by Bob Jardine
This was my first Calstar, but not my last! What big fun!
A full observing report would be very long, and definitely boring. I'll stick to the highlights:
Top on the list has to be sharing a cabin with Albert Highe, David Kingsley, and Peter McKone, which gave me a chance to share a little vicariously in their observing projects. And nice people, too! Thanks, guys.
Next would have to be the slaying of my recent nemesis, IC 289. I've been going after this thing for months, ever since Cas and Cam have poked their little selves up above the horizon high enough. Finally bagged it at Calstar. Why was I looking for this dim little poor excuse for a PN? Because it is on the RASC "Best of the NGC" list, believe it or not. Go figure. BTW: this is nothing against the RASC list...a great list, all in all.
Now I have a new nemesis, IC 1613. Yep, another dim one...a large local dwarf galaxy in Cetus. I spent over an hour looking for it on each of two nights. I finally think I saw some of the brighter areas in it, although I certainly didn't see a single, connected object.
(all observations reported here are with an Orion XT-10, except for the binocular ones)
IC 1613 and NGC 1851 were the last two objects for me on the northern part of the Caldwell list. If you count my observation of part of IC 1613, then I've now observed everything on this list down as far south as Omega Centauri.
Now I don't want to start a mail war on the Caldwell list, but I will say this much: I started the project before I had heard some interesting negativity about the list, and I decided to finish it anyway. But I am *not* going to claim the Astro.League certificate/pin that I have qualified for (by observing 80 or more objects on the list), as a kind of protest. No flame-o-grams to the TAC list, please.
NGC 1851 was great. A nice little glob in Columba, small but bright...must be really impressive from much farther south. I observed it on the last night by staying until near the end of darkness, as it didn't rise until 3:00 and transit at 05:30.
While waiting for early morning targets to come up to decent viewing positions, I worked the Herschel 400 list. Bagged about 25 of them at Calstar, and I'm now approaching 300. I also added one new binocular Messier object, M79, and re-observed a few others (M1, M78) with binoculars. I'm now up to 70 of these with hand-held, non-stabilized binocs. If you haven't tried this (binocular Messiers), I highly recommend it.
I also located both Ceres and Melpomene with binocs. Both asteroids are near opposition right now. See Sky and Telescope October issue or web site for a finder chart.
And for more variety, one SuperNova, suggested by David Kingsley, in NGC 1309. This one not with binoculars, of course!
My favorite view was of M22; it was so good that I almost had to wait for it to set each night to start my other projects. Never seen it so big and bright. A really amazing sight.
Over all three nights, I observed over 100 objects, and I took notes on 78 objects, more than 50 of which were new to me. Not Weasel-like numbers, but pretty good for me, I think, considering spending a total of 3 or 4 hours on two IC objects and dozing off at the eyepiece at least twice.
I hope you all had half as much fun as I did. It doesn't get much better...
p.s. for Jamie: Listening to Jorma as I write this. Django is now on my shopping list.