Hicksons Blowin' In The Wind

by Randy Muller

I had a nice but short and breezy night at Fiddletown Sunday night, June 9, 2002. San Francisco resident and SFAA and SF Sidewalk Astronomers member Ray Cash was camping there, playing with and cursing at his CCD equipment and was the only other observer.

The temperatures were cool and the wind was mild until 11:30 or so. Seeing was reasonably good until 11:00 or so. Unfortunately, the seeing and wind put a big crimp in what I was able to observe.

My first priority for the evening was to view Hickson Compact Group 63 (in Centaurus) and 65 (in Hydra), which would wrap up the Hicksons viewable to me until late next fall. I had discovered to my chagrin last Wednesday night (at Blue Canyon) that these two remained unobserved, but they were long gone by the time I noticed. I resolved to make them a priority at my next session before they disappeared for 5 months.

At 9:30, still in nautical twilight but with many stars out, I decided to find the field for HCG 63. I knew I wouldn't be able to observe it yet, but at least I could get ready, because I also knew it was going to be low and not visible very long. To my horror, I saw that it was already just past transit, in the same general area as Omega Centauri and NGC 5128 (aka "The Hamburger Galaxy" and Centaurus A). I quickly checked and saw that astronomical twilight would end at 10:22. I would barely have enough time to see it before it descended into the trees.

I began the starhop down into Centaurus from gamma Hydrae, and decided it was still too light, so I did some other stuff for a while. I achieved a decent, but not wonderful split of epsilon Lyrae (the Double-Double). This was a good sign, because reports from Saturday night stated that the seeing (i.e., twinkling and fuzziness) had been the worst in anyone's memory. Tonight, it was just kind of poor, but not horrendous.

I tried and failed split Arcturus. The poor seeing just wasn't going to allow that.

I took a look at the Ring Nebula (M57), and tried to see the central star, but it was in vain, again a victim of bad seeing.

Around 10pm, I began the search in earnest. I was now working against the clock because both Hickson groups were now setting, and Hickson 63 was only 16 degrees high to begin with.

On my way to the location, I noticed a really nice looking double star, HJ 4563 (= HD 113005), a golden yellow star about 2" away from a faint bluish-gray star. The color contrast was very pretty.

Within a few minutes, I arrived at the designated spot and saw nothing at 87x. This was not surprising to me -- most of these require much higher power, so I cranked up the magnification, and studied the field for many minutes.

The best views were the highest I could go: 301x.

I now have 11 Hicksons to go, all visible only in the late fall to late winter. This year, the weather precluded me from observing them. If I remain focused, I can get the rest the next time they come around.

So far, I have only failed to observe one Hickson: 50. Of the rest, I have observed one or more components, although a couple of them took several tries, waiting for a good enough night for the tough ones.

After Hickson 63, I took a quick peek at the enormous and bright galaxy M83, which is near Hickson 65. The contrast in brightness, size and detail between the Hickson lumps of darkness and the Messier beacons is amazing.

After the Hickson hunting, I had been planning to view some Abell clusters, but the wind was beginning to kick up and the seeing was getting worse. I could no longer even get a satisfactory split of the Double Double.

Due to some discussion on TAC earlier this week, I decided to view M29, the sparse open cluster in Cygnus. It actually looked better than I remembered it, although I still assert it's the third worst Messier object. That doesn't mean it's bad, particularly. With my 10" from my backyard, I used to routinely see about 8 stars at 55x. With my 18" at 87x, I saw at least 25, probably more.

I mistakenly looked at NGC 6910 first, which looked interesting with some bright yellow stars contrasting with the white ones, thinking it was M29, because it had been so long since I looked at it.

With the increasing wind, deteriorating seeing and late hour on a weeknight, I called it a night, happy to have gotten my 2 Hicksons.

Reports | About Reports | TAC | About TAC | Join TAC