by Bob Czerwinski
On the evening of Aug. 18-19, 2001, I had my first experience viewing the night sky from the often-mentioned observing site near Fiddletown, CA. On this first trip to Fiddletown, I was blessed with truly excellent skies, both in terms of transparency and seeing. The conditions demonstrated why a number of folk regularly make the pilgrimage to this remote location. Arriving just before sunset, I found Rashad Al-Mansour, a Fiddletown regular, preparing for a second night (or was that actually a third? <grin>) of observing, and Marsha Robinson just completing her equipment set up. Paul Sterngold arrived a short time later. Quite a number of other folk had equipment set up on the hilltop location, to include Ray Cash. Felt much like Fremont Peak of old. :)
While I spent most of the night chasing faint fuzzies with my 14.5" Starmaster, the thrill of the evening came about thanks to an observation I made with Ray Cash and Jim Webster. With Ray searching for his Megastar charts, and with Yours Truly mulling over TheSky program on my laptop, the search was on for the information which would lead us to the location of the gravitationally-lensed quasar known as Einstein's Cross. The goal, of course, was to locate the lensing galaxy itself, CGCG 378-15. To do this, however, Ray first wanted to locate the nearby 15.6-mag CGCG 378-14 galaxy which, as luck would have it, sits right next to a 9th magnitude star (about 4 arc-minutes away). Using Jim Webster's homebuilt (Galaxy mirror) 20" f/5 'scope, Ray was on 378-14 and the 9th-mag star in what seemed like no time at all. Using a 9mm Nagler eyepiece (282x), with a field of about 15-18 arc-minutes, it was easy to push Jim's 'scope over to the location of 378-15, about 10 arc-minutes away, shining at 15.1-mag. Considering the magnitude of both galaxies, I was amazed at how well they displayed themselves in Jim's 'scope. Definitely a tribute to both the optics of the 'scope and the sky conditions. 378-15 appeared to be slightly elongated to me, but *just* slightly.
When it came to the Cross itself, I had a *very* misconceived notion of what to expect. Based upon those amazing images that we always see published, I *thought* I would see the 378-15 galaxy (well, its core) and barely perceptible bulges outward marking the Cross components. I really should have done my homework as this was not the case at all. Instead, for a second or so, I would see a stellar object adjacent to, but clearly off-center from, the galaxy. This stellar display was much like viewing an irregular lighthouse beacon from a lonnnng way off. You look and look and look ... suddenly it's there ... and then it's gone again. Anywhere from ten-seconds to two-minutes later, the stellar object would reappear and then quickly disappear again. Although this activity occurred over and over again, I thought I was just seeing a foreground star right at the limit of my detection. The stellar object was never visible for more than a good long second, but kept popping back into view. When Ray told me that the stellar object I was seeing was actually a Cross component, I turned into Goosebump City <grin>. It was just incredible to think that I was actually seeing light which had been traveling for 8-billion years, far longer than our solar system has been around. Although Ray and Jim provided me with a great deal of eyepiece time, I was unable to detect any other Cross component. Ray reported the same. The one component we did see, which I'm assuming was the brightest, would have been shining at 17.4-mag.
With a tip of the hat to Ray and Jim, my first visit to Fiddletown is certainly one I'll remember!