by David Staples
| Observer | Dave Staples |
|---|---|
| Date | 11 May 2002 |
| Time | 2030-0245 PDT |
| Location | Lake Sonoma CA, 38°43'N 123°02'W Elev ~1500 (Lone Rock Flat) |
| Weather | Mid 60's, wind early dying out later |
| Seeing | 7-8/10 |
| Trans | 7/10 |
| Equipment | C8, various eyepieces (2nd light for a new Intes 12mm wide angle) |
After last Saturday's reports I just had to make it this weekend. A beautiful afternoon ran into a beautiful night. I arrived at my usual late hour, but now I can actually see peoples faces since it's not quite dark yet. My plan for the night was to see if I could finish off the Messier list, and I am proud to report that I was successful. I had to stay later than is usual for me, but catching the season's first views of Sagittarius was worth the late departure.
It was a night of seeing new equipment (to me anyway) as well. Got to see a Tak Sky 90 (WOW, M92 and Comet IZ in the same insanely wide FOV) and a new LXD-55 5in" refractor. Nice scopes but I'll keep old clunky (C8), I'm pretty happy with it.
To finish off the Messier list I needed M40, 106, 83, 26, 14, 55, 75, and 62. All overlooked the first time through and with the exception of 40 and 106, in the southern sky. I started with M83 in Hydra since UMa was in neck break territory for my scope at the time.
M83 - Bright stellar core with a circular fuzzy patch around. No sign of spiral structure. Maybe later this summer when it is up out of the southern sky glow I'll come back
NGC4361 - PN in Corvus, I have always tried to get this one from the murk at home with no luck, finally tried at dark site. It's tiny, dim and unremarkable.
NGC4462 - Galaxy near Beta Corvus, same story as above. The only reason I was fixated on these two was because they were the first objects I tried to bag after getting SA2000. Ah Well, one more obsession dealt with.
M62 - Glob in Ophiucus, like M68 Corvus, not much to write home about. I could start to resolve stars at the edges with my new Intes 12mm (70 deg. AFOV)
Comet IZ - In Hercules now, BIG fuzzy blob, core offset some what, giving it a bow-shock like look. Makes M13 look small. Once I was knew where it was, I was able to pick it out naked eye. Robert Leyland confirmed it as well, although I think it was an averted vision object for both of us. I would estimate it at the same magnitude as M13 naked eye.
After that I just kind of puttered around, looked at M81, M82 and M51 while I waited for the rest of my targets to come up or move to a better position. By the time the Teapot started to creep up, M14 and 26 were in position to give them a shot.
M14 - Glob in Ophiucus, I think this one along with M10 and 12 are a bit under appreciated. A pretty tight cluster that is fairly bright and takes magnification well.
M26 - Open cluster in Scutum, a bit disappointing when compared with the other great open clusters in the area, but hey, that's a bit like comparing apples and oranges isn't it.
About this time UMa had rotated into a more comfortable position so M40 and M106 were up next.
M40 - 'yawn' double star in Ursa Major. Been there, saw that, needed it for the pin. 'Nuff said.
M106 - Galaxy in UMa, I started my hop from Tycho 3452-2140 a mag 3.8 star south of Gamma UMa. Since there was a small Galaxy plotted near by I went there first. NGC3877 a neat little edge with a mag. 13 surface brightness. I was off east then hitting a few more before making it to M106. You can hop a trail from NGC3949 to 4010 to 4096 and then onto M106 (WOW, really seems bright after that string of galaxies) and few companions in the same area. Fun place to "Mess" around in (ok, I can hear the collective groan from here <g>).
A little more waiting and some fun in Sag. while I waited for my last two targets to rise out of the south light dome, and I was ready to notch the fork for M75 and M55.
M75 - Small Glob in Sagittarius. Kind of a long, dim star hop for me but I made it. It's really small, it makes it more impressive to think that Mr. Messier bagged these things with the equipment he had.
M55 - Glob in Sagittarius. Big and kind of spread out, I really should have waited another half hour for this one but I was getting tired and I knew my daughter would be getting up around 6:30am. So I'll come back to this one later in the summer, maybe it will be more impressive then.
So that's it. My Messier survey is done. I don't think I'll start another survey of any kind for a while. With the nice dark skies at Lake Sonoma, I think it's time to just spend some time in Virgo and maybe in the Bowl of th Dipper and just take it easy.