MB 1/23/06

by George Feliz

I got out to Montebello Monday night in the brief break in the weather. I took Jeeves (a homebuilt 8", f/5 dob). There were 2 other observers - Vadim who toiled with a setup for imaging with an 80mm achromat using an old-fashioned camera with film (!), and Mike who had an XT8 (8", f/6 dob) and a TV85 refractor. Mike left around 10pm and Vadim stayed until about 11:40 when we both left.

The skies were clear, but not so transparent, even though it was dry all night. There was a breeze which would have affected using high power, except the skies only supported about 110x (9mm Nagler type 6). The seeing was generally pretty poor. I could see "E" in the trapezium, but not constantly and "F" was no-go. Later in the evening with Saturn high, the Cassini division was wavering in-and-out, so this was definitely sub-par for MB.

With all that complaining about the skies, it was still a Fun night and I mostly hunted DeepMap600 open clusters in CMa, Mon and Pup. I bagged 20 new-for-me open clusters, and two DM600 doubles that I had neglected - Theta Eri and h3945. Throw in the usual eye candy and Messiers and it was a well-spent 4-5 hours.

A highlight was NGC 2477 which is a rich OC in a class with M37, but at -37degrees declination is handicapped by being so low. If it were higher it would be a well known eye-candy object.

The wide double h3945 in CMa near NGC 2362 looked blue and yellow to me, although there could have been some atmospheric refraction effects. It was an unexpected treat - a poor man's winter Alberio.

Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 26, 2006 14:23:29 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 05, 2006 20:19:46 PT