by Matthew Marcus
There was only one other person besides me. Kent brought his C8 Fastar, so I had simultaneously the biggest and smallest scope on the field. We traded views until he left around midnight. I stayed till about 4. I'm guessing that everyone else was either at SSP or 'observed out' after the Comet Crash.
While waiting for the sky to get properly dark, we looked at the moon, Venus and Jupiter. The moon was a thin crescent, which I think is its prettiest phase. Venus is still small and gibbous. Jupiter showed decent, but not spectacular seeing. Epsilon Lyr showed a clean split with intermittent Airy rings on all four stars.
I had three things I particularly wanted to do: Check out the comet to see if it was still relatively bright a week after impact, check out the SN in M51 to see if I could tell it for sure from a field star, and redo my logging of Jones 1, for which my logsheet got so smudged that I couldn't see what, if anything I had drawn. I ran 2/3. The comet was relatively easy to find compared to last week. However, I couldn't really estimate brightness because there were no galaxies or other fuzzies anywhere near. I think it might have been brighter, but I can't be sure. I did not see a central bright spot such as had appeared after impact, so I assume that this has spread out. M51 showed nicely, but I could not see the star I saw last week which others ID'd as the SN. I did see a known field star. I'll describe Jones 1 later.
Kent and I started with the 'Summer planetaries and more' list in the August S&T. I didn't go for 6742 (should have tried, even though it's 13.4m), but did go for and find 6751, 6712 and IC1295, all of which I had previously logged. Kent found the carbon stars V Aql and T Lyr, both of which were impressively red, and 6572, a fluorescent-green PN in Oph. Of course, since we were in the Scutum area for much of that list, we did not neglect M11! In fact, it made a handy signpost for starhopping. We also took a break and got M13 (it was overhead; how could we not?) and the galaxy nearby, 6207(?) and a couple of other bits of eye candy.
Then I went for some serious logging. I seemed to be doing well in terms of spotting faint stuff, so I took the opportunity to go for some gaps in my records. First up were three PK PNs in Aquila. PK36-1.1 showed a small round disk, while PK47-4.1 and PK52-4.1 were both stellar at 250x and had to be blinked with an OIII to be identified.
6717 is a small GC in Sagittarius, right next to a bright star. It reminded me of 404 in that respect. Unlike 404, there was a hint of resolution. I could see distinct mottling ('salt&pepper'). Emboldened by this success in the lower reaches of Sgr, I found 6835, a galaxy. It seemed odd to find a galaxy in Sgr, but this is in the easternmost reaches, by the Cap border, so I guess it's out of the Milky Way's own dust lanes.
6596 is an OC in a rich star-field. I had to take NSOG's word for it that the oval ring of stars was indeed an OC and not just a chance conglomeration along our line of sight. Pretty, anyway.
Continuing in Sgr, I picked up a pair of RNs, 6589-90 and 6595. At low power, there was a distinct 'headlights through fog' effect. Higher power reveals that one of them surrounds an equal-brightness double and the other, fainter nebula surrounds a brighter, single star. That star is actually double as well, but I wasn't sure I saw the secondary.
Then I went to the area around Edasich in Draco, as suggested by the July S&T (or was it Astro?). This is good galaxy country. I picked up a few objects I'd already logged and some I hadn't. The galaxy pair 5905+5908 was first up. 5908 is a small edge-on pointing to a star, and I drew 5905 as a generic blob.
5879 is an interesting galaxy. At first sight, it looks like an edge-on splinter. Then, you notice that the splinter is enclosed in a round halo. This effect was noted in NSOG, which I read after drawing and describing it in my log.
5981/5982/5985 is a trio of differently-shaped galaxies. 5981 is the faintest, at 13.1m, and is edge-on. The brightest is 5982, which is round with a visible core. 5985 is an elongated fuzz. I liked seeing these different shapes together in one field.
My last logged object was the aforementioned Jones 1 (also a PK object), a big, dim PN in Pegasus. To see it, I had to use an OIII filter and my lowest-power 1.25" eyepiece (I don't have a 2" OIII) in order to get enough light and contrast. It didn't help that Peg was only halfway up to the meridian. Still, I could see the annular shape with brigher patches at opposite sides. NSOG describes it as looking like polar caps.
After that, I got quick looks at various favorites including the Veil, M31, M33, 7331, Stephan's Quintet and Mars.
What a night! I logged more new objects than I had in a long time, and didn't have to put on my skisuit to do it.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jul 10, 2005 16:42:19 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Sep 28, 2005 20:29:43 PT