by Bob Jardine
I observed with my 12.5" f/5 Portaball with tracking platform.
I worked a bit on the Herschel-2 project, but I also checked out one asteroid and just poked around at galaxies in Fornax and Eridanus and elsewhere.
Highlights included that group of galaxies in downtown Fornax (AS373) and a nice curved chain of faint(er) galaxies in Eridanus.
I observed until around 2:30, and then left Jeff Crilly alone (sorry Jeff, but I had to work the next day). It was quite foggy down below, and I had to periodically slow down to 40 or 50 MPH on the drive home to get a reasonable ratio of visibility to speed.
| NGCs 7172, 7173, 7176 | galaxies in PsA. 176x. Two galaxies pretty obvious; small, dim, very close together (1-3 arcmin?), both brighter in center, both suspected elongated. Another one farther away, like 10 arcmins; larger, dimmer, not much brighter center, suspected elong. |
|---|---|
| Asteroid (27) Euterpe | what can you say about an asteroid? About 9th mag. Formed a nice backwards question-mark asterism with some mag 8-10 stars. 45x. |
| Limiting mag check | 8-9 stars in the Pegasus triangle. High 5.Xs. |
| NGC 151 | Gal, Cetus (H-2). Small, dim, oval, slightly brighter center (broadly). Elong about 2:1 E/W. A star just off the Eastern side. 176x and 226x. |
| NGC 175 | Gal, Cetus (H-2). Medium size, dim, low surf. br.; dimmer than 151. Not much brighter center. Needs AV. Maybe elong E/W. Forms a near equilateral triangle with 2 pretty dim stars of about = mag. 176x. |
| NGC 337 | Gal, Cetus (H-2). Pretty easy to see. A bit larger, maybe brighter, than 151 and 175. But pretty low surf. br. Uniform, not brighter center. Elong SE/NW. Large almost Isoc. triangle asterism to the East. |
| NGC 1201 | Gal, Fornax. Small but bright. Needs power. 226x: brighter center, a little bit elong, SSW/NNE. |
| NGC 1350 | Gal, Fornax. A long, somewhat difficult hop; few bright stars (and no optical finder on the PBall). Reasonably bright and obvious, very near a pretty bright star. Elong N/S. Brighter center, pretty small. Nearby star is not quite in line with the major axis. |
| Group in Fornax (AS373) | 7 galaxies, all pretty obvious at 93X, not quite in same FOV, but close. NGCs 1404, 1399, 1380, 1374, 1379, 1381, 1387. Four of them form a parallelogram, the other three in a line with a pretty bright star. Nice field. None of the galaxies individually anything to write home about. |
| NGC 1832 | Gal, Lep (H-2). Pretty obvious, small, medium bright; slightly brighter center. Maybe slightly elong N/S. Right next to a star on its E. 176x. Another Lepus Herschel-2 object was not up high enough yet, so back to Eridanus. |
| NGC 1395 | Gal, Eri. Nice bright galaxy; roundish; brighter center. Maybe face on? 176x. |
Starting at 1395, a nice little chain of galaxies, all quite dim. Probably NGCs 1415, 1426 and 1401.
| NGCs 1531, 1532 | Gals, Eri. Two side-by-side smudges, about 2-3 arcmin apart. Both slightly elong, about 60 degrees relative difference in PA. Not much brighter in center. One slightly bigger and/or brighter. |
|---|---|
| NGC 1537 | Gal, Eri. Just slightly North of 1531/2. Pretty small and dim, but looks a little elong and a little bit brighter center. |
| Saturn | Last object of the night, after it got up high enough. My first decent look of the season, so I spent some time getting the tracking platform speed adjusted just right. A pretty darn good view, even if not the best ever. Seeing was good, but not excellent. Used 176x, 226x, and finally 440x. It wavered a little bit at the highest X, but not so much that I wanted to drop back down. A band occasionally seen on the sphere, South (I think) of the ring. The Crepe ring was pretty easy to see, but again not the best ever. No Encke anything. A fine way to end a fine night. |
Posted on sf-bay-tac Dec 09, 2004 20:56:29 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 22, 2005 12:10:59 PT