by Bob Jardine
Jamie Dillon and I went to Dino on Friday. Conditions were good. Weather report called for 30% or more clouds, but it was completely clear, although pretty cold; no wind. Seeing was fair to good all night. There was some atmospheric moisture, and dew threatened; actually, it more than threatened -- it got charts and eyeglasses left on the table wet, but was never much of a problem on the optics. Mid evening, I got a count of 11 stars in the Gemini triangle, 12 if I wanted to be optimistic. That's 5.9 or 6.1.
As it got dark, I noticed a huge Zodiacal light rising up out of the Western light dome. Through Pisces into Aries. As it darkened, this triangle of light extended up slightly past Mars and nearly to the Pleiades. Always a treat. Then I did a few Herschel-2 objects in Monoceros and other eye candy in that area. And, of course, Saturn for desert. I observed with my 12.5” Mag1 Portaball (f/5).
We packed up around midnight -- not long after a big orange half ball peeked over the hill just south of the dam.
| NGC 2169 | OC, Ori -- The “37” cluster -- always a treat. |
|---|---|
| NGC 2264 | OC, Mon -- The Christmas Tree cluster -- also a favorite. This was visible without optical aid. After gawking at it for awhile, I used it as a starting point for hopping to my H-2 objects. |
| NGC 2259 | OC, Mon -- Easy location near a finder chart star just north of the tree. 176X: just a pretty small, pretty dim smudge with a hint of resolution; well, actually, the three brightest stars on the North edge resolve at this mag; others give a grainy appearance to the smudge. 226X: about 1 dozen stars resolve; irregular shape; no color jumps out. |
| NGC 2392 | PN, Gem -- Eskimo Nebula. Was doing a limiting mag count in Gemini anyway, so why not do some eye candy there? 226X -- very nice! lots of mottling around the very prominent central star. Roundish, pretty big and bright. Two concentric rings of light with fuzzy, indistinct, edges. I kept imagining I saw the clown face, but I’m sure that was just suggestion, since I’ve seen the picture so many times. But the mottling was quite obvious. |
| NGC 2261 | Neb, Mon -- Hubble’s Variable Nebula; more eye candy, but also an H-2 object. Definite triangular or fan shape, with star at one apex (South, I think; anyway, the narrowest angle of the triangle). Medium small and pretty bright. Neither UHC nor Ultrablock filter helped much. Viewed at both 176x and 226x. The northern edge of the triangle is less distinct than the other two edges. |
| NGC 2269 | OC, Mon -- This one took awhile to hop to, even though it isn’t too far due East of the Rosette. Quite small, dim. Shows weakly in the 35mm as a glow, elongated roughly N/S. 176x: 8-10 stars, roughly N/S plus about 1/2 dozen more stars scattered irregularly around that “central bar”. One star in the center bar is somewhat brighter than the others. |
Saturn was nice desert. Using the tracking platform, I was able to crank it up to 317x. Seeing was pretty good. There were several gradations in the S. hemisphere bands. Suspected something suspicious in the outer ring, but I won’t claim the Enke minimum.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 22, 2006 13:54:36 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 02, 2006 21:30:44 PT