by Randy Muller
But not getting out in such a long while has a penalty, and this time it was that I forgot to bring my heavy jackets. I had 2 light jackets with me, and fortunately that ended up being enough. Barely.
I met Jake Burkart (a Fiddletown newbie) at the Pokerville Market in Plymouth. He had exressed an interest in going at the last minute, so I arranged to meet him to show him the way in, and we proceeded up the hill to the Fiddletown site. The place was deserted as we arrived around 5pm, and we began setting up. Shortly afterward, Shneor rolled in, completing our happy and expectant triad.
As we set up, and as predicted, we began noticing that it was very dewy. Dew, even heavy dew, is still better than clouds and fog, and it was not unexpected. The transparency was OK, and the seeing was reasonable, but not great. 6 stars could be seen in the Trapezium with my 18" most of the time.
Before it got dark, a couple of friends of the neighbor walked over and visited us. They were friendly and we showed them our telescopes.
My modest goals for the evening were to view the comet and Saturn and continue my Messier survey with my 18".
Comet Machholz (C/2004 Q2) was easily visible to the naked eye about 6 degrees north east of the famous and bright Double Cluster in Perseus. No tail was visible, but the coma was easy to see as a nebulous object, about the same brightness as the Double Cluster. This was the brightest comet I've seen since Hale-Bopp, back before the turn of the century, in '97.
10x50 binoculars showed a tiny, but well-defined and fairly bright 20 arcminute tail pointing roughly north-east. The coma was large and elongated, as I had seen it a couple weeks ago.
In my 18", I varied the magnification between 86x (26mm Sirius Ploessl) and 301x (7.5 Sirius Ploessl) to examine different aspects of the comet. With the 18", the tail grew to be about 51 arcminutes (viewed at 86x). The coma was about 8 or 9 arcminutes in diameter, and contained a tiny central condensation that was not quite point-like.
At 301x, I looked in vain for streams or "hoods" emanating from the nucleus, which I had heard reports of. Hale-Bopp had such streams, and it's the only comet I've ever seen that had them.
Saturn was spectacular, as usual. 6 satellites (and one mag 11 field star masquerading as a satellite) were visible: Titan, Japetus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Enceladus. Japetus was nearly as bright as Titan, but very far away from Saturn's disk, so it wasn't obviously a planet, until I checked SkyMap. Mimas was right near Tethys, and may have been visible with more effort.
The South Equatorial Belt was prominent, as was the Cassini Division in the rings.
Saturn is my favorite planet. The closeup photos that the Cassini satellite is returning are stunning. The photos of the descent of Huygens to Titan were incredible. And I'm looking at it live from a cold hill-top from Earth.
I've done several Messier surveys with my 10" dob, but never one with my 18", so I am slowly working my way through the sky. I grabbed M78, M79 and M35 (with its attendant sub-cluster, NGC 2158) to continue my survey. I only have a group of 15 or so left in Coma-Virgo to go.
The Great Nebula in Orion (M42) was gorgeous, as usual. I also looked at this through Shneor's 22", and the colors were a bit richer. Using the binoviewer, it had a serious 3D look to it.
Shneor also shared his view of the Fornax galaxy cluster in the neighborhood of NGC 1399 and 1404, and it was thrilling to see all the galaxies. I had heard people (Jay Freeman, Steve Gottlieb and Jamie Dillon) talk about this before, but I had never gazed on it myself, since it's soooo low.
But the view was definitely worth it. This thing must be simply amazing from the Southern Hemisphere. As I panned around, galaxies were coming into view as fast as they were going out of view, just like they do in "Downtown Virgo".
The 22" sure collects a lot of light! I think I'm starting to get a fever.
At about 9:45 pm, the east started brightening with moonrise. I talked to Shneor about his trip to New Zealand as the moon rose. Then we began packing up.
All in all, a short, productive, fun, cold, clammy and clear night!
| Observer | Randy Muller |
|---|---|
| Date | January 29, 2005 5pm-10:00pm (Jan 30, 01:00-06:00 UT) |
| Location | Near Fiddletown, CA |
| Elevation | 2565 ft |
| Instrument | Starmaster 18" f/4.3 dob-newt |
| Eyepieces | 7.5, 10, 17, 26mm Sirius Plossls; 1.15x Tele Vue Paracorr |
| Seeing | 6/10; Average; 6 stars in Trap *most* of the time |
| Transparency | 6/10; Fair |
Posted on tac-sac Feb 01, 2005 00:13:39 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 01, 2005 00:16:13 PT