Saturday night Peak, DDK breaks 1,000

by Jamie Dillon

Jane and Jay Critchfield and Peter Natscher and I were on Ranger Row for the sake of Liam's Scout troop, who camped out at Doe Flat, on the next hill north of the Observatory. The whole park was laid in with telescopes - in front of the Observatory, on Coulter and at the SW lot, maybe 17 scopes in all. And there were sure people out, camped all over the park for the warm New Moon night.

My DSO log went over 1,000 objects. 1,002 now. Yes I know this is pocket change compared to the heavy hitters around here, but it was a watershed for me. Jay Freeman da Deepsky Weasel used to get publicly excited when he hit number goals, so I figure it's OK to go on some. Each object in that log has a written description.

Saw some real interesting objects, including the new comet, galaxies, open clusters, a reflection nebula, an emission nebula, and a couple of planetaries. By the time Liam and I rolled down the hill after saying goodnight to Jay C, around 0330, with the mane of Leo well up, it had been a plenty satisfying night.

Highlights - started with this DeepMap galaxy I'd had on the to-see list all summer, ngc 7507 in Sculptor. There's a funny little cautionary tale there, for later. 7507 has a very bright nucleus surrounded by a bright dense core. Face-on, round halo with twirls. Right around the core the arms formed a ring. 7523 is just to the East; they form an actual pair.

7023 is a reflection nebula in Cepheus that Matthew Marcus had showed me from Coe last month. Interesting object. Right around the central star it looked just like dewed optics. The nebula will show tendrils.

7640 is a BP galaxy, recommended by Mark Wagner a while back. Cool edge-on framed by 4 stars. Long with mottling along the body.

This was all with Felix, a Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with optics made by Discovery Telescopes. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians and a TV 2x Barlow, with a Lumicon OIII and an Orion Ultrablock. Finished the night with IC 418, a planetary that was mentioned by Kent Blackwell once upon a time. Showed a bright disk at 126x. At 210x it blinked, where with very direct vision only the central star was visible, and with averted vision the disk jumped out and just about hid the star. At that magnification it showed some structure in the disk, so on went the Barlow. At 420x I saw two interlocking rings, like a pretzel aligned SE-NW. Real interesting object.

After getting all packed up, was looking at the stars to the South, Fornax sitting right there. Said to myself, "That star in Eridanus above the ridge might just be Acamar." Sure enough it was. An important star for southern navigators, at -40 dec.

Fun night all around. Real good sky, lovely weather, good company, smart Boy Scouts, cool objects in the eyepiece.