OR Sat 6 Oct 2007

by Matthew Marcus

Jupiter popped out early, showing a couple of bands. The twilight wedge showed up quite prominently. The highlight of the pre-dark period was an ISS pass which I spotted when it was overhead. I ran to my scope and managed to grab a look as it sank into the west. It showed as a brilliant white cross with a fainter companion object which might have just been lens flare. That's the first time I've ever resolved any shape on any man-made space object.

Using coordinates from the November issue of Astronomy, I managed to find Uranus and Neptune. Uranus is still paler than what I remember, and even Neptune didn't seem as blue as I remembered. I found Neptune by navigating to the coordinates with Uranometria and noticing that where the map showed one 8th-magnitude star, the sky showed two.

After that and some preliminary eye candy, it was galaxies, galaxies and more galaxies. I first tried a couple in southern Cap but got skunked. I then moved into Pisces and started finding them. On revisiting the 507 group, I discovered that I hadn't logged 499, so I repaired that deficiency. There are many other galaxies in that group which, were they alone, I should be able to spot. However, that area is rich in faint stars, as the photo in NSOG shows, so it's hard to see the faint galaxies and know them for galaxies. Thus, 507 and 499 were the only ones I got in that area. I spent most of the rest of the night working Pisces and Sculptor. 253 was as good as it ever gets from here. I had logged 134, but not its fainter double 131. Both are edge-ons, and at the same orientation, so it almost looks as if 131 were some sort of reflection of the image of 134.

I took a break from the deep south when Dean showed me the companion galaxies to 7331 in his C8. Naturally, I refused to be outdone and logged 7335, 7337 and 7340 (numbers might be wrong - working from memory), using the photo in NSOG as a finder chart. Anyone know why this group is called the "Deer Lick" group? Since I could see these galaxies, I'm a bit surprised that they don't have listings in NSOG, which goes way deeper than I can with my C8.

I tried for the Fornax group, in particular 1365, which I've never logged well, but it was still in the Santa Rosa light dome and I didn't want to stay late enough to catch it on the meridian. I have stuff I need to do today, so after heeding the call of M42 and looking at a swimmy Mars, I called it quits at 2:30, once again the Last Man Standing, and hit the Pete's (nee Henny Penny) in Petaluma (but do lumas *want* to be petted?) and got home by 4:30 or so.

mam