by Marek Cichanski
Thursday night turned out to be a really nice night at Montebello. I had some good company for the first few hours, followed by a few more hours of great solo observing. There was a 'work program', followed by some good old-fashioned eye candy.
Wednesday had been a great night, with lots of good views and good company, but I hadn't gotten a whole lot done, H400-wise. About a half-dozen objects, mostly knocking off the few around Hydra, and a tiny bit of Virgo. I decided to observe again on Thursday, and to try and get some galaxies logged. I finished work, blasted up to Belmont, had a workout at the gym, and then got back on the 280 and headed for Montebello.
The first part of the evening was a mini star party. Kevin Z, as well as a friend of his who's a teacher, and a few students (and one parent) showed up to look at some planets and bright DSOs. It was a nice time; I think I showed them the comet and the Sombrero. A very pleasant group.
After they had left, maybe around 11:30 or so, I continued chipping away at the outskirts of Virgo. I managed to log the following objects:
M104, NGCs 2613, 4995, 4697, 4546, 4958, 4699, 4781, 4689, 2753, 4900, 4845, 4636, 4665, 4643, 4527, 4536, 4179, 4030, 4866, Omega Centauri, and Centaurus A.
Since I was using my 10" dob, most of these objects were rather faint little galaxies that didn't show a lot of structure. Nice to find and look at, but not exactly big, bright, or structured. Still, there were a few objects that stood out:
4699 - One of those galaxies that made me say "this is bright enough to be worth revisiting with this scope".
M104 - Need we say more? The Sombrero is, of course, classic. I can see some assymmetry in brightness from one side to another, but I can't clearly make out the dust lane itself. Maybe a combination of more magnification and a darker sky would help.
4845 - This galaxy isn't terribly bright, at least not in a 10", but its edges seemed better-defined than most. This gave it a nice, crisp appearance. Like the Sombrero, but with neither dust lane nor nucleus.
4636 - This galaxy is at the apex of a slightly arcuate "flying V" of field stars. A very pretty field of view.
4527, 4536 - This was a subtle, but very nice pair of galaxies. Both were fairly close to edge-on, with 4527 being slightly brighter and narrower than 4536. I'll bet that this pair looks really nice in a big scope. Reason enough to load up the work schedule and work towards that 18".
I was amazed at how many of the galaxies in the SW part of Virgo seemed to have similar position angles. Unless I was making some sort of blunder, it seemed that nearly all of them were oriented NE-SW. I should look at an atlas and see if that's really the case or not. If so, I wonder if there's any reason for it?
Kevin and I looked at Omega Cen and Cen A before he left. Both views were very nice. I'd seen Omega Cen in Bob Czerwinski's 18" scope the night before, and it had been mind-blowing. The view of Omega Cen through my 10" on Thursday night, however, was surprisingly nice. I think that the seeing was a little better near that part of the horizon on Thursday night. I had partial resolution over nearly the whole cluster. We looked at Cen A as well, and I had no idea that one can see the dust lane so clearly! The surface brightness was lower than we expected, but the transverse dust lane showed up remarkably well with only a little averted vision
A few bits of cirrus drifted over around midnight, but didn't cause a significant problem. Ditto for a slight breeze.
Around 1:20 am, I had bagged about 20 H400 objects, which is my definition of a productive night. As fun as it is to tick off these objects, few of them look terribly spectacular in a 10" scope. Mostly it's one faint little galaxy after another. For me, doing H400 objects with the XT10 is like a good workout. It's a bit ascetic, but it's enjoyable in its own way. Sense of satisfaction, sense of self-improvement, achievement of goals, indulgence of obsessive nature, etc...
By the time that Sagittarius and Scorpius had risen though, it was time for the sensuous, hedonistic pleasures of summer. The first thing I did was to look at M4...wow! My feet felt suddenly chilly...huh? Then I realized that it was because my socks had been knocked clean off. ;-)
This was one of the best amateur astronomy sensations I've had in a long time. The transistion from the monk-like labor of logging faint little galaxies to the sheer hedonistic indulgence of ogling M4 was breathtaking. Stars beyond counting! Resolved to the core! It seemed to fill the field of view, even at 120x. I then looked at M3, M5, and M13. More oohing and aahing. Felt like the first time.
Then it was time to drop the 31 in the focuser and head for the Milky Way starclouds. First, a stop at M6 and M7. Then on to the Large Sagittarius. Oh yeah. Then M24...this was something I'd really been looking forward to... oh baby! That field of view is almost certainly the best field of view possible in my scope. Only the Lagoon/Trifid Terminagler field comes close, or maybe the Swan Terminagler field. To get any better would require a ticket to someplace south of the equator.
All in all, it was a really nice night. Satisfying spring work, followed by a luxurious preview of summer's self-indulgence.
Posted on sf-bay-tac May 14, 2004 12:58:56 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 04, 2005 19:08:33 PT