Czernik 43 mostly

by Jane Houston Jones

Czernik 43 is the lovely wedge shaped open cluster of about 10stars with a faint glow of nebulosity which forms the bottom of a three-degree wide triangle with M-52 and the Bubble Nebula, NGC 7635 in Cassiopeia. I spent alot of time showing alot of people how to star hop to these two open clusters at the monthly San Francisco Amateur Astronomers star party on Mount Tamalpais, Saturday night 9/22.

The weather reports looked like it would be an astro-gamble, but since it is only 20 miles and 30 minutes from home, I decided to take a chance. It might be fine, but clouds might obscure the 1970 foot elevation of the Rock Springs Parking Lot. So I brought only my 6 inch f/5 reflector and planned for a short night. Almost everyone else had the same idea, and left their bigger 'scopes at home. The crowd from the lecture in the Mountain Theatre seemed smaller than usual, measuring from the number of visitors to the telescope field afterwards. Sometimes there are 400 people looking through the telescopes after the lecture. I think that fog below scared some people off the mountain. Too bad!

The biggest reflectors were a 12.5 inch f/8 all teak reflector made by ATM Phil Ilotis, and the ranger Steve Moore had the biggest telescope of all for the evening, a 13.1 inch Coulter dob. There is usually a lineup of big dobs -- up to one 25 or 30 incher. Instead there were lots of small refractors and SCTs and plenty of astronomers who didn't bring any equipment at all. There were probably only 20 -25 telescopes set up last night and usually there are 30 to 40 'scopes.

My first target, after showing some families the pretty crescent moon and Mars was a request. The fellow set up next to me asked me to help him find M39. I said "sure", not exactly remembering what that object was and where it was. I only brought one little book with me, the Wil Tirion's Bright Star Atlas. Whew, I found where it was near Deneb, and hopped over to it. He took a look in my Telrad, then went to work finding it in his refractor. He waxed poetic, saying "I really love open clusters". So I thought I'd find him some more pretty ones, and went through some shown on the Tirion Bright Star Atlas in Cygnus. Then I remembered Czernik 43 in Cassiopeia. The clouds were covering up whole sections of the sky, so I played dodge-cloud, moving to open areas. Luckily Cassiopeia was clear, so Czernik 43 became a real showpiece using my 6 mm Vixen Lanthanum for 125x and the 12 for 63x views. Pretty soon quite a few 'scopes were finding this lovely open cluster, nearby M-52 and NGC 7789, the Magnificent Cluster.

I walked around copping some looks off the scopes, greeted friends, and had a nice low key time. For a finale, I looked at some pretty doubles in Cassiopeia including my favorite, the Pink Buddy, Eta Cassiopeia, and my other favorite, the Ruby and Sapphire, Struve 254.

Mount Tamalpais can be a splendid close-to-home observing location. Last night on the drive up the mountain, listening to Christine Lavin singing "Shining my Flashlight on the Moon", I saw an ocean of cloud blanketing the Pacific Ocean below me to the west, and a glacier of fog obscuring San Francisco to the east. It was so-so for two hours, but at 1115 p.m. the clouds all dissappeared and the Milky Way sparkled overhead.

I was already thinking of heading home, so I packed up, drove back down into the fog, and called it a night.

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