Fremont Peak (4/10/04)--High, Warm and Dry

by Peter Natscher

Fremont Peak offered the 10 of us last night the benefit of an earlier than usual summer weather pattern for our observing. From sunset and on through the night, we remained at a comfortable temperature of 59°F and a RH of 40%. No fog, no dew, no wind, and no clouds--a good sky for finding the fainter DSO's from my much used "Night Sky Observer's Guide" book (Vol. 2, Spring & Summer). The fog remained way below us at the SW parking lot of the peak covering all cities below, all the way around to the E. side of the mountain including all of Hollister, too. The sky became darker than usual because of this effect, but the seeing was mostly marginal providing only 1 arc-sec resolution of a mag. 6 double star overhead in my 20" Dob. The temperature inversion did soften the seeing a bit. In my 5 hours of observing and sketching objects, I enjoyed seeing more galaxy structure than usual from Fremont Peak because of the darker than average sky .

Telescope	20" Starmaster Dob using 24 Panoptic and 9mm Nagler eyepieces w/paracorr (100X and 267X respectively), binoviewer (1.2X).

A list of the more enjoyable objects last night include:

M61 (NGC 4303) Virgo	This bright face-on galaxy exhibited its noteworthy spiral arms, three of them equally spaced truly cartwheeling the galaxy as its name implies (the "Cartwheel Galaxy"). The arms were totally prominent along with it's central bar.
M104 (NGC 4594) Virgo	Many have enjoyed seeing this bright and classic example of a nearly edge-on galaxy with a prominent dark lane with one eye but using both eyes with two 24mm Panoptics in a binoviewer at 109X is most rewarding. It holds up very well observing it this way because of its brightness and contrasty dark lane. All the brighter galaxies (not only globular clusters) take on a new personally re-visiting and observing them through a binoviewer.
M95 (NGC 3351) Leo	Here's a small gem–a face-on galaxy that looked a bit like a planetary nebula to me upon first impressions. It's nearly circular shape along with a stellar core and an outlined perimeter as its halo. The visible central bar extending almost all the way across its diameter gives away it's galactic origins.
M66 (NGC 3627) Leo	One of a trio of three bright galaxies with differing appearances, this one offered me more to see at 267X. The arms show up wonderfully at higher power–they arc dynamically in opposing directions out from the large galaxy core. The arms are also detailed with darker linear areas within.
Copeland's Septet (NGC's 3745, 3746, 3748, 3750, 3751, 3753, 3754) Leo	At 241X and 20' FOV, this compact group of seven fuzzies has an interesting arrangement–two curved rows of three galaxies each and another one close by to the north. Of the seven oval smudges, NGC's 3745, 46, and 48 showed stellar cores.
NGC 4449 Cane Venatici	This small irregularly-shaped galaxy (a bit rectangular in shape) was the most interesting object of my night. At low power it's just a smudge, but take a look at it at 200-300X. The entire object displays interesting mottled detail along with a sprinkling of foreground stars lying over its halo. The core is stellar, too. It's a very small but beautiful galaxy to study for a while.
NGC 3786/3788 Ursa Major	Upon hearing news of a visible super nova 2003ab in NGC 3786, I had to take a look for this one. Initially, these two small oval looking galaxies have an attractive 120° position angle to each other and they're almost touching. What a nice duo! Closer inspection of 3786 reveals a tiny stellar core and an equally bright super nova just a few arc-secs to the NE. Both the stellar core and super nova appear like a equally bright mag. 14 double star within a softer luminous oval halo.
NGC 4244 Cane Venatici	I'm amazed at how many galaxies there are to be seen as literal streaks. This one is larger than most and offers detail in its arms on either side of the brighter core. Its size benefits the ghostly appearance it will have in most medium-sized telescopes.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 11, 2004 18:07:36 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 10, 2004 16:45:53 PT