last New Moon 17 July at the Peak

by Jamie Dillon

This was a big night for seeing humans, ended up being good for stars as well. Along with the FPOA StarBQ, which was fun and grocery-intensive, we had a visitor from London, David Rainger, who'd gotten my name from the Astronomical League club list. He turned out to be a very genial type and had all kinds of fun mooching views thru sucker holes.

Just a superb example of the Brave Sacrifice happened when David bailed around 11. Before that there'd been pervasive cirrus across most of the sky. Then within minutes it cleared up entirely. We got busy.

The SW lot was pretty full, including Rashad's Blondie with her new owner! Zaza, Natscher, McAuliffe and Everitt were there, among others. My pal Liam came along and remembered how much he likes star parties.

As for me, it's happened. I've developed that astringent taste for really dim stuff. This is what comes of picking bad companions. All those late nights with Czerwinskis and Wagners and oh lord Gottliebs and Kingsleys and Highes and the like.

Started out with my second Palomar globular of the week. On the 14th, as noted earlier, found IC 1276, which is Palomar 7. A fuzz. This night it was NGC 6717, Palomar 9. Right by a bright star, looked fuzzy, wouldn't resolve at first. Moving the star out of the field, could see 4 stars across the face of the background glow. Later that night was a real obscure NGC globular, 7492 in southern Aquarius. A brighter patch in the background mottling. Took jiggling the scope and averted vision to see. Came back to the same field several times and it stayed there. Alan Zaza confirmed the sighting. Fairly round, extended, irregular shape maybe 3' across.

This was all in Felix, a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with optics made by Discovery Telescopes. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians. Next up was an interesting, nearby galaxy, IC 342, an item on the Eye Candy List. It's only 10 mly from here, not even 5 times farther than M31. What I saw at 126x, and backed out to 79x, matched the description in Luginbuhl and Skiff, but I could only make its the bright core, not the halo. Wants a real dark sky. And while we're onto galaxies, went back to Aries and the set around NGC 680. There are at least 7 galaxies in that cluster, and I've now gotten 4 in my scope. 697 turned out to be a pretty edge-on spiral. 680 and 678 are a close pretty pair. 722, nearby, is on the Eye Candy List with good reason.

Add a planetary. IC 1747, recommended by Kent Blackwell on amastro, showed a tight swirl like a periwinkle, for anyone who's picked shellfish in New England.

Took in M31 for the first time this year before packing up in the quiet. The Peak is awe-inspiring when it's just the stars and the wind.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Aug 09, 2004 20:40:50 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 06, 2005 22:29:53 PT