Fiddletown, 1/19/03

by Shneor Sherman

I arrived at Fiddletown at 4 p.m. after an uneventful trip from Davis. The sky was partially obscured by clouds, especially to the East. As I was unpacking and setting up, Jane Smith arrived. By disk, the clouds had vanished, and the sky appeared to be extremely dark and contrasty; even to the West, in the direction of Sacramento, the skyglow was quite faint. There was, however, one problem, which soon manifested itself - copious dew. Fortunately, I had my 12-volt hair dryer with me, which saw almost constant use between Jane and me. (Mike Conley joined us later on.)

Observing equipment for the night:

22" f/4 mounted on an equatorial platform
30mm Widescan II with Visual Paracorr
9mm Adorama Ultraview
Denkmeier Binoviewer
Pair of Meade 26mm Series 4000 Plossls
Pair of 15mm Widescans
2" Lumicon Premium OIII Filter
2" Sirius Optics Neb1 Filter

Conditions:

Limiting magnitude (best)	6.0 based on Little Dipper
Seeing	7-9/10 (good to excellent)
Transparency	5-8 (average to very good)
Humidity	Barely OK to too much
Wind	none to very occasional 2 mph light breeze

Shortly after sunset, Venus blazed brilliantly in southwestern sky; I used it to line up my Rigel Quickfinder. Venus appeared gibbous, and featureless as usual. I then had idnner, and before it was dark, trained my scope on the magnificent M42. I immediately saw the high quality of the sky, as even my Paracorred Widescan II showed 5 and possibly 6 stars in the Trapezium. I slipped the 9mm Ultraview in and 6 stars were easily visible, with the color of E and F clearly visible. I planned to return to M42 later on, when it was higher in the sky, with my Binoviewer. From M42, I swung to Gemini for a nice view of the Eskimo Nebula. This is a pretty planetary, and one I would return to later that evening. Just to check out the visibility of galaxies, I checked out M82/82, and briefly noted some detail visible in M82 (vertical dust lanes). These observations were punctuated by repeated applications of the dew zapper by Jane and me, as our secondaries and eyeppieces dewed up. And if memory serves, Mike arrived around this time.

One of my favorite winter objects, Thor's Helmet, was high enough by this time, so I inserted an OIII and found it. While the "horns" and "face" were very clear, the "beard" was not clearly visible - there was osmething there, to be sure, but the shape of the nebulosity was not clearly defined. But now I put in the binoviewer with the 26mms, and anjoyed a two-eyed view. Maybe a little more detail vas visible. But the view was far more comfortable. From there, I noted the location of Triangulum, not far from the zenith, and found M33. I saw that NGC604 was clearly visible, so I popped in the 9mm for a better view of the enormous stellar womb of a neighboring galaxy.

Jane was having dew many problems, and decided to pack it in. I seemed to be less affected. I put the scope back on M42, high in the south, this time with the binoviewer. What a magnificent view - the 6 stars of the trapezium stood out against the black background surrounding by softly glowing nebulosity in pale green and a hint of pink. I replaced the binoviewer with my paracorred Widescan with a Neb1 filter. Now the colors stood out more clearly. This is the only filter I know of that enhances the colors of the nebulosity in M42.

I turned back to Gemini for another view of the Eskimo, a star surrounded by a symmetrical nebulosity.

Leo was now high enough for a view of some galaxies, so viewed M65, 66 and NGC3628, the patter also with high power as some detail was visible. Also, M105, N3384 and N3389; N3686, N3684 and N3681; and N3608, N3684 and N3681. Back in Ursa Major,viewed M108; with the 9mm it looked a bit like M82. Also viewed the Owl, M97, with an OIII. The eyes still weren't too clear. Viewed N3079, and the field which includes the double quasar, but the night was not good enough by this time as conditions were deteriorating. I quickly moved back to Orion, to view the interesting planetary located about a degree southeast of the tip of Orion's sword. This planetary has an elongated dark area on the west, clearly visible in the 9mm, but is not noted in Uranometria.

By now, the dew was soaking everything and the sky had deteriorated, so we decided to pack (around 11:30 or a bit later, I think). All in all, a very worthwhile night, despite the dew.

During the course of the evening, Jane excleimed loudly and publicly about the fantastic view of Saturn she had in-between dew-zapping her secondary. I misssed that view, but later on viewed SAturn with my Demkmeier Binoviewer, using 15mm Widescans. The view was quite detailed, it lookedlike you could drive a truck through Cassini's Division, which was visible all around the ring. The outermost ring looked like strands; the crepe ring had a darker hue; bands of color were visible, as were seferal satellites. The view did appear 3-dimensional.

Before I packed, I also viewed Jupiter with the same combination - Binoviewwer and 15mm eyepieces. The shadoe of a moon was visible on the surface of the planet, and the moon itself appeared to be nearer than the banded planet. Several bands were visible, but I could not detect any "bages" or ovals in the bands. Still, this was an impressive two-eyed view.

Randy, what kept you away?

Posted on tac-sac Mon Jan 19 13:55:41 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Sat Jan 24 22:29:05 2004 PT