by Andrew Pierce
Our family vacation this year was in Bahia de Los Angeles in Baja California with the Marine Science Institute camp group. This is the second and final observing report for TAC. Instruments were a 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.
Fifth Night (August 7, 2002)
I set up again at my Baja Galactic Observatory again, that is in the driveway between the cacti. It was way too hot even after dark so my session was short. Began with the M8, M20, M21 area. then I hopped uo to M23, which gives a very pleasing view at 150 mm of aperture.
My next targets were the dim Messier globulars at the base of the Sagittarius teapot, M54, M69 and M70. M54 looked pretty dim at first, but with a longer gaze, it seemed very mysterious and cool looking. My notes say it looked far away. I just checked and saw that it really is far away -- as in outside of our galaxy and attached to a neighboring dwarf galaxy. M70 looked small and grainy while M69 was patchier with very little central concentration. While in the area I checked out NGC 6652, another globular along the bottom of the Teapot.
Before falling asleep I counted meteors. I saw 4 in about 15 minutes, one of which looked like an early Perseid.
Sixth Night
We were told that late at night you can often heat the sounds of whales carrying over the water. When out on the water, we had been seeing two or three Bryde's whales, a species similar in size to gray whales. Tonight I finally heard them from shore. I was set up in my usual location, about 75 yards from the Sea of Cortez. For about an hour my observing session was punctuated by the sound of whales' spouting every minute or two. They sounded like they were just offshore, but they were probably some distance away, since their sound can carry several miles if conditions are right. It was a very calm evening with no wind or wave sounds and noticeably better seeing than previous nights.
I started with NGC 6231, the spectacular OC in Scorp. I then headed north to the nearby Trumpler 24 and NGC 6242, also OCs in Scorp. For a change I went over to the Bug Nebula, Ngc 6302 a planetary in the tail area of Scorpius. It did look a bit like a bug. At first I thought it needed more aperture, but a long view with the 9mm Nagler and averted vision pulled out pretty good detail. This was one sign that the seeing was decent. By this point the whale sounds were really getting distracting. A whale spout begins with a sudden loud gasping exhalation, and I don't have a lot of experience hearing them from our usual observing sites.
I got out the 15 x 70s and had a nice view of the Pipe Nebla, a huge dark nebula in Ophiuchus.The North America Nebula jumped out prtty well with an 0III and Ultrablock filters in the left and right eyecups of the binos. M6 and M7 were also gorgeous binocular visions. I could not make out the Snake nebula, Barnard 72, in either the binos or the telecope. The NGC 6992 part of the Veil nebula was sort of faint in the 150 mm scope. Filters didn't really help, except there might have been a little more detail with the Ultrablock. I did see some detail, it was more than just a bar of light.
I popped by M39 in Cygnus, but could not see the Cocoon nebula.
Seventh and Final night
On the final night I stated with M11 in Scutum, the Wild Duck Cluster. I was soon joined by Andrea and Chris of the MSI staff. Andrea took astronomy at Cal with Alex Fillipenko, and knows the sky. I showed them M11 and they said it rates as a "Five Duck" object. Since I had company we did a little tour -- Uranus through the scope and the Pipe Nebula throught the binos. Andrea stuck around to look Antares with M4, the Double Cluster and M31 with M110, all in the binos. Not bad for a beginner -- she found 3 Messiers, two NGCs and a Barnard in just a few minutes.
I resumed solo observing with M30 in Capricorn and ended on the Helix nebula , which was visible in the 35 mm finderscope. The Helix looked about equally good in the 15 x 70 binos and in the telescope at 50x or so.
In the end I only bagged about 9 new objects on the trip, mostly because I had to get up a 6 a.m. each morning and also because I had been in Fiji and Hawaii with the same scope in previous summers. But I had never tripped over a cactus, heard a whale, or gotten sunscreen on my EPs while observing before. Baja is an incredible place and it has some truly dark spots that are at higher elevations as well. I'm ready to go back anytime.