Yet another CalStar 2007 OR

by Mark Johnston

OR: CalStar 2007 Saturday Night (almost did not write this as there have been so many great ones so far but here goes ... )

Got there Saturday so it was a one-night stand but well worth the trip both socially as well as observationally. Arrival And Social Fun:

It was odd that the very first people I ran into and had a chat with were a couple of great guys Tony Hurtado and I had met up at the High Sierra Star Party a month before. Greg and Butch are regulars to star parties and were located off into the non-dark area as they had a camper and could not shield the windows so decided to be off to that area.

While trying to figure out where to park a friendly guy by the name of Steve who had a 30" scope said to park next to him which was in the middle of the field so after asking if that would be ok he said sure so that is where I went although it felt awkward in the open area. I still don't know the last name for Steve but he was very friendly, knowledgeable, and shared views all night so if anybody knows his name, appreciate it (thanks).

Dinner was very nicely done and tasty as well as organized (Thanks!). Assorted visits around to folks from time to time throughout the night fun for the dangers of gopher holes and the one time I almost took my eye out over at Chez Dan's Tree Of Death (LOL). It was like the story books where if you could make it through the old growth you would find something inside that was well worth the dangers. Indeed there were the 'regulars' with Dan, James Turley and other folks present every time I stopped by and offers of food were generous and tasty with some excellent cheese Jamie had brought..

Equipment Fun: All went well with a 1st time dual-scope setup with 11" SCT and 100mm refractor (skip paragraph if that is enough info) I tried for the second time mounting side-by-side my 11" SCT and 100mm Orion refractor. This time I got it down and enjoyed it all night. (Until when I was tearing down at 3am and had to take it apart I was a bit worried about dropping something (expensive) on the ground as I took the 11" off and envisioned the 100mm swinging around and smacking me but I avoided that fortunately. Gotta figure out that one for next time as the wide field of the 100mm was often used along with the narrow field of the SCT. Also gotta sort out 100mm scope alignment because I set allignment to be dead on for the SCT and the 100mm with much wider FOV was about 1/2 degree off. Another thing I was having a blast with was thanks to recently acquired encoders from Michelle Stone I enjoyed dead-on push-to combined with occasional goto all night (sweet).

Observing Report:

Early Sat started out with patches of clouds coming and going and it was very comical as people would yell out targets that were possible and we would check them out or notice some other one and grab a quick look as we yelled it out to others. It was a good exercise in fast-finding objects. Very funny stuff and at the time seemed like that may be all that would happen for the night. BUT alas, it was not meant to be a spotted night and an amazing sky soon unfolded above us.

Assorted eye-candy was mixed with observations of only about 8 targets out of the 20 or so I had planned for this one night. The eye candy included most of the objects I had mentioned in the Oct 8 post called 'Newb Observing with the EASY AstroSpotter 101 List' except M7 which was super low before the night got going much and the early were a distraction. M57 ring nebula because of it's height was a very nice target that night. Globs were looking fine as well with M22, M13, M36,37,38 all a great show (early to late eve order).

A bit later in the night the Orion nebula was one of the finest detailed views I had seen with the nebulous regions extending on it seemed forever and was very enjoyable. Spoted 6 stars of the trapezium for A-F and was going to try for more like G and H2 or I but the fog rolled in around 3am and dew was extremely thick so I shutdown at 3am. Mars got fairly high but I missed it so cannot comment. Wait a few months ... it will be better.

The Planned Observations: All are NGC objects and I will omit 'NGC' in the text.

For all these objects I spent more time than usual and was battling with the dew later on the night as has been mentioned so they went slowly.

6755 AQL 19 7 49 +4 15 59 This open cluster is fairly bight and large at about 1/4 degree diameter. This appears almost as 2 clusters side by side perhaps because of two small groupings of brighter stars separated a bit. Cluster is broad and may be difficult to pick out as obvious in surrounding field.

6756 AQL 19 8 43 +4 42 19 This open cluster is a much smaller cluster but only 30' from 6755. This is also not so easy to pick out due to being mixed in with other stars in the field.

6781 AQL 19 18 28 +6 32 15 Planitary nebula which has a fairly even surface brightness and I was unable to see any irregularities.

7723 AQR 23 38 56 -12 57 38 This galaxy appeared small and round and I should have paid better attention as it is slightly elongated. I detected no detail with the short viewing time.

7727 AQR 23 39 53 -12 17 38 This galaxy appeared slightly larger and brightness was not uniform as it seemed to dim out quickly on one side.

7217 PEG 22 7 52 +31 21 33 The galaxy appeared round with and possible brighter in the middle

7331 PEG 22 37 4 +34 25 0 This favorite is typically a stop anyway as it is half way to eye candy. I did not take the time to look for it's apparent partner galaxies as I had intended as I was sidetracked. Now I wish I had because of the other reports on this area.

7448 PEG 23 0 3 +15 58 50 This galaxy has about 2:1 elongation from N to S. Was able to catch 7454 30' NW but now wish I had noticed and tried for 7465 and 7463 which are closeby at 30' west of 7448. Will have to get these all in one field as they form an equilateral triange on my charts.

7479 PEG 23 4 57 +12 19 16 This galaxy I was only able to detect it was irregular but could not really detect the detail in its 2 fairly pronounced tails off of it's central bar structure.