by Rob Jaworski
Going after my thirteenth M object in my week-old quest for all the Messier objects, I decided I had a pretty good view of Aquila, down to Scutum, and of course, Cygnus, wings outstretched, soaring overhead.
Since Friday night at Houge, in my view, was more or less a bust, I was happy that Saturday night was much better, with much less wispiness and streaks of clouds that only allowed for quick, 2-minute views of objects at a time.
Speaking of conditions, I noticed that on Saturday night, looking at a cluster with low power yielded a pretty crisp view. However, once I started to crank the magnification up, that same cluster would begin to display some 'fog-iness' in and around it, as though my eyepiece was fogging up (don't think it was). Looking at this page: http://sat.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/4km/WR/WV4.GIF I want to attribute this phenomenon to the seeemingly high amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, but I'm not sure since I don't know what I'm talking about.
If you'll recall my confusion between M11 and M26 the previous week at Calstar, I wanted to take another gander there and definitely end any such mix ups. No problem. Using position this time rather than someone else's descriptions. Good.
Now time to bag another object. M39 looked like an interesting target. I scanned the area for this loose and big cluster and think I had it. I studied it for a while, noting the shape and location, and was pretty confident this was it. Went back to the book to re-read up on it again, and the photo there was exactly what I had been looking at. That was an unexpected nice little treat!
Here's what I wrote in my log about M39: This collection of stars was fairly bright, but not so much as to stand out dramatically when scanning the sky in search of it. What gives it distinction is the very obvious shape of an equilateral triangle. The object is indeed large, fitting nicely in a lower-power eyepiece with a larger apparent field of view. O'Meara's mention of a double star at its heart is accurate, and there are many of what seem to be double stars. After spending some time observing this object, once I was confident I had positively identified it as M39, I began to imagine seeing some sort of alien fighter spacecraft, with the apparent double star just outside the triangle to the north being the craft's aft thruster or exhaust. This was an enjoyable object to view, and the pictures I've seen of it are spot on to what I was seeing in the eyepiece.
Sure was a nice night!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Oct 10, 2005 16:28:42 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 14, 2006 21:00:43 PT
