by Robert Leyland
For Leonid observations, see earlier report.
For some time I had been meaning to try some other observing sites, Lake Sonoma is very convenient, and quite dark, but there is a bit a of a problem with passing cars. Still, you don't what you've got until you try them all.
With the weather prospects a touch iffy in the SF Bay Area, and the big meteor shower due. I decided to try Fiddletown, as Steve Gottlieb has invited me several times.
Initially the weather at Fiddletown was pretty bad. Lots of high cloud, with a few gaps, and a rolling low cloud bank that covered us completely in the early evening. Gradually it cleared and proved the weathermen right.
| Observer | Robert Leyland |
|---|---|
| Date | 17 Nov 2001 |
| Time | 2200-0030 PST (UT -8, or 0500-0730 18 Nov 2001 UT) |
| Location | Fiddletown, CA; 38.504N 120.754W Elev 2600 ft |
| Weather | 12°C Temp 95% Humidity early, 6°C 80% later, 0 wind |
| Seeing | LM >6.7, seeing 5/10 early, 8/10 later, Bortle 3. |
| Equipment | 17.5" F5 Dob, Telrad + 9x50 finder scope, Pentax XL EPs |
At Fiddletown, were myself plus Steve Gottlieb, Ray Cash, Jim & Cherryl, and Charlie. Later Bob Kestner, the site owner, joined us for the meteor shower itself. We had a variety of large reflectors, in the 16 to 20 inch range, plus Ray's CCD equipped 4" AP.
Given the cloudy nature of the early evening, we were chasing sucker holes for quite a while, I had difficulty following my original plans, and instead went to a few repeat observations, intending to enjoy the dark site. Perhaps I could snag a few new objects if the clouds permitted, however this was the first time I had problems with temperature and mirror cooling. I kept the mirror covered for quite a while, as it was very humid early on, a layer of dew coated everything that didn't move! This made me mess up my initial collimation, despite the nifty cool LaserMax hologram device. Still that was easy to fix, once it had settled down.
Early evening views of Saturn were not promising, but improved dramatically after collimating, and as Saturn rose higher in the sky, with 4 or 5 moons visible at different times.
Revisited the Pegasus I cluster, seen last month at Lake Sonoma. I followed the chart on p288 of NSOG, checking off galaxies at 160x. NGC 7623 was easy, but 7621 proved to be more challenging, while the brighter members of the group were very easily found. Neither of the UGC catalogues galaxies were visible tonight.
M1 was terrible early, but much much better later in the evening. One "loop" of nebulous stuff seemed to sprout from the upper side and curl back into the brighter region. This is one of my favourite objects, as it seems to look different each time I view it.
M42 was awesome (as always), with 7 stars seen in the trapezium, and an incredible expanse of nebulosity expanding from the newly minted stars. To me it looks like a Pterydactl, with open wings arched open, ready to take flight.
Off the end of Orion's sword is NGC 1999, a small bright nebula with a really neat dark incursion. Last time I had viewed this was over 6 months ago, with my 8". In the big Dob it is clearly asymmetrically arranged around the core star, with a U shaped dark band partially enclosing that same star.
Steve G had dialed up Comet Linear WM1, which was on my target list, and is well worth checking out. It is nice and bright, but I could detect no tail, despite its asymmetric appearance.
The Cetus area I wanted to view was clouded out more often than not during the evening, but nearby Fornax was crystalline. The Fornax I galaxy cluster drew me like bees to honey, with a count of over 20 galaxies, or suspects, as I swept across the field. Using NGC 1399 and the NGC 1404 pair as markers I checked off numerous galaxies from the picture on Pp 201 of NSOG. The diamond pattern of 1387, 1379, 1381 and 1374 (with paired 1375), was easy and made a useful stepping stone to outlying members. Mostly these galaxies appear as fuzzy blobs, with little to distinguish themselves, aside from size and/or brightness, The exception was NGC 1365, which showed a more regular non-oval shape, my scrawled notes call it "oddly" shaped. Of the rest 1380 was the brightest and best defined, while 1382, 1389, 1386 easy direct vision objects.
I wanted to spend a bit more time here, and plan to do so next time out, but the Leonids were intensifying.
A good, if short, night of observing.