CalStar 06

by Jay Critchfield

12.5" f/6 dob, (v2 finished just in time for CalStar) Very please with how it works.

32mm Plossl, 22mm Lanthum, 13mm Lanthum, 9x50 raci, Telrad

My goal for the weekend was to get in some time behind the eyepiece learning my way around. Jamie had answered my cry for star hopping help earlier but he wasn't due until Friday so I was on my own Thursday night. I had done some home work and printed out several finder charts in Astroplanner based on the Deep Map 600 list along with several double stars.

The kids were tired and went to bed about 9:30. Jane spent some time with the C8 while I looked over my charts and worked out the constellation patterns I'd be looking in. Over the next couple of hours I was able to track down the following objects.

M31, 32 & 110

Okay these weren't too hard since Albert Highe had shown me these at Coe the week before.

M57, M39, M29

NGC 869 & 884

NGC 6866, 457, 654 and 6934

Feeling pretty good about my progress I decided to break out the Mag6 atlas. I picked M74 as my first target from the atlas. This turned out to be my undoing. I spent the better part of an hour trying to locate M74 with no luck. I thought this would be fairly easy being so close to the Eta star.

I spent the rest of the evening shooting doubles

Mu Cep

Iot Cas

Sig Cas

Achird

Alberio

Double double

9/22/06 12.5" dob, 32mm Plossl, 22mm Lanthum, 13mm Lanthum, 9x50 raci, Telrad

Much of Friday was spent down by the lake dozing under a tree while Jane and the kids swam in the lake. It's a good 10 degrees cooler there and made for a pleasant afternoon. As twilight approached I headed over to the dark side and found Jamie talking with Rob Hawley. Jamie and Carl (Long?) sorry if I got that wrong) walked over to see where our campsite was located and meet my family. Jamie said he would come by later as they headed back to the dark side. I spent the first part of the evening with my son (11) talking about and tracing out some of the constellations. He was most interested in the family's birth constellations of which only 2 were visible.

Jamie soon appeared and we set about hunting down M74. As it turned out I had missed the hop from Aries the night before and was looking next to the wrong star in Pisces. With Jamie's help we soon had M74 in the eyepiece.

Next was M15, a remarkable Globular

Jane brought up she wasn't able to discern dark nebula from surrounding darkness. Jamie centered up the scope on a cluster whose identification escapes me (a little help here Jamie) showing islands of stars surrounded by dark, much like the darkness of neighborhood streets at night as seen from the air.

Jamie headed back to the dark side and I decided to spend the rest of the evening exploring Cetus using the Mag6 and SA2000 atlases.

Successful finds for the night

M77

NGC 1055, 584, 908, 246, 247, 1090, 1087, 1084, 1052, 1042

The most fun of the night was NCG 936, 941 & 955. These three galaxies are nestled near star 75 (not sure if there is another name for it) close to Mira. On the SA2k atlas the three galaxies lie between a triangle of mag 7 - 7.5 stars. In this little area I learned a lot about the scale of the stars between the finder scope and the eyepiece. At first I was looking at a triangular set of stars I thought was the correct set but I could not find any galaxies. After going back and forth from the EP to the atlas I realized the set of stars I wanted were about 1deg apart and I was looking at a set about 15' apart. As soon as I made this connection I was easily able to find all three galaxies. 941 was the highlight. For a mag 12.4 galaxy it was incredibly bright. At first I thought it was a nebula as I could not see the central core or any structure yet there is no nebula shown on the atlas. It wasn't until I found a picture on the web that I confirmed it was indeed a galaxy. I definitely want to revisit 941 and see how much detail can be pulled out.

Unsuccessful objects

NGC 908, 1035,

M-3-1-15 (anyone know where I can find a description of this)

9/22/06

The evening started with my daughter (9) taking us on a tour of the heavens with the C8-ASGT. I set her up in tour mode and she called out the objects as she selected them with the hand controller. Globulars received the most oohs and awes whereas the stars were rapidly passed over. That is until I pointed out that some were actually double stars. Then they received more respect. Great fun.

Tonight was Aquarius's turn. With as spread out as Aquarius is it proved to be a challenge just to find the right stars to start my hops from. The water jar, while being the easiest pattern to locate in the sky, is not represented well on the Mag6 atlas. For the life of me I could not find it. I finally had to go ask Jamie to point it out. The different in size between a mag 4 and mag 5 star is so great on the Mag6 atlas I couldn't see the pattern.

Successful objects on the night.

M2, M72 NGC 7009, 7277, 7723, 7585, 7600, 7600

Unsuccessful objects of the night

M73- I probably saw it but I didn't know what it looked like NGC 6941, 6962, 7721

Jamie came by about 1:30am to see how I was doing. At that time I was getting tired and having no luck on 7721 so I called it a night.

I didn't take the time to come by and meet very many people, something I need to do.

Jay Critchfield