by David Kingsley
Wonder how the frozen two did up at Coe. How about a report?Mark
Despite the predictions, conditions at Coe Friday night turned out great. Temps were mostly mid to upper 30s most of the night. Humidity was so low there was not a hint of dew on anything (did have occasional sparks from static electricity instead). And there was virtually no wind at all, a delightful surprise for the sometimes gusty Coe lot. The dry, dead calm conditions made it feel much warmer than the night before at Montebello. Bob and I both commented that we hadn't even put gloves after a couple of hours of observing last night, whereas we had both felt the need to glove up immediately at Montebello the night before.
Valley lights were glowing in full force, but the skies overhead and to the east at Coe were very dark, transparent, and inviting. Thursday night at Montebello I had compared view of several clusters, galaxies, and nebula in apertures from the 7 inch Starmaster, to the 10 inch George and Bob scope, to Marek's new 18 inch Mobsession. As expected, aperture won Thursday night on all objects, bringing out more detail and faint stars on almost everything we looked at. Friday night I revisited some of the same objects with my 14.5 inch Starmaster. The dark skies at Coe won even bigger than adding more square inches of glass at Montebello. In fact , getting out to darker skies had an almost transforming effect on virtually every object. M33 was a face on pinwheel with arms with nebulosity everywhere at Coe, instead of a smudge with only core and brightest knots visible as the night before. The small distant companions to M38 and M35 were much brighter and better resolved. Dramatic dark lanes began to show up within some clusters like M37. And the M42/M43 complex was just spectacular from Coe last night, billowing with nebulosity, hints of color, and details that looked completely new.
I chased down several winter planetaries. The Eskimo (NGC2392) and Cleopatra's eye (NGC1535) nebulae looked best at 400x or higher, which brought out lots of detail in the inner rings. In contrast, NGC1514 looked better at a magnification low enough to contrast the puff of planetary with two brighter field stars framing the show on either side. The large symmetric sphere of this planetary, with the central star perfectly centered in the glow, was the object that convinced William Herschel that some nebular were likely to be some sort of glowing gas, rather than just distant star groups (see http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/Misc/n1514.html)
I went back again last night to NGC1999, one of my favorite overlooked objects in Orion. This reflection nebula has a dramatic black patch on one side. Much of the asymmetric shape visible in a Hubble shot from a few years ago is actually visible in the eyepiece with careful study (see an APOD shot and description http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000302.html). Take a peek at this one the next time you visit the sword of Orion. NGC 1999 is just a short eyepiece field or two hop away from M42, a location that is a blessing and a curse since most observer's only stop to enjoy the much brighter neighbor to the North.
Bob and I both kept observing until shortly after the bright third quarter moon popped up over the eastern horizon. The only trouble getting back home was some nighttime road construction going on in Morgan Hill area of 280. The north bound entrance ramp to 280 from East Dunne was closed, late at night, so I climbed onto 280 South, went down one more exit, and turned around to get back on 280 North. I hope the road work will be done by next weekend, and that conditions are as good for the new Moon TAC potluck next Saturday as they were last night.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Dec 04, 2004 11:51:04 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 22, 2005 11:26:24 PT