Contemporary OR, Peak Saturday night

by Jamie Dillon

I largely loafed, watched the stars wheel by. Strolled over the park slowly, after visiting Lou and Suzanne in the SW lot. Did have some quality time at the Observatory with Miguel, the kid from Salinas with whom Liam and I have a raft of various connections, and with Doug Brown, all-around good guy. Peeked a couple times thru the 30". Had a stunning view of the Ring Nebula at high magnification. No central star that night. In fact, the one time I've seen that star was from that very same scope, years ago.

Then a bit later, a remarkable view of the core of M33, plus one of the brilliant HII regions.

In Felix, I got a couple new galaxies in Sculptor, not before visiting and gazing at ngc 253, which is inexhaustible. Then spit on my hands and went looking for the WLM in Cetus, a Local Group galaxy that's some 2.6 million lightyears away. With 14 of the Local Group under my belt, there are just about two more that are possibly feasible in my 11", not counting the Magellanic Clouds which I'm certainly going to see. The other one from here is IC 1613, also in Cetus.

Far as this excursion went, there was this oval band of mottling that stuck around at the edge of averted vision, with the right size and N-S orientation, in the right location. Couldn't confirm it, though. Sketched the starfield and will check again from darker skies.

After that, saw Mars right near M35. Very pretty field in the 9x50 finder. Checked out M35 and that snazzy neighbor 2158, which was looked sugary, just about on the edge of resolving. Then M37, always good for dessert, and a chunk of time studying M42, the number one item in my log database. Sat and gazed at the pale silver of those expansive wings.

Just before I was done packing up, Ron Dammann was leaving in his '68 MGB-GT, one of my alltime favorite cars. Sucker was running good too. Was a good night in all. Certainly worth the trip.

DDK