by Bob Jardine
Observed with TOBY, 10" f/6 CPT
| Venus | Wow. The crescent is getting really thin. Also, it is getting noticeably lower in altitude. You've gotta catch it soon after sunset. |
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I tested out my BinoVue, recently back from being recollimated. I had been having trouble merging the images. Much better now! I observed Jupiter, with two very obvious dark thingies (that's a technical term) in the NEB. They were on the South edge of the NEB. The seeing was a little soft, but not too bad.
| Comet NEAT | going the opposite direction from Venus. Up high now. Fairly easy nekked eye. Still nearly 2 degrees of tail in binocs. |
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| NGC 5981/2/5 | another attempt to see all three of this triplet in Draco; still can't see the edge-on (5981). The other two are easy. Darker skies required, I guess. |
| NGC 5322 | H400 gal in UMa. At 117x, small, bright, obvious, with apparently stellar center. At 169x, the view is similar, but the core is now seen to be non-stellar; there is some dim extent beyond this core, but the shape is difficult to tell. Just pretty small. |
| NGC 5631 | H400 gal in UMa. A pretty disappointing finish to the H400. At 117x, very small, pretty dim, with a little bit brighter center. Shape is uncertain. At 169x, the shape is still uncertain, but it is not obviously elongated. A little brighter center, and fuzzy extent with AV. |
With the last two H400 objects done, I turned to a couple of other random targets that were well placed -- the galaxies around M106. so I started with the eye candy:
| M106 | now this is a galaxy! Very large, bright, elongated with bulge & brighter center (117x). After H400 galaxies, quite a difference. |
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| NGC 4248 | suspected, but not claimed. |
| NGC 4217 | pretty obvious near a field star; small and dim. |
| NGC 4346 | pretty obvious in the other direction; a little brighter than 4217, small, slightly elongated (?), a little brighter center. |
| NGC 4220 | easy to find from M106; fairly obvious at 117x, but small; somewhat elongated, but not much brighter center. Not quite as bright as 4346. |
| Asteroid (156) Xanthippe | pretty easy to find at low power; drew a little chart for later comparison. |
The sky started crudding up around midnight, and I had work the next day, so I started packing. The entire sky was gone within 10 minutes. But it was a pretty good night while it lasted.
The H400s were now done, but the last few were duds...at least from the semi-dark sky sites near home. It is hard to summarize the whole list/project, given that it was spread out over about a year and a half, so I guess I've lost sight of the big picture.
Posted on sf-bay-tac May 29, 2004 23:22:36 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.1 Jul 12, 2004 20:45:09 PT