by Jamie Dillon
In a discussion of favorite globular clusters last week on amastro, someone mentioned these two that are right next to each other in the field, just off gamma Sag, the spout of the teapot. Sounded familiar, but I couldn't bring up any visual memory of those two, which sounded memorable. Looked back, and in my notes were 4 different reminders to go find them.
OK, last night there they were, and worth the self-nagging. 6522 is the bigger both actually and in the view, bright and condensed, and 6528 little, with a stellar core. They are in the same actual region of space, at 21 kly and 24 kly respectively. Real interesting view off the bright star, some half a degree apart.
That was the eyepiece highlight last night in a weather extravaganza at Coe. Wind, cold, decent sky for a good while, then monster dew, then clouds right at our level. Driving home just after 1 am, down the road a mile, it wasn't foggy, the clouds were overhead. People sure were fun, with Wagner and Navarrete proudly getting their Herschel 400 awards and a Fosters each as ur-TACos. Elena and Craig Scull went off the edge literally and set up their D&G rocket on the ledge to the south off the main lot, with Tips providing them with eyepieces. You had to be there. Sterngold did what he called casual imaging, seemingly a contradiction in terms. Denny did Dino dogs, Crilly got to show off his photo in the Amateur Events section of the July S&T, Everitt was vewy vewy quiet. Oh yeah and Kevin Roberts had M13 as first light in his new Orion 10". Nice scope. Plus he contemplated quitting smoking.
We had fun. One more highlight, as I was working on galaxies south from the Bowl of the Dipper, was NGC 3893, right off chi UMa, a rough triangle with a dark sharp western edge, as if made by long dust lanes. Worth a long look, at 126x in my 11".
Now for some summer observing!