Peak Thursday 31 March, DDK wraps ECL

by Jamie Dillon

Last Thursday night I got to do some of what Richard Navarrete calls renegade astronomy, going out to a fairly remote site on a weeknight. There were two other folks there whom I met for the first time, Jim Molinari and Jeff Justisson. People do come to the Peak from all over. They were at Coulter Row, where I headed for the SW lot, having business in the northern sky.

Overt news is that I finished the Eye Candy List compiled by our own Astro Goddess and Joe Bob, formatted by Jeff Crilly, with rooting and minor input from me. So I've now seen the objects in the Saguaro list, along with Alan Dyer's RASC list that gets into the Observer's Handbook, and the Steve Caron list. Excellent objects across the set.

Most interesting object that night was NGC 3432 in Leo Minor, an easy Telrad hop from nekked eye stars. Looked all spangly at first sight with 3 foreground stars across the galaxy's face. On study, looked like a long rag with a sharp disk and a tuft at the western end. Looking at SkyAtlas Companion, it mentioned a dwarf companion. Sure enough, Uranometria 2000 shows UGC 5983 right where I spotted the tuft. Deepsky Field Guide gives an SB of 14, which makes it plausible in Felix. (Felix is 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.)

Had mentioned this find to Gottlieb, who was curious because NED gives the dwarf a magnitude of around 17. I've decided to claim it, on account of a) I spotted it without expecting it, no averted imagination, b) UM2000 and the DSS picture put the thing right where I saw it, and c) I can believe the DSFG numbers.

The other galaxies in the last 4 of the ECL were all long, mostly edge-on and pretty: 4605 a bright long spindle with lots of mottling in UMa, 3003 in LMi, and 5746 a cool long needle with bright core in the SE corner of Virgo, over the border from M5. Jardine had scratched his head over 3003, and I understood why. In an 11" it didn't look like the (!) it rates in the NGC. Sure enough, NSOG mentions how it benefits from aperture. Hafta mooch a view sometime.

Saturn and Jupiter were both lovely and remarkable. Jupiter had one of those alignments Jan Meeus predicts, with all the Galileans on one side and Ganymede, Io and Callisto on a tight diagonal. The GRS was at the west edge of the disk.

Another noteworthy sight was a close set of 4 galaxies just south of 46 LMi: 3430, 3413, and 3395-6. The last two look as if they're interacting and in fact are.

Sky was OK, with haze overhead and bands of cirrus moving thru, limiting magnitude right at 5.0. Better than in town. Seeing was good, 4/5. Could see the Encke discontinuity 20% of the time at 210x, 6 stars easy in the Trapezium at 126x.

Ended up staring at M5 in its wild ragged beauty. The Peak was quiet with a light breeze in the oaks. Fairly warm and dry. Nice night.

Hope the Terrible Trio have big fun in Oz.

Posted on tac-sac Apr 04, 2005 22:46:17 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Apr 05, 2005 21:15:37 PT