Peak Wednesday night

by Jamie Dillon

Spent a chunk of time watching Jupiter, up to 250x. The same thin line right in the middle of the equatorial belt was visible, that's been there several weeks, now hereby named Sheldon's Belt after Sheldon Berkowitz on TAC-SAC. As Bob mentioned, there were two long ovals next to each other, also in the EB. Temperate bands were very clear, and there were tons of ripples in the SEB, along with a dark oval.

Was going after mostly DeepMap objects in Cygnus and over in Capricornus. Found some really interesting ones. 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. This was the third night out in a row, two on the Peak and one at Willow Springs, with really fine seeing. Was fun to give the Barlow a workout.

NGC 6907 is a galaxy not far west of the Helix in Aquarius, just over the Capricornus border. Big and round, fairly diffuse, some concentration toward the core. OK, that was for starters. Set the old rump on the observing chair and looked to see if there was any other reason the Animal put this thing on DeepMap. Hung out there for a while and whoa it's got arms, a nice face-on spiral.

7184, along with DeepMap, also has been mentioned by Tom Polakis is his listing of hot edge-ons. This one's a killer. Beautiful long edge-on, fat bulgey core, bright nucleus 20% of the time at 210x. Lots of structure in the core, distinct halo pointy ends, and a star right on the following end. I sat there and muttered, "Where have you been all my life." Looks like some of the fancy spirals in Draco, like 5907 or 6503.

At the end of the night, had a fun surprise with 7026, a bright compact PN in Cygnus. Very bright core, compact disk, show some structure at 126x and 210x. Put in the Barlow and cranked it up to 420x and lo and behold it split! Two tight lobes running E-W. And yes I checked and they're really there.

Spent a lot of time studying the Helix that night, ngc 7293, major tourist stop. Last couple of times I'd looked at the Helix, it'd been thru binocs. Now I sat down and esp enjoyed the view in the 16, at 79x. Fantastic object. Showed the most detail in the OIII, including radiating veins. Was brighter in the Ultrablock, which enhanced the donut effect. Saw the central star with averted vision. After the Helix, I caught IC 1438 just to the West, a dense compact bright round galaxy, then went back to 7184 and soaked up more of that galaxy.

At 4 am, took a stroll over as far as the gate to the Observatory. Usually I go over to at least Ranger Row, this time missed Gleason by odd chance. The alpha and chi stars in Phoenix were peeking over the ridge. Exotic.

At just after 5, driving down the mountain, I stopped at the saddle like I always do to take a last look. Venus was up big and bright. The whole coast, over thru San Juan Bautista and Hollister, down the San Benito Valley, was under a sea of fog. I saw Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and sure enough, the Belt Stars vertical above the horizon.

Some night.
DDK