by William G. Schultz
As the work day wore on, it looked better an better for an evening out. I had good reason: I muffed a target on Friday.
As I cleared the houses by the DEER XING in Morgan Hill, I saw promise of good conditions. Orion was rising and through the windshield, it looked crisp even being low to the horizon. As I got to the top, it looked even better.
There were no Gilroy lights, few from Morgan Hill, and San Jose's were quite attenuated due to the marine layer condensation. Temp was pleasant: 54F. RH was decent: 48%. Breeze was minimal. Conditions were more comfortable than Friday's. There were no upper level clouds, and limiting magnitude was estimated to be 6.4.
I confirmed an earlier observation of 2253 in CAM. Very faint, sparse, located inside a boxlike asterism, in my estimation, not worthy of my time nor of Rich Navarette's. Other H400-2 objects were completed in CAM, CMA, MON, GEM.
The challenge object of the evening (and last Friday) was 2283. I convinced myself there was an object in the required starfield by blinking, hiding under a hood for ten minutes, averting my vision, etc. Herschel was a wonder to find this and other objects in his speculum mirror.
First time surprises for me were the Thor's Helmet or Duck Nebula (2359) and 2366 in CAM. 2359 was just stunning with OIII filtering. The dominant feature in 2366 was a bright star forming region. The remainder of the galactic halo was a mere transparent smudge, just barely visible in the C-11.
Clouds and contrails became a problem as I worked my way into a series of OCls. I was able to continue observing relatively unaffected by clouds until sunrise. Temps fell to 48 degrees with RH still at 48%. After last night, though, my completed list ends in Puppis.
I agree with Richard; some of these faint poorly grouped faint OCls are just not the way I wish to spend my evening. ;-)
"Better" objects are coming, I hope.