short OR: Lake Sonoma 4/10/04

by Steve Gottlieb

Conditions were very nice at Lake Sonoma last night (Saturday) -- totally clear of clouds, fairly low humidity, calm and reasonably warm until 1:40 when I started to pack up. Low fog in Sonoma valley kept the transparency good although the seeing was soft at times. We had a small contingent of 7 or 8 observer.

I spent the early evening cleaning up the remaining NGC galaxies I had left in Antlia and Hydra and moved into Virgo and Coma when the seeing softened in the southwest. I didn't have a problem resolving SN 2004bd (coincidentally discovered on my birthday) from the core in my 18-inch Starmaster when the seeing was fairly steady. Here are two observations of the host galaxy, NGC 3786, 14 years apart. This same galaxy had another supernova just a couple of years back, so apparently it's quite active!

18" (4/10/04): moderately bright, fairly small, elongated 2:1 WSW-ENE, brighter core. Observed SN 2004bd, discovered less than a week earlier on 4/4/04 and situated just 4.7" W and 1.2" S of center. When the seeing steadied, the supernova was clearly resolved as a mag 14.5 "star" close WSW of the geometric center (along the major axis) and very close to the brighter core. Forms a pair with N3788 1.4' NE of center. A mag 10.8 star lies 2.0' SE.

17.5" (2/24/90): moderately bright, moderately large, elongated 5:2 WSW-ENE, bright core. Forms a pleasing close pair with N3788 (separation of 1.4' NE). The galaxies are elongated at nearly right angles and almost attached at the ENE end of N3786. A mag 10.5 star is 2' SE.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 11, 2004 18:28:38 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 18:19:52 PT