by William Cone
First, I'll say that it was an interesting night, full of ups and downs...literally. I have never encountered this level of dew, moisture, frost, and general dampness before. More to come on that. I'm not sure what got me onto looking for it, but the Merope nebula in the Pleiades was first on my list. My thinking was..."why not?" It's around zenith, the moon won't be up for hours...Go for it! I think all those hours reading archived observing reports in bad weather has a way of further whetting the appetite: "So and so saw it. I want to see it too!" I've read enough observing reports on nebulosity in the Pleiades that often question it's presence visually, as it often manifests itself as a fairly even glow
around a bright star, resembling the effect of slight condensation on optics. Suffice it to say, that my first attempts to observe anything were defeated by dew. The view through the finder was better than the eyepiece. Was it the seeing? I turned the scope to Orion and moved in on Trapezium. Dim and vague. I put in a 4 mm eyepiece, and could not even find focus. In fact my focuser had so much moisture on it, it began to slip when racking it out. What the heck? I shined my red flashlight on the secondary, and there was the culprit: a beautifully diffuse elliptical glare from the dew covered surface. It was going to be a battle of man and moisture. So be it!
I requisitioned a blow dryer and extension cord and blasted the secondary, finderscope, and telrad. One of the benefits of backyard observing is the power supply. Aahh. much better. Back at it.
10" f 4.5 reflector, eyepieces used: 32, 24 mm plossl, 15mm panoptic, 9mm Nagler, 5mm lanthanum, 4mm burgess planetary, orion shorty barlow.
Trapezium was steady at 229x and showed 6 stars cleanly, the 'E' and 'F' stars (so designated by the Sky Atlas 2000 companion) were readily apparent. This was good news.
m45: Back to the 7 Sisters. The only apparent nebulosity to my eye was around Alcyone, not Merope, and it had the same
condensation-like glow that made me less than certain I was seeing anything but that. An 0lll filter did not help.
Being a glutton for punishment, I went after m1 and m78, and failed to find both. I have observed both of these objects
in the last month, so this was frustrating to be shut out. I noticed that dew was continuing it's creep, onto my eyepieces, glasses, finderscope, secondary...AAAArgh!
Since the seeing was steady, and I was floundering on the dim stuff. I went to Saturn and spent a good 20 minutes tracking it by hand at 285x. Sharp and crisp, standing on edge in the eyepiece, 3 moons close by, and 2 out of the field. Cassini's division was clean all the way around the ring. The outer ring had a noticeably darker value, though I couldn't cleanly divide it visually into smaller components. The innermost edge of the ring also darkens near it's edge.
The body of Saturn has at times looked to me like the discolored yolk of a hard-boiled egg. That strange yellowish-grey tone. The upper lattitudes had that warm grey quality, though there seemed to be a slight tan colored zone above the equator, the lower hemisphere seeming overall whiter in character. I could not see the storm that was mentioned the other day.
At 570x, it was big, and a little soft, though Cassini's division was good. No more detail to be seen.
I don't get tired of something this outrageous, beautiful, large, and unique. I put in a 32mm plossl and picked up some of the beehive cluster in the field. The widefield views give the beautiful context and scale relationships of these objects. They float like various glowing plankton in the dark ocean of the sky.
Time for another zap of the blowdryer, and back to the dimmer things.
Well not too dim yet:
m67: oc, Cancer. Nice grey patch in the finder scope, 2 degrees W. of Acubens. Good eye candy at 35x at the eyepiece. Star chains, dark patches...a worthy object.
m48: This is a large, somewhat undistinguished open cluster about 10 degrees SE of Canis Minor, in Hydra. I had overlooked it in my last few viewing sessions down in Puppis and Canis Major (ngc 2362, yeah! DDK was right!). I just wanted to get it out of the way, and go look for some galaxies. There are some beautiful open clusters in the sky, distinguished by their star chains, asterisms, beautiful contrasting star colors(ngc 2169), density(m37), or their proximity with other interesting objects(m46-ngc 2438 & m35-ngc 2158). m48 is NOT one of these clusters. I'll go back though, and visit it again sometime and see if I can embrace it with a more open mind.
I dried the optics again and managed to locate and observe the following galaxies:
m96 & m95: Irregular, tilted with respect to each other, glowing brighter at their centers. Can't
pull more detail out of them yet. More study (and darker skies) needed.
m105 & ngc 3384: I could not see ngc 3389 which should have been in the same field
m65, m66, ngc 3628: This is a beautiful trio. I appreciate the edge on galaxies for their distinctive shape. They
are ghostly streaks, vague erasures of the dark, or more evident shafts of light with texture. I think their oblique character can make them easier to see as well. 3628 appears as a long, faint streak running at a slight angle between two stars, NE of m65 and 66.
I am in the habit of removing my eyeglasses from time to time to view through the eyepiece. I had left my eyeglasses on the charts, and now they were covered with dew. My eyepiece, when I left it to look at the charts, was misted over when I got back. My observing chair has the seat that binds to the posts through weight, yet, the posts were so wet, that I had already twice crashed to the deck. Aah, the elegance and beauty of the night sky.....
Messing in the Queen's hair:
My first time over the border into this region with a good chart and finderscope.
m98: Bingo! Nicely elongated nw-se, about .5 degree W. of '6' in Coma Berenices
m99: .5 degrees SW of '6'. Larger, rounder, no elongation.
m100: There it was, and where was the Supernova? I was battling the dew again.
I blew off the dew and got the lay of the land a bit better. m100 sits in an equilateral triangle of stars,
with an irregular star chain running across the triangle between the galaxy and the northern tip of the triangle. I sketched it to check it later with Richard's photo. I'll be back!
m85: Round!
Dew again..
Well, my soggy scholarship is working, but I'm not seeing a lot of detail. It was around midnight. The bottom handle of the dipper was up high.
My only view of m51 was years ago, and very dim, through an 80mm refractor.
m51 & ngc 5195: This one popped out nicely at first glance. I felt like I was looking at a snowman, or 2 buttons of different sizes...2 glowing circles of light, neatly stacked. With patience, and averted imagination, I could sense the greater expanse of m51, though I could not see spiral structure. Worthy of more study on a drier night.
m81 and 82: Old friends. A great pair. The dew was killing me though. I'd seen clearer views other nights.
I had frost on my eyepiece box, ice on the truss tubes, the deck was slippery as a banana peel, my observing chair had dumped me twice, and my feet had gotten cold...time to call it a night. Wet and clumsy, but rewarding nonetheless.
One thing that always gets me is how much I am missing. When I go back the next day with my notes and look at the charts, and NSOG, I am generally stupefied at the abundance of other objects that didn't even cross my mind
when I was out there. I gotta write better observing programs. Tonight is looking good. Hopefully drier.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Feb 20, 2006 13:20:02 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 27, 2006 20:24:07 PT