by Bob Jardine
Four of us were there -- the head honcho Dino gatekeeper (Albert) and three prospective Jr. gatekeepers (myself, Jamie, and Guillermo). We were there for observing and gatekeeper training (and swearing in ceremony).
It was an excellent night. Clear, cold but not too cold, and dry; no dew. The only problem was that the seeing wasn’t so hot -- it ranged from bad to fair, but mostly stuck on mediocre.
I observed with my Albert-designed-and-built LTD 17.5. Mars was going to be a primary target, but the seeing didn’t allow for much detail. I also hunted several Herschel-2 list objects, mostly in the Perseus, Taurus, Orion regions.
Jamie and I finished off the night at about 02:00 with eye candy in Orion. M42, M43, NGCs 1980, 1991 (the one with the kidney-shaped hole in it). Very cool.
Some details below.
| Venus | high and bright nekked eye; pretty large, quite thin crescent in scope (9mm). Swimming. Can just barely detect the crescent shape in 15X80 IS binocs. |
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| 67 Asia | asteroid currently in Cetus -- Early in the evening, I found 2 “stars” not on the chart I made, which goes down to mag 13.3. Pretty close together, both dim, but one brighter than the other. Asia is supposed to be around mag 12, probably the brighter of the two. Checked back 2.5 hours later; sure enough, one of the two had moved, because the gap between them was clearly smaller, although it was difficult to tell which one had moved. (The next day, I found that the other star was indeed a mag 13.5 star, just missed the cutoff on my chart.) |
| Mars | took a look around 7:30; seeing was a little soft. Syrtis Major was obvious West of the CM, and a long broad band of darkness stretched East from there, ending in a fork about “1/2 way” between the CM and the East limb. Probably Mare Serpentis and Sinus Sabaeus. No other detail seen. (Used 286X and Orange filter.) Checked back around 11:45 and the seeing was worse; nothing but a slightly darker roundish blob in the center of the bright disk. |
| Cr 65 | OC, Taurus -- observed in binocs while hopping to my first NGC object of the night. Large, bright cluster in binocs, reasonably well defined. Almost fills the 10X50 FOV. |
| NGC 1746/1750/1758 | OCs, Taurus -- These three open clusters overlap; the combined thing is easily seen in binocs; it is even on the TAC Eye Candy List (1746). A medium size, partly-resolved smudge. In the scope, it was easy to find -- showed well in the finder. Fits more-or-less into the 35mm Panoptic FOV. Very large and bright. 1/2 dozen or more very bright stars (mags 7-8). A pretty good equilateral triangle of bright stars to the SE and 2 more bright ones to the NE. An interesting chain of N/S stars near the NW edge (of mixed mags). The overall combined clusters appear to have many stars with varying mags. The borders of the combined clusters are reasonably clear -- there are distinctly fewer stars outside the field when panning around. Aside from the very bright stars, there are two concentrations of dimmer stars inside this large cluster. These are probably 1750 and 1758. |
| NGC 1746 | OC, Taurus -- The three clusters are not labeled separately on the HB atlas, but I had brought a finder chart (from SNP) showing all three. I ignored the sizes of the objects plotted by SNP, but the center coordinates seemed accurate. NGC 1746 is the largest of the three, spanning the entire “combined” cluster. Large and bright. 35 Pan. |
| NGC 1750 | OC, Taurus -- I think this is the larger of the two smaller clusters overlaid on 1746 (based on position). It is an elongated (2:1, N/S) oval like a letter C or a G with opening to the East. There is a nice wide even double just inside the arc that forms the SW edge of the C. (17mm) |
| NGC 1758 | OC, Taurus -- I think this is the smaller of the two smaller clusters overlaid on 1746 (based on position). It is also a letter G shape, open to the NE. Smaller and with dimmer stars than 1750, but still pretty well resolved, even at this medium power (118X). |
| NGC 1579 | nebula, Perseus -- Pretty easy to spot in the 17 mm, just E (or NE?) of a chart/finder star. Using 9mm (222X), tried three filters (VHT, NPB, Ultrablock). None helps. Forms a nearly equilateral triangle with 2 stars of mag 9 or so. Shape is uncertain; the edges are not well defined; not obviously circular; does not look like a PN. No color seen (grey). |
| NGC 1624 | nebula, Perseus -- 17mm; pretty obvious little wedge cluster at the right location with a suspicious glow around it -- either nebulosity or unresolved stars. An ultrablock filter helps show that this glow is nebulosity. The cluster is about 1/2 dozen dim stars, small, pretty well resolved. About 3:1 wedge shape. Nebulosity also appears to conform to this wedge shape. |
At about 9:30, I did a limiting magnitude check in Perseus triangle. 10, 11, and sometimes 12 stars seen at various times. About mag 5.6 to 5.8. It seemed darker than that.
| NGC 1587, 1588, 1589 | galaxies, Taurus -- 2 obvious puffs of light in the same FOV (17mm). At higher power (222X), the southern of these two puffs splits into two quite close (a couple of arcminutes). In the 7mm (286X), the close pair comprises a larger one on the West (1587?); this one is roundish with brighter center. The Eastern one (1588?) is elongated slightly (N/S) and both smaller and dimmer than the Western one. Also slightly brighter center. The Northern one of the three (1589) is a full 9mm FOV to the N. It is elongated roughly N/S; not much brighter center. |
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| NGC 2112 | OC, Orion -- Pretty obvious grouping/asterism here of about 10 stars forming a little dipper shape. Well resolved. These 10 stars have approximately equal magnitudes; there is also a scattering of dimmer ones. Is this the cluster? |
| NGC 2339 | gal, Gemini -- Pretty easy to see in the 17mm in a pretty rich, but not distinctive, star field in Eastern Gem. 9mm (222X): roundish, maybe a hint of elongation; pretty large, pretty bright; not brighter center. |
| M78 | nebula, Orion -- Stopped by here for some eye candy on the way to NGC 2071. Two stars with a large bright nebula surrounding them and extending to the SE. Quite large and bright. Shows in finder. VHT and NPB filters don't help. |
| NGC 2071 | nebula, Orion -- Just N of M78 are a pair of chart/finder stars; there is a pretty obvious nebula around the SE star of this pair. Nebula surrounds the star and also extends a bit SE of it. No glow around the other star. Much smaller and dimmer than M78, but not at all difficult to see. VHT and NPB filters do not help. |
| NGC 1990 | fantasy nebula, Orion -- I returned to this (non) object just for fun one more time after several ambiguous attempts last year. There is a perfectly obvious glow around this star (the center belt star), just like around the other three belt stars. Large, blue-white, perfectly round, with a nice, uniform drop-off in intensity. We've talked about this on TAC before. I see no reason to suspect a nebula here, because of the nearly identical bloom around all three belt stars. However, it is definitely an observable phenomenon, at least on this occasion. |
| NGC 2710, 2182 | two nebulae, Monoceros -- DNF. I suspect nebulosity around one star (in the 17mm), but is that one of them? Unfortunately, I didn't have a sufficiently good chart for this area. |
Posted on sf-bay-tac Dec 10, 2005 18:28:41 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 16, 2006 22:40:41 PT