by Robert Leyland
A good group at gathered at Lake Sonoma, over a dozen telescopes with their owners and assorted visitors. Ranging from small refractors and binoculars, to medium SCTs and Maks, to medium and large Dobs, it was quite a diverse bunch. Not to mention the computers, mounts, platforms, Portaball, parallelogram and GOTOs.
The weather had been a bit unsettled during the week, and Friday was clear but windy. Saturday, was both clearer and more settled, which boded well for a good evening of astronomy.
I set up at about 7pm, in what is becoming known as "Dob Hollow" at the dip in the north end of the parking lot at Grey Pine flat. The horizons aren't as good as the higher area, but it is less affected by the lights of the occasional passing car.
We socialized for a bit, waiting for twilight to pass, and checking out Duane's new Pentax Zoom, in his G9.25. It is a huge eyepiece, but surprisingly light for its size, weighing less than the 14mm Pentax XL. We compared it with a Televue 8-24mm Zoom, which it outperformed in all respects, and the TV is no slouch. I'll put it on the wish list :-)
The planets make a lovely lineup which was most enjoyable. Steve Gottlieb tried for the comet next to Mercury (Utsaya-Jones?), but it was not to be, as the twilight atmosphere was still boiling. Later in the evening we were able to pull Omega Centauri out of the murk just above the tree line.
I also mooched some nifty views in the Nexstar-11 GPS units with Norm & Linda, and Bob Bertha. The Portaball was a real treat too, Bob Naeye was bopping around in Virgo when I stopped by, the nice Zambuto optics and easy movement make it a joy to use.
Jane and Mojo, with several nice folks from SFAA were doing Coma-Virgo galaxy hopping, I wished them all good luck, remembering that I haven't done too much in that region myself, only hitting the high spots a few times. Plenty of summer observing to go though...
| Observer | Robert Leyland |
|---|---|
| Date | 4 May 2002 |
| Time | 2130-0200 PDT (UT -7, or 0430-0900 5 May 2002 UT) |
| Location | Lake Sonoma CA, 38°43'N 123°02'W Elev ~1500 (Lone Rock Flat) |
| Weather | 15°C - 11°C Temp, 60% falling to 50% Humidity |
| Seeing | LM 6+, transparency 8+/10, steadiness 7/10, sporadic mild breeze |
| Moon | 3rd quarter (22 days) |
| Equipment | 17.5" F5 Dob, 9x50 finder scope, Pentax XL EPs |
I picked up my observing list, with the top end of Gemini. Just to the west of Castor is a group of galaxies, that had evaded my previous attempts over the last few sessions. Once found, I could understand why they had been a problem. Only NGC 2379 is what one might call bright, and it is really just a faint fuzzy patch with a nice triangle asterism adjacent. Nearby, smaller and fainter is NGC 2373, more circular than 2379, but neither had a strong core.
About 1° to the east are three much fainter spots, which would be NGC 2385, 2388, and 2389. The faintest I would list as a probable, pending some revisiting.
I also looked for Pk-205 unsuccessfully, to round out Gemini, perhaps I'll finish it up next year.
Eye candy time, before the next batch of faint things, so I shared a great view of M104 with David Silva and Dick Flasck, who were set up next to me. It was spectacular tonight, one of the nicest views I've ever had. At 160x a nice dark lane, bright core, and flaring halo formed the brim of the sombrero. The cap was quite visible above the dark lane.
Corvus is next on my constellation survey list, and I'd made a bit of a start on prior sessions, and since this was a better night, I revisited some, and continued on.
The ring tailed galaxy was first, NGC 4038/39, shaped like a curled up shrimp, or pair of commas in a U. It is an easy find off the tip of the kite of Corvus. It showed well at 100x with some mottling and granularity, almost sandy in appearance. At 160x some dustiness resolves, and a lengthened tail is barely noticeable.
During the evening I returned to it again and again, sharing views with folks coming by, and also the nearby NGC 4027, an irregular almost S-shaped galaxy. A real treat at 160x, it shows a nice dark region adjacent to a dim field star.
Also nearby is NGC 4024, a small circular galaxy, with a concentrated core. it is next to a delta asterism, that reminds me of the alien laser target sight from the "Predator" movies. Odd that this, and the Stargate asterism, are in the same region of the sky!
Pushing north near Eta Corvus, to NGC 4033, an oval galaxy, elongated about 3 or 4 to 1, with a bright core but a dim halo.
Tagging back NE from Eta, past a double star, to the next solitary star in the finder, brings up NGC 4050, a large diffuse oval galaxy, with a weak core. A faint adjacent star marks the opposite side from the bright finder star about 20' away. Averted vision showed a possible darker region in the galaxy halo.
Projecting further out from 4050, until we reach the peak of an equilateral triangle formed with Gamma and Eta Corvus brings us to NGC 4094, a nice oval cored galaxy with matching halo, elongated about 3 to 1. It forms the last point on an arc with two stars, noticeable because the galaxy is aligned along the arc.
I revisited NGC 4361, a bright planetary nebula inside the kite, it is an easy find between two pairs of widely spaced double stars. The central star is quite bright, and the nebula extends around the star in a large disc. No colour was noticed.
Inside the kite, near Beta Corvus, is galaxy NGC 4462, with an elongated halo, with a diffuse oval core, it forms an L-shape with two field stars.
Corvus had moved past its best, and I spent some time socializing. It was getting late, and many had left, but Linda wanted a look at a couple of things, so we had a quick tour of interesting items, here and there, including: Albeiro, Epsilon Lyrae, the Ring nebula (delicious), M4, the Lagoon nebula (still in the murk), the Jewel box (murkier still), and Comet Ikeya-Zhang now in Draco. Visible as a spot naked eye, it was very bright in the Dob, and had a pretty nice tail.
I rounded out the evening with a short stop in Canes Venatici for M94 & M63, both nice bright easy galaxies, and then snagged NGC 4485 & 4490 an interacting pair of galaxies, which form a lovely L-shape, with an almost perfect right angle between them.
I packed up around 2AM after lots of good observing, view sharing and good times.