrations. The software takes care of all the details of moving the scope. With the 50 or 60 intergrations I can usually cover about 3 or 4 square degree of sky. On a good night I can sometimes get up to about 12 square degrees. As the moon and the nearby towns don't seem to effect the camera much I can get a considerable amount of work done. In a certain sense the telescope has become my eyes. All observations are done with a C8 and a SBIG ST7 camera. Both of these obversations are on the east side of our galaxy as I made my way into Pegasus area, a favorite galaxy hunting ground of mine.
The first observation was done on Aug 13, 2001, at about midnight. The temp was about a cool 60 degrees and the sky was clear. I was on my second survey field and I chose NGC 7253a/b as the starting point as my logs indicate that I have not yet visited this part of the sky. After the scope slued to the object the first integration of 1 minute gave me a pleasant surprise as I had snagged a pair edge on spirals that were apparently interacting. I interrupted the survey and took some deeper intergrations and obtained some rough but nice pictures of the two doing their gravitational dance. You can clearly see the larger one with it's bent outer arms...perhaps this is how our galaxy and Andromeda would look from a long way out. If some of you folks with the bigger scopes and better cameras wanted to investigate this area I imagine you could obtain some very nice pictures. Of course to some this pair might be already well known to many.
The second observation that was interesting occurred on the night of Aug the 18, 2001. The night was clear, the temp was about 74 degrees. I chose ngc 7137 as the starting point of this field. As the scope slowed to the object and took the first integration I viewed a blob in the middle of the integration. Galaxies usually have some hint of visible outer arms. Intrigued I interrupted the survey and did a deeper integration but it failed to show any arms but just a brighter a perhaps bigger blob. More intrigued than ever I took 5 and 10 second intergrations and was rewarded with something that looked like either a covered wagon wheel, or a wagon wheel with no spokes but just the hub. Again some of you folks with the longer focal lengths and some patience should be able to get a nice picture of what I take to be a ring Galaxy. If it is, it is only the second I have seen. The first was in my 17 in. years ago at Fremont Peak.
If someone has the patience to read through all of this then I guess these type of postings could be of interest to various people. But the funny stories do add a lot of life to the hobby. Perhaps a good mix is the best solution. After all I have an unpleasant story about a Black Widow encounter myself!!