by Albert Highe
I had a pleasant drive down to Lake San Antonio on Thursday. Traffic was light and the skies were clear. About a dozen people were already set up by the time I arrived a little after 2PM. The temperature was in the low 90's, so I set up my tent and waited until later to set up my scope. By nightfall, approximately 40 people were set up for the first official night of observing.
| Scope | 12.5" f/5 ultralight |
|---|---|
| Eyepieces | most observing was with a 14mm Radian (113X) and 9mm Nagler (176X). |
At 8:30PM, the temperature was 68F, with a relative humidity of 51%. Zero wind. As the first stars became visible, I aligned and checked out my newly installed digital setting circles. I found that they were adequate for getting approximate alignment, but I still preferred locating objects by star hopping with my 80mm finder scope.
Over the past year, I've observed just about everything in Sky Atlas 2000 above approximately -20 degrees latitude. Lake San Antonio is south of where I normally observe and offers an unobstructed, dark, southern horizon. Consequently, I focused a lot of my viewing on objects in southern constellations such as Sagittarius, Corona Australis, Piscis Austrinus, Grus, and Sculptor.
Sky Atlas 2K indicates a multitude of open and globular clusters and nebulae in Sagittarius. I've generally overlooked these objects, gravitating toward the beautiful bright Messier objects in the area. However, past experience has taught me that a methodical search through the objects in Sky Atlas 2K often uncovers some little known gems. While working my way through these more obscure objects, I came across a major surprise. I expected globular cluster NGC 6723 to be unremarkable considering that it is represented by just another small yellow circle. However, it is a beautiful object. It is as large and bright as M13! I'm sure that if it were farther north, I'd have heard about it. It is definitely a showpiece object. Although NGC6723 is a remarkable object in its own right, there are also some interesting objects nearby. About a half-degree southeast is a pair of stars separated by 1.5', each illuminating its own reflection nebula, NGC6726 and NGC6727. Another 4' further southeast is a nice elongated bright nebula NGC6729. This is an area worth exploring.
By 1:00AM, the temperature had dropped to the low 50's with RH in the high 60's. The sky wasn't as dark as I would have liked. Although the Milky Way was obvious, the sky appeared more gray than black. Although the humidity climbed steadily during the night, I never had any problem with dew.
I terminated my search of the southern skies and directed my attention toward one of my favorite galaxy clusters, Abell 426 in Perseus. This is a very rich galaxy cluster with a lot of "bright" galaxies. The brightest four lie at the corners of a parallelogram that fits nicely within a high power view.
In addition to this parallelogram, I can see at least five other galaxies in the same f.o.v. of my 9mm Nagler. These galaxies are so close to one another, I had difficulty identifying which was which in the past. However, with "The Sky" software, I was able to positively identify these and the other galaxies in my eyepiece: NGC1270 (13.1, 0.9'x0.7'), NGC1267 (13.1, 1.1 'X0.9'), NGC1274 (14.1, 0.5'X0.4'), NGC1281 (13.3, 0.6'X0.4'), and NGC1282 (12.9, 1.4'X1.1'). Thanks Michelle.
I don't have a count of scopes, but it appeared that the number doubled from the previous night. The temperature and humidity paralleled Thursday night. Once again, the skies weren't as dark as I would have liked. However, my standard is Lassen in July. It is a touch act to follow.
I continued my search through the southern constellations. Although I was a bit disappointed by the skies, transparency was still good enough that I could see a lot of faint fuzzies as far south as Grus, along the southern horizon. I particularly enjoyed a nearly straight line of galaxies spanning approximately 1.5 degrees. These included IC5270 (13.0), IC5269 (13.4), IC1459 (10.9), IC5264 (13.5), NGC7418 (11.6), and NGC7421 (12.7). In addition, there are a few galaxies just off this line.
Later, I returned to Abell 426 in my 12.5" and then wandered over to Guillermo's 18". I've begun building an ultralight 18" and wanted to check out what I could expect. I was very pleased. At a magnification of approximately 225X, Guillermo and I observed at least 19 galaxies in one f.o.v. with a lot more galaxies in the neighborhood. Even the faintest of the nine galaxies I could see in my scope were obvious with direct vision in his. Galaxies that I could barely imagine in my 12.5" were visible with averted vision in his. Next stop was Abell 426 in Jon's 25". The view was astounding! Bright galaxies were so numerous I lost count. The view was better than any image I've seen of this area. For me, this was the view of the trip. Other nice views included the large galaxy NGC253 (7.1) in Sculptor. The 9mm Nagler provided the best view. The galaxy spans approximately the entire f.o.v. I could see a number of bright knots and dust lanes. Approximately 8 degrees south is a nice, smaller edge on galaxy NGC134 (10.1). To me, there appears to be a hint of a dust lane between the nucleus and a foreground star just outside the halo and alongside the nucleus.
The number of scopes appeared to have increased by about 50% from the previous night. I thought the conditions on Saturday were the worst of the three days, but enjoyable nonetheless. Humidity was higher and seeing appeared to be worse. I bagged a number of unremarkable objects in Sagittarius and then played the rest of the night. Unfortunately, the poor seeing prevented the use of high power on Uranus and Neptune. I turned in early.
When I got up at 9AM Sunday morning, I was surprised to see that most everyone had already packed up and left. A few of us stayed to enjoy a leisurely breakfast. My thanks to James and Jamie with whom I shared meals and conversation this weekend.
I also want to thank those who sponsored, planned, and coordinated the event. With such a nice venue, good skies, and pleasant company, CalStar is sure to grow.