by Jamie Dillon
This was all in Felix, 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 and a TV 2x Barlow.
First, some more naked eye fu. Got to see the alpha and beta stars in Sagittarius, between -40 and -45 dec. Then the alpha star in Ara at -50. Later at 0130, there I was looking at stars in Microscopium and Telescopium, and at alpha Indi. Never before have I consciously seen anything in Indus. As it turns out, Flagstaff is at around 35.2° north, while Lake San Antonio and Cone Peak are around 35.8 north. Not a huge difference. But seeing stars clearly to the horizon helped, as did having a well informed guide in Brian Skiff.
The two NGC globulars in Lupus were my first DSO's in Lupus, 5986 and 5824. Both easy to find, with plenty resolution by the time they got cranked up to 210x. Then over to Hydra for a globular that's been teasing me on the charts for a while, 5694. Also pretty and bright. Negligible suck factors for all 3.
Even more interesting were the globulars under the tail of Scorpius from the next night. 6388 was bright in the 16mm. In the 10mm it showed a very bright core, with a halo extending in all directions, fading gradually. Was almost granular at 210x in the 6mm. Nil suck factor. Then 6541, off a bit to the East, was bright in the 9x50 finder. Tons of resolution. Bright big core at 210x, with wings extending N-S. Dozens of stars resolving, and a spiral structure to its disk. Beautiful object.
Then its neighbor 6496 provided an interesting contrast. Finding it, I turned right around and re-did the hop, thinking I'd stumbled onto an open cluster. Framed by a miniature Teapot of stars, it looked all squashed and diffuse. 4-5 little stars appeared to averted vision across the cluster, in front of an unresolved background. It's at a similar distance compared to its neighbor, 29,000 ly cf to 23,000. Just apparently squashed.
That leaves one globular in Columba, one in Puppis, and several warning objects, most of which are official SGNB's (Steve Gottlieb Nut Busters). Otherwise I've seen 87 Milky Way globulars, almost all the plausible ones for an 11" scope that are north of -50 dec. 4 Palomars and 1 IC (1276, which also doubles as Pal 7). Clearly need to get to some more seriously southern skies. Skiff, for instance, in person went on and on about 47 Tucanae, how at the center it's a solid field of white, so dense with stars, like no other object we see from Earth.
M51, as I mentioned in part 1, was a knockout that night. Found for the first time a galaxy just south of the Whirlpool, 5198. Tight, compact, looks face-on with swirls and dust. A stellar core showed only 10% of the time at 210x. Then got busy on those Hicksons, using Steve Gottlieb's thoughtful guide in the March '99 Sky and Telescope, where he described the brightest Hicksons and sorted them by minimum aperture. HCG 68 in CVn was easy in Felix, all 5 showing up to direct vision. Even more interesting was The Box, which held up at 420x in a Barlowed 6mm, but was clearest at 252x with Barlow and 10mm. The 4 galaxies really look from here to be in a tight rectangle. 4175, the dimmest of the set, was also clear to direct vision.
All this time, Bill Ferris was going after a Terzan globular, a couple of really dim Palomars, and some Abell planetaries. Acquired, rarified tastes this man has. He did get Palomar 8 for dessert, which is really bright and pretty and in a lovely starfield.
Really hafta go back to this observers' paradise before too very long. Really decent folks, big kid skies.
Posted on tac-sac Jul 19, 2005 02:01:41 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Oct 10, 2005 11:30:37 PT