by Bob Jardine
It was clear and cold, but not unbearable. Thankfully, humidity was not a problem, nor was wind.
I observed with TOBY, my 10" f/6 CPT.
First up was C2002/T7, once again. It is definitely getting bigger and brighter. Now it was very easy to locate in the same field of view as Gamma Peg. The star field was nice, with the head of the comet right in a very straight line of four stars of about magnitude 10 or so, two to the left and two to the right. T7 had a broad, roundish head, gently brightening to the center, but not too much brighter. A nice AV tail was easier to see and longer than the last time I looked; about 4 arcminutes long. I used about 170X.
I tried once again for NGC 925, a galaxy in Tri. Still haven't been able to see this one at MB. I'll have to try again from darker skies.
| 145 CMa | Split a dbl suggested by Alan Adler. Nice, wide, bright, with good color - orange and blue-white to my eyes. Very pretty. |
|---|---|
| NGC 2479 | OC, Pup. Nothing to write home about; just about average for H400 clusters - less pathetic than some. Pretty easy to find, although not shown in SA 2000, so I used Uranometria (same story for 2509). |
| NGC 2509 | OC, Pup. Another H400 cluster, but this one was a little more interesting. At a little less than 100X, it was a dim rectangle, not quite closed, of about a dozen stars, plus an unresolved spot on one edge. At about 170X, that spot resolved into another dozen or so stars, about the same magnitude as the ones forming the rectangle, but much more concentrated. |
| NGC 2440 | PN, Pup. This was a revisit of an object I first did a couple of years ago from the RASC or SAC list. At that time I found it a little bit difficult to find. Now it was a snap; put the finder right on it after a brief study of the chart. The only problem is that it is pretty small. At 170X, it was small, round, and bright, with a slightly fuzzy edge. I tried adding a UHC - not much difference, but it became more apparent that the fuzzy edge represented an outer halo extending farther out than the main bright disk (about 2X the diameter). This was quite nice. |
| NGC 2359 | Thor's Helmet; another revisit. Slightly disappointing. I started out with too much power (170X), then tried around 120X with a UHC filter. Better, but not satisfying. Should have gone to even lower power, but I moved on. |
| NGC 2071 | nebula near M78. I've tried this a couple of times with no luck. I guess it just isn't dark enough at MB for my eyes. M78 was pretty disappointing also. |
| NGC 2207 | galaxy, CMa. This was quite dim, and I spent some time being sure I was in the right place and really seeing something. The field was easy enough that I was ultimately satisfied that I was in the right place, and then I started to see a big dim blob emerge. Way dim (large and low surface brightness). It didn't help that someone was packing up using a white flashlight at this point - completely clueless (no, it wasn't anyone I've named). I muttered to myself, complained to my neighbor (Dan was unsympathetic - said I should have talked to the offender), walked around a bit, and then came back to look some more. The shape was very uncertain, but it looked a little strange - not your usual galaxy shape. I thought to myself, can there be two galaxies here? Sure enough, the chart showed IC 2163 is adjacent to NGC 2207. Maybe I was seeing both. But I certainly couldn't be sure, since the whole fuzzy thing was so much near the edge of perception. This is a galaxy (pair) that will sure be worth repeating from another site. |
Quick views of Saturn and Jupiter. No Joy looking for Mimas. Ganymede was a nice disk.
Timed the IO emergence (from behind Jupiter). 11:08:10 to 11:09:50. It is amazing how bright IO is compared to the limb of Jupiter, and how long it takes to emerge, even though it is but a pinpoint (well, almost) when standing away from the disk. I love this stuff.
Tracked down two asteroids: 6 Hebe and 15 Eunomia. Both in binocs.
Packed up with Peter McKone. Everyone else had left. We watched Corvus rise, and it was only midnight. It had been a pretty satisfying night. I could wish for darker skies, but I was home in 25 minutes.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Thu Feb 12 22:50:48 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Mon Feb 16 17:26:24 2004 PT