Coyote Lake - 17 Mar 2007

by Rob Jaworski

It had been a long time since I've been to Coyote, and there were no OIs for that site either, not even mine. Figured I'd be alone. Turned out, there were three other cars there, a couple folks sporting some much bigger mirrors than my XT8, and another small solid tube Dob.

Arrived just before the sun set, so had plenty of time to set up, eat my Pollo Bowl and bag of microwave popcorn my wife likes to make for me as a treat. It was a bit breezy, maybe 10-15 mph from the NNW, and as the night wore on, the breeze got chillier. Ended up having to layer up every hour or so, including a watchcap and glove liners.

All day, the NWS site and the CSC were saying that fog/marine layer/low clouds would roll in to Morgan Hill by 10PM. Not a cloud in the sky the entire time. The conditions, to my untrained eye, were really good all night. Just before wrapping up around 11PM, Saturn was near the zenith and I was studying the Cassini division and the cloud bands on the disk. The Barlow really proved its mettle; I've never really seemed to have had good luck with it before, but after last night on Saturn, I'm convinced it was the sorry conditions in previous sessions, and not the Barlow, which caused the poor images.

Though I'm not interested in the Marathon, I am still working slowly through Charles' list. Last night I logged ten. And let me take this opportunity to express my appreciation of the What to Observe section of the TAC website.

/observing/

I made a note of all of Feb, Mar, and Apr M objects, and pretty much logged all the objects listed for March, except for the one I already had in my log. Glad I found this page. Kudos!

Everything was observed with my XT8, using mostly the 25mm plossel, and sometimes the 10mm.

M41 - OC
First thing to notice are the two reddish or orangish stars at the center. Definitely looks like some kind of winged beast looking or pointing at the detached star off to the side. But maybe I was already too influenced by OMeara's drawing in his Deep Sky Companion: The Messier Objects book, which I regularly use alongside my M hunt. Stars are easily resolvable at low power. There was a satellite crossing in the FOV.

M93 - OC
Lots and lots of little gems, scattered around slightly larger ones. Distinguishing feature here is the arrowhead shape. Reminded me of Duke, the mascot of the Java programming language. http://java.com/en/dukeszone/ Another satellite crossing in the FOV.

M46 and M47 - OCs
M46 is more easterly and looks like a paint splotch made up of fainter, but easily discernable stars. M47 has seemingly fewer and less dense, but brighter, stars. These two are certainly a study in contrast; so different and so close to each other, from our perspective. Both clusters seemed to be anchored to a nearby brighter star that isn't part of the cluster itself.

M50 - OC
Found this one by lining up Sirius and Procyon. Telrad got me into the general area, the finderscope found the cloud, then there it was in the eyepiece. Nice, the way it's supposed to be. The asterism looked like an "E" with a sharp 90 degree angle, and the center 'horizontal' line of the letter being made up of a triangle of faint but discernable stars. This cluster, too, seemed to be anchored to a seemingly unrelated brighter star. Another satellite crossed the FOV.

M48 - OC
This cluster is located in the souther apex of a triangle made up two naked eye stars and this cluster. Two notable asterisms were visible to me: One is a curve or semicircle, and the other, away from the mouth of the curve, is a less-than sign ("<"). Another slow, dim satellite crossed the FOV, bisecting the less-than asterism.

M67 - OC
Had some difficulty finding this one. It was much further south than it appeared on the charts. At first it seemed to resemble a crown, but since the middle "sheaf" was bent over, it looked more like a jester's cap The eye (nose?) of the jester is the bright star below the rim of the cap.

M81 and M82 - Galaxies
It was nice to finally move away from OCs. This pair was relatively easy to find in the Great Bear. Awesome sight with both in the FOV at once, one being face-on (M81) and the other being edge-on (M82). Higher power almost made me think M82 had discernible stars, but the visual was fleeting, and may have been inverted imagination. M81 reminded me of Andromeda's M31.

M51 - Galaxy
Right off the Big Dipper's handle, and has that close companion NGC 5195. Surprised that both of these aren't M objects. Could I see spiral arms with medium-ish power? Thought I may have caught a glimpse, but again, probably converted imagination. Powered it up a bit and the galaxy was harder to see, but *maybe* I saw the spirals.

I finished up trying to familiarize my naked eye with the Virgo constellation, and see exactly whereabouts "downtown" is. Not looking forward to going down(town) on Virgo. Before wrapping it up, I spent some time with the Barlow on Saturn as previously mentioned. Despite the chill breeze, it was a great night. The fog never rolled in anywhere, as far as I could tell during the drive home. Was on the road by 11:30 and in bed by a bit after midnight. It's been a long time since I've been to Coyote and it was a pleasant surprise to remember the low southern horizon at the boat launch. Really glad I went!

-Rob