Coe: Food, fun, and fog

by Bill Cone

Optics all around the lot began collecting dew sometime after 9, finders, and then secondaries. By 10 we all called it a night, as the fog surrounded us, then rapidly extinguished everything all the way to Zenith. It was like being at the bottom of a grey felt sack, as the drawstring was being pulled tight.

I had a few rewarding views of objects in Mariposa, my new 18" Plettstone, before getting shut down. Interestingly, my exposed secondary stayed relatively dry much longer than some shrouded secondaries. A slight breeze may have helped evaporate moisture. Or maybe a cleaner optic attracts less moisture. My 8 x 50 finder, and rigel were soaked by the end of the night.

Comet Swan: Laying about 2/3 of the way from Arcturus to Alkaid, the star at the end of the handle of the Big Dipper, this was visible in my finderscope. 62x at the eyepiece revealed a bright core with a good halo, and a faint tail running to the North East, about 1/4 of the field....15' or so. This was viewed at dusk, with pretty washed out skies and murk. Nice to see visitors to parts of the sky that otherwise stay the same.

M30: GC, Capricorn: This is a ragged looking glob, characterized by 2 bright strings of 3 stars each, marching away from the center into the NW quadrant. I can't tell if they are field stars or not. At 242x, there is a bright yellow star in the same field (20'), leading it to the West. At 311x, the glob is very granular with a bright core.This is a messy, assymetrical object to my eyes. Unnofficially, M30 is the second to the last of my Messier objects. However, in going over my notes, I found that my early "logs" were lists scribbled on the backs of little schedule cards I used to find in my pocket after work. Though they make some sense to me, I'm going to go back and re-log everything all the way through Virgo, in a more rational, legible fashion. And once I've logged them all, I'm going to back over the next few years and leisurely draw all the one's that merit it.

Neptune and Triton. I was compelled to revisit this one. The finder chart I printed out put Triton in a similar spot as the last time I visited it. Triton orbits Neptune in almost 6 days, so it moves about 60 degrees a night, relative to Neptune. Under Coe's darker skies, Triton was easily seen with direct vision at 311x, leading Neptune into the west, just a hair south of the ecliptic. Neptune itself was much brighter, a beautiful blue green, and showed a fairly sharp disc.

ngc 7293; Helix Nebula, PN, Aquarius. With an 0III filter and a 35 Panoptic, the Helix floated in a dark field of pinpoint stars, a glowing, soft edged circle with a darker center, and concentrated areas of brightness around the ring, darkening on the northwest side. At 145x, it was quite large, though getting dimmer. Mark Wagner mentioned the arm that sweeps up from the East side, curling over the northern rim.... Next time! This is a magnificent object, and worthy of more study, but the skies were disappearing, and I wanted to look at some other objects.

I started studying the Sculptor area... I'll call it that, because the fog was rapidly extinguishing any stars southeast of Formalhaut. I had trouble orienting myself. Forget ngc 55. I found, and logged ngc 24, but it was so dim, I felt like I was back in Moraga with my 10"! I looked at ngc 253 through Jeff Justeson's 18", and it was large, but even dimmer than ngc 24. Cetus, a whale, was swallowed up by something even bigger and more ominous, right while I was looking at it. The night was over.

Thanks to Mark for bringing the grill, all the other folks who brought tasty food and wine. Hopefully next weekend will bring some better weather.

-Bill Cone