Fiddletown 1-12-02

by Alvin Huey

Last night (January 12, 2002) I was at Fiddletown with about 7 TAC-SAC and two TAC members.

Since I originally didn't plan to observe, since I thought the weather would be poor, so I already made plans. But that morning, the weather looked promising, so I adjusted my plans, so I can get a few hours. I stuck around 'till about 8:30PM. This was intended to be a quickie session...

At random, I picked Perseus.

M-76: Impressive, saw much more than the "little dumbbell" Saw much nebulosity beyond the minor axis of the dumbbell on both sides. It appeared wispy and almost symmetrical on both sides. The wispy part looked almost like the field lines from a bar magnet one see in a physics text. (203x, 13mm Nagler with Paracorr)

PK131-5.1: Looked for it, missed it the first pass, checked my charts again.found it, it was smaller than I originally thought. At 203x, round, high surface brightness. At 551x, it showed a darker center. No central star. (203x, 13mm Nagler with Paracorr, 551x, 5mm Radian with Paracorr)

NGC 1003 region (13mm Nagler@203x, 9mm Nagler@294x and 5mm Radian@551x)

NGC 1003: Somewhat low surface brightness, 5:1 elongated E:W. Slightly mottled.
CGCG 539-72: Round, even surface brightness. Seen with direct vision.
UGC 2126: Little higher surface brightness than CGCG 539-72. Round, slightly brighter center, a 13th mag star is just to the east of it.
UGC 2135: Elongated 2:1 N:S, slightly brighter center.
CGCG 539-75: The galaxy has a higher surface brightness than UGC 2135 to the east, round, almost stellar nucleus, but smaller.

NGC 1023 region (13mm Nagler@203x, 9mm Nagler@294x and 5mm Radian@551x)
NGC 1023: very bright elongated about 6:1 E:W Could not see 1023A.
UGC 2165: slightly elongated 2:1, faint, even surface brightness.
CGCG523-86 and PGC 10165: Could not bust apart, the two galaxies appears to be merged. It appeared elongated in the same direction as UGC 2165
UGC 2157: Elongated 3:1, even surface brightness, about 1 mag brighter than UGC 2165.

NGC 1058 region (13mm Nagler@203x, 9mm Nagler@294x and 5mm Radian@551x)

NGC 1058: round and mottled. Some structure seen.
UGC 2169: Small, round, bright, stellar nucleus.
CGCG 523-88: elongated 3:1, faint, even surface brightness
Kug 237+366: very faint, round, even surface brightness, Two stars (11 and 12th mag) made it very difficult as it is about 1 to 2' away.
CGCG 524-6: Round, bright, slightly brighter middle
PGC 10358: Round, bright, slightly brighter middle. A tad fainter than it' s neighbor, CGCG 524-6
CGCG 524-10: very small, round, bright
UGC 2190 and PGC 10288: This pair is about 4' apart is a E-W line. UGC 2190 (W component) is slightly brighter than PGC 10288. UGC 2190 is elongated 2:1, brighter middle. PGC 10288 is smaller and round.

Left the Perseus area to take a few quick peeks at some classics...

Still in Perseus here, took a quick peek at Abell 426 (NGC 1275 group): Impressive

Took quick peeks at M-81, M-82: Very impressive...

M-82 showed gobs of detail
M-81 looked like M-31 in a 10-inch. Nice spiral arms.

Horsehead nebula: The actual shape of the Horsehead nebula is easily seen using the Orion Ultrablock...Then I popped in Steve G. the H-Beta, the nebula was brighter, but it didn't look much better... The 35mm Panoptic at 65x, it was easy, but contrast was lower than I normally see it at. Then I popped in the 17mm Nag (135x) the head is easily seen, the nose, mane, etc... The nebula is "bright" with both filters, more so with the H-beta.

Crab Nebula: Filamentary structure seen, some mottling on the surface.