by William K. Foster
We got to see NGC7009, the 'Saturn Nebula', a planetary nebula, through the antique 36" refractor. Apparently it was first discovered by Herschel in 1782 using a scope comparable to the 6" finder on the 36". Looking through the finder, the object could easily be mistaken for a star, unless you look hard and see it is more than just a pin point. Herschel was certainly a keen observer to detect it in such a small scope.
By the time we got to the 40", the seeing had degraded seriously, so looking at M15 was not too impressive (I've seen much better views in much smaller scopes) as it was awash to the point of looking as if it was pretty far out of focus. They were using a 55mm Televue lens. I asked if they had a bino-viewer, and they said they did, but didn't use it on public nights as many viewers would have trouble with it. They said it took the 35mm Televue, but I wonder if such a bino-viewer exists or is usable since the 35's are so wide, the eyepieces would be too far apart for the eyes I suspect. Has anyone had success using 2" eyepieces in a bino-viewer?
Earlier, outside we had a view of Uranus, the duck cluster, M13, and the dumbbell nebula. Uranus had some nice color to it.
We also saw an two iridium flares by chance, one was very bright, the other pretty faint.
To the north, all night, we kept seeing flashes of light beyond the mountain range. Some speculated it was due to testing of bombs. Does anyone know what these flashes were or did anyone else see them from another location?
Posted on sf-bay-tac Sep 10, 2005 09:26:59 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 12, 2006 14:44:18 PT