by Bob Jardine
I arrived at about 8:00, just about sunset, and started setting up. There was a pretty stiff, gusty wind most of the time, but I hoped it would settle down as it got dark.
Observed with 12.5" f/5 Portaball
First stop was Venus. Getting to be a very nice large crescent. There was a bright star just to its South. The seeing was surprisingly good -- a very crisp image.
Next I checked Jupiter, even before the Comet, because I knew there was an Eclipse of Callisto going on. If I'm not mistaken, Callisto is the Galillean moon that experiences the fewest transits, occultations, and eclipses with Jupiter. Sure enough, there were only 3 moons visible. Again, the seeing was quite good, but it was difficult to take advantage of, at least with my 'scope, because the gusty wind was the limiting factor in terms of power that could be used.
At around 9:00 I swung over to Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT). It was easy to find in binoculars, although not yet quite visible without optical aid. I used low power (35 Panoptic). Very bright center. I believe the term is "suddenly very bright". But it was not quite stellar -- it appeared to be at least a few arcseconds across. Around that was a large, pretty uniform, head or coma. It was also pretty easy to see a large, stubby, fan-shaped tail. I'd guess the length of the tail was at least two times longer than the head was wide, and the tail was broad -- perhaps forming an angle as large as 60 degrees. The whole comet filled nearly 1/2 of the field of view (which is about 1.5 degree, IIRC). By 9:30 Comet NEAT was easily visible to the n*aked eye.
At about 9:39, I swung back over to Jupiter and I could see a hint of Callisto coming out of Eclipse. I probably missed the start of this by at least a minute or two. It was very cool -- a little dot of light, growing brighter and very close to Io. I watched it brighten until around 9:50, when I could no longer detect any brightness change. At that point, it was still the faintest of the four moons, but only by a little bit.
By this time it was pretty dark, and the wind had died down somewhat (although it remained slightly annoying all evening long), so I started tracking down some H400 galaxies in Virgo. My targets were NGCs 5363, 5364, 5566, 5576, and 5846. This took me East over towards M5, which I couldn't resist spending quite a while on. I also observed NGCs 5560, 5574, 5838, and 5850 along the way. Details of the galaxy hops are below. I used the 35 Panoptic and occasionally a 55 Plossl as finders and observed details with 9 and 13 mm Naglers.
I packed up around 1:00 AM, I guess. It had been a pleasant enough night. I forgot to do a limiting magnitude check. The seeing seemed to stay pretty good all night.
I started hopping from 79, 78, and 84 Vir. It was funny, because I failed to see one or two galaxies marked in SA2000, but found some other "obvious" galaxies that weren't charted there. For those, I consulted Uranometria in order to identify.
| NGC 5300 | not seen. |
|---|---|
| NGC 5363 | H400 gal, Virgo. Same FOV (13mm) as 5364. Right next to a pretty bright star. Small and bright, with much brighter center. With 9mm, it is slightly elongated, roughly NW-SE. |
| NGC 5364 | H400 gal, Virgo. Same FOV as 5363. South of 5363. Larger and more diffuse (and uniform) than 5363. Not much brighter center, if at all. Can't tell the shape well, but not obviously elongated. |
| NGC 5566 | H400 gal, Virgo. Pretty easy to locate and see. Small, bright with brighter center. Pretty well elongated. But there's another ghostly galaxy in this field (not in SA2000)... |
| NGC 5560 | gal, Virgo. Same FOV (13mm) as 5566. Much dimmer, but close to obvious when viewing 5566. |
| NGC 5576 | H400 gal, Virgo. South of 5566, another obvious galaxy. Small, bright, slightly brighter center. Less elongated than 5566. |
| NGC 5574 | gal, Virgo. Same FOV as 5576; in fact, right next to it in 13mm. Much dimmer, but not hard to spot. |
After checking out M5 for an eye candy break, I started galaxy hopping again from 110 Vir, not too far West of M5.
| NGC 5838 | gal, Virgo. Pretty obvious, right along with 5846 in 35mm "finder". With more power (13mm) it is small and bright, and quite near a field star. Just a bit elongated and a bit brighter in the center. |
|---|---|
| NGC 5846 | H400 gal, Virgo. Also obvious along with 5838 in the 35mm. In the 13mm, larger and brighter than 5838, but less elongated. Small and a bit brighter in the center. And now there's another little glow in here, too... |
| NGC 5850 | gal, Virgo. Noticed in same FOV (13mm) as 5846, but invisible in the 35mm. Dim enough to be difficult to see much detail. One of those ghostly glows. |
Posted on sf-bay-tac May 11, 2004 20:34:38 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 11, 2004 16:35:02 PT