Lake Sonoma on Saturday 4/14/07

by Darrell Lee

Everyone else in the Bay Area apparently stayed home, as it rained all day in the Bay Area. Those who stayed home and indoors really missed a magical night. Seeing was poor (Saturn was boiling, and I couldn't consistently see the E star in the Trapezium) due to the wind, but transparency was superb due to the pollen and dust being removed by the rain. It would have been a poor night for observing planets, but we had good conditions for observing Spring galaxies.

Both of us had a very productive night hunting down Spring galaxies like The Antennae in Corvus, following Markarian's Chain, etc. The Flame Nebula was the best I've ever seen in my 10" Dob, and nearby NGC 2023 showed quite a bit of nebulosity, too. Unfortunately, I didn't get a hint of IC 434 or its dark nebula, the Horsehead.

My goal for the night was to make progress on starhopping through the Messier List with my 10" Dob, and I made significant progress. I started with the Beehive Cluster, M44. Even though I've starhopped to it many times, notably last year when Saturn was in the same fov with it in the sky, somehow I'd never taken adequate notes. Then I visited the Flame Nebula, NGC 2024, and its neighbor NGC 2023, before Orion dropped too low to the horizon. Next target was OC M48, which I picked up at 10 p.m. Its bright arc of stars in the direction away from Procyon (east) was like a new discovery for me.

Even though I've been on my Messier starhopping project for over a year, my planning is very hit and miss. Most of my viewing is from my light-polluted backyard, where I can't see targets like M109. So even though it's circumpolar, an easy starhop, and I can get it any night of the year from a dark site, I didn't have M109 on my starhop list yet (I've viewed all the Messier objects with the aid of go-to and push-to scopes). Saturday was the night. I found M109, and sketched it with a clockwise spiral, since I could make out the arms in my scope. Then I went to check my references, and was very pleased to see a photo showing the same spiral arms and two field stars that I'd sketched. Ditto for nearby M106 and its elongated bright core. This was shaping up to be a nice night.

Last year, I got lost in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. So this past Saturday, I mapped my around with diagrams, starting from something I recognized, M84 and M86 and the "Eyes", NGC 4435 and NGC 4438. I got all 9 galaxies at the start of Markarian's Chain in the fov of my 35 Panoptic, and followed the chain. Then I got M60 and NGC 4647, NGC 4638, and M59 in another fov, and worked my way around that area of the sky. M60, M59, M58, M89, and M80 were new on my starhop list. Wow! With so many galaxies, I had to get my bearings with the recognizable pair (M60 and NGC 4647) and work my way from them, figuring that most of the brighter galaxies were Messier objects, and most of the dimmer ones were NGC objects.

Meanwhile, Renato had a great view of M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, in his 12.5" Powerball. We could clearly see the unsymmetrical split of the galaxy by its dust lane. He also showed me "The Antennae", NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, in Corvus. Renato was into interacting galaxy pairs on Saturday, so he also showed me NGC 4656 and NGC 4657, a pair in Coma Berenices.

It's great to see the globulars in Ophiuchus returning in the morning sky. That was another part of my list that was weak, so I picked up M9, M19, and M107 in that area.

My viewing style really isn't to methodically log objects. I like to wander through the sky. Melotte 111 in Coma Berenices was a spectacular naked eye object, but I didn't have binoculars. So I looked at Steve Gottlieb's (Orion's) Deep Map 600 in Coma for missing Messiers from my list, and saw that I needed M53. An easy starhop, except that by 2 a.m., I was not firing on all 8 or 6 cylinders. It took me several tries to do this easy starhop to this very nice globular. I was able to resole a few stars in the cluster with a 16 Nagler.

My last object for the night was M84, which showed spiral arms, and was surprisingly large in the 16 mm. Nagler's fov.

We took plenty of warm-up breaks in the van, because I didn't bring gloves, and Renato didn't bring a hat. Of course our excuses were that we were researching our star hops and targets ;-). We observed until 3:30, and didn't get home until 5 a.m. (my morning newspaper was waiting in the driveway when I got home).

All-in-all, a terrific night - one that you shouldn't have missed.

Lake Sonoma isn't as light-polluted as I remembered. I got an SQM of 20.90, with the main skyglow to the southeast from Guerneville and Santa Rosa.

Darrell Lee