by Mike J. Shade
The equipment situation here at the observatory in Sonoita is in flux at the moment. The custom built 22" f/5 Newtonian is gone and it took a long and drawn out legal fight to make it go away. Without going into boring details, the telescope never performed close to its potential and the builder did not make serious attempts to make it work. Thus we had to go to court but the Superior Court found in my favor, so it is gone.
In its place is a factory telescope of acceptable quality, a Celestron C-14. This of course is not my first choice for a telescope but I think that it is an acceptable compromise and is working well until the final telescope is installed next month, a 17.25" f/9 Ritchey-Chretian on a new AP1200GTO mount. The C-14 resides on John Hales pre GOTO vintage AP1200, on my pier, in my observatory, on my property here in Sonoita AZ (for those of you who remember Hales and his trial and tribulations with astrophotography, he has actually gotten some respectable results with the C-14 on his 1200 here).
As I usually have the tried and true SBIG ST7 CCD camera on the C-14 at F/7, me posting an observing report of visual observations is rare. I used to do so quite often with the old NGT-18 but the CCD bug is buried deep and most of my time is spent looking at a computer monitor and not the actual sky.
In my 20+ years as an amateur astronomer, I have at one time seen all of the Messier objects at one time or another and quite a few other objects; NGC, IC, MCG, and others. Thus I am usually looking for interesting things that are unusual or odd. Hence when the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies became available on-line, I knew that I just had to see what I could do with this catalog.
On the evening of 2/6/02 the conditions here were pretty good and during the observing run the temperature ranged from 43 to 38, the humidity 38 to 44%, and the dew point 18 to 19 degrees. I was of course using the trusty C-14, mostly with a 22 Panoptic for about 178X. The interesting thing about the Arp catalog is that many of the objects have NGC numbers and are reasonably bright and large (of course not all of them are).
Arp 165 (A=Arp) or NGC 2418 (NGC=N) at magnitude 12.2 (M=magnitude) showed a bright stellar core surrounded by a faint ovoid disc. The edges seem to taper evenly to the edges. small and on the dim side. A 82 or N 2535 at M 12.8 was oblong and fat, with a nice row of three stars running along the side of the galaxy. The companion galaxy N 2536 at M 15 was fairly easy but was much smaller. A 6 or N 2537 at M 12.3 was large and bright in the C-14. Reminded me of M1 through something like a 4" refractor. With a 12 Nagler (326X) there was a slight hint of peppering or speckling across the surface. A 247/IC 2338 at M 15.4 was a tough object-a very small blur with a slightly brighter core. A 58 or UGC 4457 was perhaps the most difficult of the objects observer, at M 14.2 looking like an indistinct change in sky brightness. A 12 or N 2608 at M 12.2 looked very much like a kidney to me in the C-14. Had a slight brightening on the lower end with a hint of a stellar core. A 89 or N 2648 at a M of 12.7 was small but bright, almost circular. I noted at the eyepiece that there was an oval extension but consulting The Sky, what I saw was the small and dim galaxy MCG2 at M 15.4. A 287 at M 13.3 (N 2735) was small and at first undetectable with direct vision. however by letting the object drift through the field, it was easily detected.
A 283, N 2798 at M 12.3 was a welcome relief after the previous object. Large, bright and elongated with subtle changes in brightness across its surface. Also in the field were N 2799 at M 14.3 and UGC 4904 at M 14.8. A 285/N 2854 was small and dim at M 13 and no distinct core brightening was noted. In this busy field was N 2857 at M 12 and N 2856 at M 14. Wrapping up this adventure was A 307/N 2872 at M 11.9. Looked like a round evenly illuminated disc of light. N 2874, elongated and somewhat dimmer seemed to be in contact with the other galaxy.
Although the C-14 does not have all the aperture that I would like, it does well when coupled with a CCD camera. It also is respectable when used visually when it comes to unusual or peculiar galaxies. I am hoping that the 17.25" will be even more useful.