by Matthew Marcus
As Jane reported, it was dry and not that cold, but the wind did cut. This time I remembered to take an extra pair of pants and wear it outside, and I'm glad I did! Another first with clothing: I used a white sweater to protect my C8 from sun until sundown, and that seemed to help. The sweater kept the sun off while admitting air. Kind of odd to think of a sweater keeping something cool, but it works. I left the dew shield off, trading dew protection against reduced sail area.
We had quite a good crowd. The upper area was blocked off for a wedding party, but as night fell, it became obvious that that party was long gone. A couple of San Francisco people had seen the bridal car drive away. We moved the barricades, allowing occupancy of the upper lot. I'm glad I stayed in 'Dob Hollow' with its partial but much appreciated shelter from the wind.
We started off, as expected, with the planets. It became quickly obvious that the seeing was going to be less than wonderful. It wasn't as bad as some I've seen, but it wasn't a night for close doubles, either.
Next up, Linda really, really wanted to see Omega Cen, which I caught by aiming the C8 using circles, then aiming the Ranger by reference to the C8's Telrad. There it was, just skimming the hilltop, unresolved. I then got it in the C8. At one point, there must have been half a dozen scopes aimed at it at once.
Linda brought a chart of the current position for Comet I-Z, then at the Serpent's Head. I got it first try with circles. No tail visible, presumably because it's going almost directly away from us. It looked like a large elliptical galaxy with a stellar (as near as seeing permitted) core, though it did seem to have a gray-green color. That might have been averted imagination. It was easy in binox, and a maybe to naked eye. There was a star nearby which could have caused a false positive for naked-eye sighting.
Since it wasn't entirely dark by then, it was eye-candy time. I hit M4, and was reminded that globs need good seeing to show at their best. Still, not too bad. I suspect the 'bar' across the middle is almost 'seeing-proof'.
Other people were working Corvus, so I got on the bandwagon, figuring to hit a few galaxies before Corvus got away from me for the rest of the year. I started with 4462, the one a degree or so away from Alpha CrV. For a change, I did it by starhopping instead of circles. I continued with the PN 4361, a round blob with fuzzy borders and a central star visible by averted vision. Next up was the Ringtail. I could see the general C shape. In Robert's scope, the mottling was quite visible. Clearly a place where a lot is happening. This was followed by 4727, a 12-th mag galaxy. I got it more easily than I expected, a pattern which continued through the night for galaxies.
Stepping over into Virgo, near Serpens, I picked up 5838, a small round galaxy, then the galaxy group consisting of 5846, 5846A, 5850 and 5845. I got 'em all, including little 5846A. I found my first error in Uranometria - it has A being north of the main galaxy, while both my view and NSOG show it as south. 5846A is 12 or 13 mag, so I was pleased to be able to pick it up and confirm the observation with Robert.
Keeping to the galaxy-group theme, I picked up 5806 and 5813, a pair which just barely fit in the field of the 16mm EP (125x). 5813 is prettily framed in a triangle of equal-brightness stars.
The above galaxies were the usual roundish blobs. 5746 was a nice edge-on with a visible dark lane, rather like the Sombrero. Another edge-on worth looking at is 5775. It has a larger companion (5774) off its N end which I'm not sure I detected. NSOG lists 5774 as brighter but with lower SB than 5775, and sure enough 5774 was harder to see, if I saw it at all.
Scorpius was crossing the meridian (actually, had pretty much crossed), so I abandoned Virgo and went there, checking off objects in NSOG. First up was 6072, a large PN which looked like a uniform disk. Next came M80, a little sparkler which resembled M15 in that it's highly concentrated towards the middle. It tends to get overlooked because of its splashy neighbor, much like M92. Another one which gets passed by is 6144, a large, faint GC closer to Antares than M4 is. After hitting 6124 (nice OC in Sco), I went back to globs with 6139, which is directly S of 6144. That makes it easy to find for EQ-mounted scopes with circles. At this point I was working down below dec=-40, with objects like 6153, a PN, so the main thrill was just seeing them in the murk. I logged 6178, an OC down at -45deg, but I have to admit that what I saw didn't really agree with the description in NSOG. I may have snagged another OC. I haven't looked in Uranometria to see if there's another one in the area.
A much easier OC is 6192, which ia fairly large and loose. Of course, it's hard to find OCs to beat M6 and M7.
My last logged object was 6357, a faint EN in Sco, which is associated with the OC Psimmes 24. I've never heard of Psimmes objects, but then OCs seem to come with a huge variety of names. Why is that? A chain of four mag6-7 stars makes the area distinctive.
In and among these observations were looks at the Veil through various scopes. I grabbed it in the Ranger. Unfiltered, I could barely spot the bright part. With an O3 filter, I could see all three major parts.
Before I put the Ranger away, I put in my wide-field EP (a 32mm Erfle, just capable of fitting the whole Veil into the field) and swept the Southern Milky Way, catching M8, M20, M22, M11 and a bunch of others in about 30 seconds. Just can't beat those summer objects!
By the time I'd logged that last object, everyone else had buggered off and the moon was up, so I took the Ranger over to the other end of the lot for one last look and blasted my eyes with the moon. I left at about 0300.
Finally, I'd like to commend those San Francisco guys for giving Duane (Dwayne?) a ride home after his car broke down. It would have been a long, cold, lonely night in his dead car otherwise.