Observing Report for 06/11/02
by Albert Highe
I know that Denny spent approximately six months of persistent effort to gain observing access at Coyote Lake Park. Thanks Denny!
Tuesday night six observers made a trial observing run at Coyote Lake. They suspiciously looked like the Dino Gatekeepers. I left Redwood City at 4PM in order to check out the area and to allow extra time for traffic. I made it in less than an hour and a half. During the summer, I could leave Redwood City at 7:30PM, avoid the commute traffic, and still arrive well before dark to set up.
When I arrived, there were about a dozen boaters and jet skiers on the lake. They all left before sunset. The rangers were busy with someone they had pulled over down the road. Later they did swing by the lot, lights dimmed. At sunset, a curious couple on a first date stopped to see what we were doing. They were quite impressed by the mushy views of Jupiter and Venus. They said they would return later, but didn't. During the night we had a pack of about a half dozen motorcycles cruise through the lot. They left as soon as they saw us. A couple cars also passed by the lot, but they didn't stop. Their lights were little worse than those seen passing by the lot at Henry Coe.
The temperature stayed in the mid-50's. The relative humidity peaked at 89%, just before we left a little after midnight. Only occasionally was there a hint of wind. Transparency and seeing were pretty good. I used magnifications as high as 267X to observe some faint, small galaxies
| Scope | 17.5" f/4.5 ultralight |
|---|---|
| Eyepieces | 14mm and 18mm Radians, 9mm Nagler, and Tak 7.5mm LE. |
The light dome from Gilroy to the south dissuaded me from observing anything near the southern horizon. I pointed the scope at M5, and shared the view. I wondered what else was in the area, so I turned to page 108 in Uranometria 2000. There is a band of galaxies just west of M5, and east of 110 Virginis, spanning about 4 degrees. James and I hunted down a number of these. In particular, the following four galaxies were interesting, being equally spaced along a line less than 0.5° long.
In addition, NGC5846 had a nice small companion, NGC5846A (12.0, 0.5'X0.3').
All five were visible at 222X. NGC5846 was the easiest, being relatively large and bright. It held up rather well to direct vision. The most difficult was NGC5845. Due to its small size, it could be distinguished from surrounding stars only with averted vision. Since the seeing appeared to be good, we observed this group again at 267X. The contrast increased noticeably, improving the views of all of these objects. I particularly enjoyed the view of NGC5846 and NGC5846A. The small companion was well separated and easy to see next to its larger neighbor.
Never having seen a non-NGC galaxy, James wanted to try for a close pair of galaxies 0.25° SE of NGC5850.
At 267X, we were able to view these galaxies with averted vision. James has a talent for seeing faint fuzzies. Who knows, he may be persuaded to give up GOTO for a large dob.
Also in the neighborhood is NGC5838 (10.9, 4.2'X1.5'). It is quite a nice object, sporting a nice bright circular core with direct vision, and a highly elongated halo with averted vision. At 267X, the halo spanned 1/3rd the f.o.v.
We then hunted down a couple of planetary nebulas, including NGC6905 (The Blue Flash) on page 66 of Uranometria, and finished off the night with a view of the Veil Nebula. It took me just over an hour to drive home.
Coyote Lake Park is quite a nice site for close-to-town observing.