by Matthew Marcus
Despite the moon and the generally bright skies, it was a pretty good, short night. It was warm and dry, with no dew protection needed - a refreshing change. I only logged one object - SN2002bo in 3190. It was visible in averted vision in my C8 and in direct vision in Robert Schaefer's (sp?) 11" SCT. By using comparison stars from the AAVSO chart (thanks to David Kingsley for posting the URL), we estimated it as about mag 14-14.5. I got blind confirmation from Mojo about where it was.
There was someone from the day shift (hikers & bicyclists) who stayed on looking at stuff and almost got kicked out by the ranger for staying after dark without a permit. Akkana, Mojo and I showed him the planets, the comet, and some binocular objects, including M42 and the Pleiades. I suspect he'll be back!
Jupiter was pretty good, with some detail in the belts. Io came out from behind sometime between when it was getting dark and when we left.
Saturn was OK as well. No Encke, but all the other 'standard' features.
The comet, though getting lower, was still very nice. Akkana located it for me and it was quite a sight through 7x50 binox. The scope showed the coma nicely, but not much detail in the head because it was too low.
Mars, though very small, showed a hint of a dark spot, possibly Syrtis.
Venus was the usual round glob with rainbow fringes due to atmospheric dispersion. I wasn't sure I even saw a phase.
Looking at 3190, I of course looked at the neighboring galaxies 3193 and 3185. I couldn't see 3187. Consulting my log, I found that I hadn't seen that galaxy on the previous occasion, either.
A planetary in Vela (I forget its number) was quite pretty and at the meridian. This was important as this object is at dec -40. There was a bit of confusion when someone referred to it as being in Antlia, the next constellation N of Vela. Unfortunately, NSOG doesn't cover Vela. I saw it as annular, with a bright central star. My previous sketch showed the same thing under better skies (Coe).
Back in Leo, I went after some galaxies. The pair 3226&3227 is worth looking at - a contact pair of galaxies.
Kevin and I were last out (again!) at 10:00 or so.