by Marek Cichanski
I had planned on going to MB on Wednesday, but I wound up feeling too tired, and I feared that it would be windy. (Turns out I was wrong about the wind, but oh well...) So, I decided to give it a shot on Thursday. There was a little bit of fog coming over the ridgeline, but not too much, so I held out cautious optimism. There was no fog at Montebello at sunset, and virutually no wind. Temperatures in the mid to high 50s, too. It looked like it was going to be a good night. It was just me, Andy, and Kevin. I was the last to leave, at about 12:45.
Conditions stayed pretty good the whole time I was there. A tongue of fog crept through the gap to the SW for a while, just to let us know who's boss, but it withdrew by about 11:30. Wind was minimal to nonexistent. There was a lot of valley fog, which made the sky darker than usual. On the way down from MB at about 1 am, I saw that it was another of those wonderful "black cloud" nights. Silicon Valley, and even much of the East Bay, were nicely hidden under the fog. Life is good! It definitely seemed darker than usual up at MB, but without a Milky Way to judge by, the effect wasn't terribly spectacular to the naked eye. Still, it made hunting galaxies easier.
Having recently finished the "winter" portion of the H400 list, I decided to start eating the elephant - I began logging springtime galaxies. This worked out pretty nicely, with an ending count of 17 objects:
| Limiting Mag | Around 5.5 or 6 |
|---|---|
| Seeing | 2-3 out of 5 |
| Temp | Mostly in the 50s |
| Humidity | Low even though there was fog. No problem with dew on optics or charts. |
| Scope | Orion XT10 10" f/5 dob, eyepiece was mostly 12mm T4 Nagler, with some use of the 22m T4 Nagler. Paracorr, too. |
Here's a capsule version of the log:
| NGC 2419 (the "Intergalactic Wanderer") | Considerably faint, round, no stars resolved. A small smoke puff. |
|---|---|
| NGC 2371,2 | Pair of planetary nebulae, with the pair being aligned NNE-SSW. No real structure observed within either nebula. |
| NGC 2811 | Gx, prob. spiral |
| NGC 2974 | Gx, tiny, pretty bright, very concentrated nucleus, with a bright star on the preceding side. This star gave me a temporary hope that there was a SN in the gx. Doubt it, though. |
| NGC 3115 | Spindle Gx, stellar nucleus, very elongated SW-NE. I always thought that NGC 4565 was the Spindle, but not so. Possible hints of a 4565-like dust lane, but that might have been wishful thinking. |
| NGC 3166,9 | Nice pair of galaxies! I'd guess they're face-on spirals. |
| NGC 2903 | Really nice galaxy, big and pretty bright. Probably a spiral, maybe some faint hints of structure. Easy to see why this is one of the "near-miss" non-Messier galaxies. |
| NGC 3226,7 | Another great pair of galaxies. I can believe that they are linked together, as noted in Sky Atlas Companion. |
| NGC 3190,3 | What a neat galaxy group! Laid out in an E-W line along with 3185. Beautifully framed in the 22 Nagler. |
| NGC 3384,9, M105 | Another awesome Leo galaxy group. The two NGC galaxies were elongated (probably slightly edge-on), but M105 was basically round (probably face-on). Man, getting stuff I.D.'d in these galaxy groups isn't easy! |
| NGC 3377 | Another galaxy |
| NGC 3655 | Another galaxy |
I finished off the night with 4565 (always a crowd-pleaser), followed by a visit to Downtown Virgo. M 60, 59, 58, 90, 87, and then various runs up and down the length of Markarian's chain. Whew! Galaxy overload!
One thing struck me while I was observing galaxies: To me, the galaxies look closer than the field stars. There's some perceptual/cognitive thing going on there, but it makes it very easy for me to understand why so many people assumed that the "spiral nebulae" were within our galaxy. To me, it's a very powerful illusion. Only very rarely, such as in some views of M81,82, have I ever thought that I was seeing the galaxies through a screen of foreground stars. This may sound silly, but I think I would enjoy observing galaxies a lot more if I could get them to "look farther away". If I could train my brain to perceive them that way, I think I'd me much more of a galaxy enthusiast. Still, it's a heckuva a lot of fun even as it is.
Moon rose around 12:30 am. I watched it rise through the telescope. I always enjoy that, it's one of the simple pleasures in observing for me. It was 58 at MB when I left. Encountered some 47 degree temps at the bottom of the hill after driving down through clouds. Life is good.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 09, 2004 10:15:49 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 16:05:14 PT