by Andrew Pierce
Our family vacation this year was in Bahia de Los Angeles in Baja California with the Marine Science Institute camp group. We spent a week sleeping under the stars on the outskirts of a town of 500 people which is about 2 to 3 hours from the next nearest town. This is place where you can observe to the sounds of whales breathing and coyotes howling simultaneouly. Highlights of my observing notes follow:
Bahia de los Angeles is at sea level on the Sea of Cortez, aka the Gulf of California. The latitude is 29 degrees north. Temperatures were in the 90s during the day and 70s at night. On only one night out of seven was there a serious problem with cloudiness. Needless to say it was dark, but not as pristine as say Glacier Point or Lassen. Seeing was often poor, especially early. We slept outside so it was impossible to sleep much past 6 a.m. All my telecopic observing was done between dusk and 11:30 p.m., although I was able to use binoculars and the naked eye from my cot after going to bed.
I brought my 150 mm Intes Mak-Cass on an undriven equatorial mount and a few eyepieces and filters. I also had 10 x 50 and 15 x 70 binoculars handy much of the time.
First Night (August 3, 2002)
The first night came after a very long day of travel. As we crossed the desert by van I glanced out the window and saw a few bright stars moderately high in the Southern sky. On further inspection it turned out I was looking up towards the tail of Scorpius and much of lower Sagittarius. What a difference a few degrees of latitude can make!
When we got to Bahia all the town lights were on because it was their annual "Fiesta del Mar." In fact the first locals we saw were three crowned beauty pageant winners waving to a "crowd" of maybe a few dozen people. That night I just used the 10 x 50s. I saw M24, M23, M25, M18 and M17 with ease, despite clouds near the horizons. On a whim I checked for NGC 6946, the brightish galaxy in Cepheus and saw it and its companion open cluster in the 10 x 50s. I also got a wonderful view of M31 and spotted M33 down near the eastern horizon.
Later that night, after we all crashed, the crescent moon rose. I never fully woke up but I was dimly aware of its progress up from the horizon in the same way you might half consciously follow the sun's movements from a hammock while napping on a sunny day. This was a good reminder of the kind of intimate relationship our ancestors must have had with the heavens in the days before light pollution and air conditioned houses. Actually some people still have it. We passed by a rancher's house a few days later and saw that the whole family slept outdoors on cots in hot weather, just as we were.
Second Night
Third Night
I did a little public show for our group of families, teens and staff down by the rocky shore. We looked at the evolution of stars from birth in M17 and M8 to death in M27 and M57. Also stopped by Albireo, M13 and M31. All this time there was a lightning show on the eastern horizon, which came from storms on the mainland 200 miles away. These occur almost nightly this time of year.
>From my cot I checked out M31, M33 and NGC 6946 with the 15 x 70s. The lightning in a nearby part of the sky did not help with dark adaptation. Looking more toward the zenith, the brighter part of the Veil, the North America Nebula and M39 were all reltively easy. I thought I saw M57 as well, but its hard to distinguish it from a star with a handheld 15 power binocular.
Fourth Night
Tonight's observing was in three fine phases. Phase one came unexpectedly during a night snorkel. I looked up and saw Scorpius and Sagittarius high above. Then if you looked down with your dive light off and waved your hands in the water there were bioluminescent dinoflagellates that would glow as discrete points of light. I estimated these planktonic "stars" at magnitude 3 or 4. As above, so below. This was literally Sea of Cortez observing.
Phase 2 was with the telecope at my Baja Galactic Observatory, which is a flat sheltered spot surrounded by cactus in Jose Mercade's driveway. One of the staff was nice enough to bring me a Dos Equis, for authentic Mexican astronomy.
I started with Kaus Borealis and M22. I noticed that M22 does not have quite as bright a central concentration as some other globular clusters.
My next target was the large low surface brightness galaxy NGC 6822 which I had never seen well enough to log. After a pretty east star hop, it was visible with some effort at medium powers. I could see it was elongated in a N-S direction, but there was no readily discenible shape.
Next was NGC 6818, a planetary nebula, which the chart showed to be nearby. This was a nice blue disk, rather small, but easy to spot. An Ultrablock filter suppressed the entire field, except for the nebula itself.
At this point some of the camp staff joined me so I showed them M22 and M7. M7 looked best at moderately high power where all the bright stars filled the field. M7 and M13 were naked eye objects at this point.
My next stop was Corona Australis. I could see the constellation with the maked eye, which was cool enough. With the finderscope I spotted NGC 6723, a globular cluster just over the border in Sagittarius. It was attractive and partially resolved in my 26 mm EP. It did not look better at twice the magnification, probably due to seeing conditions. My original target in this area was the field for NGC 6726, a reflection nebula. What I saw was a pair of double stars, one of which had a nebula around it and also another little nebula. After much cross-checking of references I concluded that I saw both the NGC 6726-27 nebula and the nearby nebula, NGC 6729. It's a pretty cool field and I'd like to try it again with more aperture.
My next target was the globular cluster pair NGC 6528 and NGC 6522 near Al-Nasl at the spout of the Sag. teapot. The westernmost of the pair was much brighter. This field looked kind of like a galaxy pair except some grainines in the clusters was noticeable.
A nice surprise was NGC 6541 a globular in Corona Aus. This one is really low, but I could see it in the 35 mm finder easily. Its very pretty and reminded me of a fainter M92. It had a nice central glow and looked fine at different magnifications. It's paired with a bright star.
I ended phase 2 of this evening with M17 and M16. M16 showed a lot of dark lanes even without a filter. With the filter the nebula was a nice easy glow. I was content to watch M17 drift across the field of viewseveral times as I sat in the warm Baja night at about 10:45. I noticed that with my glasses of many brighter stars scintillated.. Perhaps this would be a good quick test for seeing for those of us with myopia, kind of like defocusing a star to detect bad seeing at low powers.
Phase three this night was with the 15 x 70 binos from my cot. I got a very full view of M32 with M32 and M100 were also easy. M110 is actually easier than M32 with binoculars and a dark sky. I also picked up M33 and NGC 6946 in Cepheus. Ended on the Double Cluster and NGC 7789 and NGC 663, two open clusters on either side of Cassiopeia. NGC 7789 was easy to recognize as no individual stars could be seen.
So ends part 1 of this report. Part 2 will cover the acoustical properties of whale communication, what it feels like to trip over cactus in the dark, and whether a good smearing with sunblock can protect optical surfaces from sand.