Galaxies in Columba

by Jamie Dillon

It was just a really good night for New Moon. Salinas and the other coastal cities were snugged under a dense marine layer. Did star counts in Gemini and Bootes, got 6.0 to start, 6.2 by 2 am. Seeing was 4/5, good, thru most of the night, with stretches of excellent 5/5.

In Columba are ngc 1792 and 1808, two big bright galaxies. Who knew? I went after them because they're in DeepMap. The reasons to chase objects in the Animal 600 just pile up. Had plenty of other business ongoing in the south. Rich N had seen R Leporis not long ago, and I'd gone after this carbon star 3 times before, apparently catching it at minimum each time. It's worth the trip, a beautiful gem, clear bright metallic red. Yeah it did look crimson; it's called Hind's Crimson Star.

Chased more galactic clusters across the winter Milky Way. This was the third time out when I spent time going after fancy open clusters, first in Monoceros in January from Toro Park out of Salinas, then Canis Major and Puppis from Coe, now back to Puppis. Fun travels. There's this OC and PN right next to each other, ngc 2453 and 2452, that are just as cool in the eyepiece as you might imagine. A dense tight pretty open cluster with more than 30 stars resolved, and just to the SW a little round bright planetary. And tell Lord Alsing that they're 4,900 and 8,800 ly away, respectively, not related.

Now in Hydra I got all excited. Not far SE of the head of Hydra there's this fancy close cluster of 5 galaxies, 2698 and friends. A light dumpster might just get two more teeny galaxies in the same field. SkyAtlas has 3 charted. Apparently I'd known there were 4, because I had a 4th glossed on the SA page. Parked in the field, and just sat down and sketched what I saw. Uranometria had the 5 I'd found, plus two more just beyond this immediate set. 7 in all in Felix. Cool field, all around this straight line of 3 stars. The inner 5 are clustered around the center star. Very satisfying.

(Felix is 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. Did use an OIII on 2452, which looked in this case much like it did unfiltered.)

Saw Saturn in David Cooper's refractor and later in Felix. Ring shadow on the disk, and planet shadow on the rings! Titan with Tethys, Dione and Rhea. David had caught Encedalus earlier before it disappeared behind Saturn. Could see the Encke gap at the edges of the rings. Some planet.

Caught M5 before packing it in. Never get used to that fantastic globular. And looked up at 6 Comae winking at me, swung the scope up and moved around downtown Virgo with the 22 for a wide field, with endless galaxies popping in. Then there was this plane over the horizon east of Antares that wouldn't blink lights nor move. Looked at it with the scope and it had moons and boiling cloud bands.

People -
Bob Brown was by himself at the Sunset Lot. Jurgen Wolf, Ron Dammann, Peter Jenniskens, Koop and others up in front of the Observatory, all excited over the Pluto occulation. In the SW lot were Mark and Mimi, Denis, Tony, The Shadow, Peter N and others. Mark Johnston too, apparently. Ranger Row had Critchfields, David, Aigee, Jeff Justice, Gleason and DDK.

Ranger Derek, the new guy, is just great, harking back to the golden age of Ranger Rick. Funny, relaxed, pragmatic, gets astronomy.

We all had a really good night. Not a sorta good night, a really good night.

DDK