IHOP on 9/11/04

by Dennis Beckley

Saturday night I observed for the first time from IHOP. It was an easy and pleasant two+ hour drive from Benicia - all on paved roads. The observing area off of Peavine Ridge road is a large gravel parking lot with great horizons in all directions at an elevation of about 5500 feet. It’s located about 20 miles east of Placerville. There were 6 of us up there (Greg, Sheneor, Ray Cash, Alvin, Peter and myself). We had a variety of scopes (two 22's (one with binoviewer), one 25, one 18, one 13 and one 8 inch). Conditions were generally warm, some high altitude cirrus and disturbed seeing which limited power to around 270x. We got clouded out around 3:00. The only distractions were several cars going up the paved road next to the viewing area. But I could hear the cars coming in time to pull down my red astro goggles (or sun glasses in Sheneor’s case). It was a fun group and I had a great time looking through the binoviewer’s and the larger scopes. I saw two comets - one early - Q4 in UMA/Draco and one late - Tucker in Cetus. I spent most of my time hunting down some of the more interesting Minkowski planetaries (www. icplanetaries.com/mink.html.). The following are my observations on 7 of the Minks.

Minkowski's Butterfly (M 2-9)
Date2004 September 12 22:17
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationIHOP
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 17h05m52.5s Dec. -1009'05" (Oph)
Magnitude14.6
Object Altitude19
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Partly clear (4)
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x OIII filter
Small moderately bright bilobed protoplanetary PLN with bright CS seen with direct vision. The lobes look like thin elongated extensions oriented in a N-S diection. No color detected. No enhancement with OIII filter. Seeing conditions didn't permit extreme high power viewing . Very interesting object!
M 4-9
Date2004 September 12 23:24
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationIHOP
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 18h14m33.2s Dec. -0459'18" (Ser)
Magnitude16.1
Object Altitude23
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Partly clear (4)
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x OIII filter
Seen only with averted vision, small circular glow; seen best with O3, made difficult because of low altiufde ; no CS; 263 x not much better; no color, seen better at TSP
M 1-64
Date2004 September 13 00:01
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationIHOP
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 18h50m12.2s Dec. +3515'13" (Lyr)
Magnitude12.8
Object Altitude47
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Clear (5) MW averted vision, 6 lil dip stars
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x OIII filter
Easy to locate -lies within the parallelogram of Lyra Seen with direct vision, slightly elongated , no CS but mag 14 field star on bottom edge, easily located, no color, others have reported ring structure at higher power and larger scopes but seeing conditions wouldn't support much more than 264x on this night.
Minkowski's Footprint (M 1-92)
Date2004 September 6 23:01
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationFiddletown (seen again at IHOP but not as well due to sky conditions)
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 19h36m30.4s Dec. +2933'34" (Cyg)
Magnitude11.0
Object Altitude70
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Very Clear 6) MW/M31 direct, 7 stars LDip
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x TeleVue Radian 6mm, 396x TeleVue 3.5 Nagler type 6, 679x OIII filter
Protoplanetary nebula (similar to M 2-9 "Minkowski's Butterfly") found just east of 10m star (PA 87, sep 29"). At medium power it is seen with direct vision as mag 11 "fuzzy" star. At higher power it is more oblong than perfectly round. HST pics show that it is bilobed ("heel and foot") but one lobe is very dim and I couldn't clearly see it at the telescope. I couldn't see the CS nor any color and there was no obvious enhancement with a OIII filter. The object lies within a large triangle bounded by 9 Cygnus and two other mag 7 stars. Very interesting object!
M 2-51
Date2004 September 13 00:45
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationFiddletown
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 22h16m15.7s Dec. +5730'01" (Cep)
Magnitude13.6
Object Altitude69
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Very Clear 6) MW/M31 direct, 7 stars LDip
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x OIII filter
Easily found within a triangle of bright stars bounded by delta Cep. Seen with direct vision at low power, Obvious CS,, mildly large and annular, couldn't see much interior detail ; no color, enhanced with OIII.
M 2-52
Date2004 September 13 01:38
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationIHOP
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 22h20m42.6s Dec. +5737'32" (Cep)
Magnitude14.1
Object Altitude64
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Very Clear 6) MW/M31 direct, 7 stars LDip
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x TeleVue Nagler 7mm, 340x OIII filter
Easily seen with direct viision at low power, circlar, mod. bright. CS seen at moderate power, no color detected on this night. No surface details. Enhances with OIII filter.
M 2-53
Date2004 September 13 02:50
ObserverDennis Beckley
LocationIHOP
InstrumentObsession 18.0 f5.15 ParCor
Object TypePlanetary Nebula
Apparent PositionRA. 22h32m32.4s Dec. +5611'59" (Lac)
Magnitude15.2
Object Altitude58
ConditionsGood seeing (3) Very Clear 6) MW/M31 direct, 7 stars LDip
DescriptionTeleVue Panoptic 22mm, 108x TeleVue Nagler 9mm, 264x OIII filter
Very difficult object , close to mag 10 star, barely seen without filter, no CS, elongated haze, slightly bigger than small, seen only with averted vision and best with OIII filter

Posted on tac-sac Sep 13, 2004 23:22:16 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Mar 27, 2006 22:29:31 PT [an error occurred while processing this directive]