FP, 5/17-18/2007: Spelunking for Galaxies, the Heroic Hop, and more

by Marek Cichanski

After having big fun on the Challenger last Thursday, I decided to do the same last night. The weather cooperated, at least for most of the night. The marine layer fog stayed well below the Peak, although it didn't turn into a continuous, light-extinguishing blanket like I'd hoped. Instead, it was that hazy sort of marine layer that mostly scatters light pollution up into the sky rather than keeping it down. Additionally, there was a good bit of haze up at Peak level, which meant a lot of extinction near the horizon and additional scattering of light pollution. Despite all this, the seeing was decent and the sky was pretty good up high. It was dry most of the night, although it got windy after midnight, and I finally gave up around 3am and closed the observatory. I'm glad I did, as the wind got even worse for a while, and closing the roof safely might have been an issue if I'd waited any longer.

During twilight, while I was at the Peak solo, I really enjoyed the Moon and Mercury in binos. They both fit into the field of the 15x50s, and the Moon was a wonderful thin crescent. Plenty of detail was visible in the earthshine.

During the less gusty intervals, there were some nice views of Saturn at 250x. Not an Encke-chasing view, but nice nonetheless. Bagged Rhea, Tethys, Enceladus, Dione, Titan, but still couldn't get Mimas. No giveaway, that little Death Star.

David Kingsley drove down and arrived around 21:30, and we had heaps of fun with the Challenger. He had made a list of interesting objects, and we mostly went after these. We started out with the Ghost of Jupiter. Despite some breeze, it was worth mag-ing up on it, to 600x (7mm t6 Nagler) IIRC. It showed a nice concentric structure, with a well-defined inner ring. David had brought a copy of Sun Kwok's "Cosmic Butterflies", and we spent some time a) Trying to decide if Kwok had labeled his HST image of the GOJ correctly (we decided that he had) and b) trying to pick out FLIERs in the nebula (we couldn't quite see them as distinctly as they appeared in the HST image). FLIERs are 'Fast Low-Ionization Emission Regions':

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec97/FLIERS.bpf.html

Scrutinizing the GOJ like this, both with and without filters, was really neat.

Then it was on to NGC 4449, a 'Magellanic' galaxy. (Oh lord, he's not about to get on yet another LMC-related jag, is he? He's used that 'Magellanic' word...)

I was amazed to find that we DO have our own LMC, right here in the northern celestial hemisphere! And it's amazingly similar to the Famous One Down Under! They even look alike. The only small catch is... that it's not in the Local Group. It's part of the Canum Venaticorum I gx cloud. But, with a large telescope, it was remarkable how much detail we could see in it. David and I had a great time looking at it, and gesturing at the Vickers CCD image in the dim glow of our red flashlights. It turned out to have a 'Tarantula Complex' just like the LMC, and a 'bar' just like the LMC and 'hook at the end of the bar' just like the LMC, and 'outlying starburst complexes' just like the LMC. I still can't get over how tickled I was by this thing. And, just as expected, the HII regions stayed nice and bright when we put in a filter. It was extremely satisfying to have our prediction that the 'Tarantula analogue' would stay bright in the filter. The 'bar' stayed brighter with the filter than the LMC bar, suggesting that it's got more nebulosity in it than the one in the LMC.

http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n4449.html

http://robgendlerastropics.com/NGC4449JM.html

http://robgendlerastropics.com/NGC4449text.html

Looking at this thing was a total hoot! It's been a while since I've had this much fun looking at an object. With the resolving power and light-gathering power of the Challenger, this object showed plenty of detail. It was definitely a 'Northern Hemisphere Mini LMC'. (I'd use a very handy contraction of those first two words if I could, but I think the list mahout would give me the business if I did ;-) )

Getting to the eyepiece for 4449 was a job of work! It was almost straight above the polar axis, and that's always a tough row to hoe when using the Challenger. We ended up shoehorning the ladder into the area on the NE side of the scope, which took some careful two-person maneuvering. Don't bump the scope... stay clear of the roof crank handle... watch out for the turnbuckle stepstool... take care to stay clear of the eyepiece... whoof! But worth it. I remarked that 'this sort of confined-space operation is a lot easier for me now that I've taken up caving'. So, we dubbed this exercise 'Spelunking for Galaxies'.

For an eye candy break, we looked at the Slug Galaxy' (NGC 4627) and the 'Hockey Stick Galaxy' (NGC 4631). Plenty of detail in each, good times were had by all. Thank goodness for gravitational interactions!

Then more eye candy with Hickson 68. All 5 galaxies were nice and bright in the 31 Nagler. The orangish field star made the whole picture even prettier. This compact galaxy group has a nice mix of galaxy orientations in it. The face-on spiral, NGC 5350, looks like it just might show some spiral arm detail on a good Black Cloud Night at the Peak.

We gave another try at the M87 jet, but wind and less-than-perfect seeing made us wonder if we'd seen it. It was one of those cases where I THINK I did, but it would be hard to prove it.

Then came... the Heroic Hop. Hardest Star-Hop Ever!

We were going after a planetary nebula called Minkowski's Butterfly, which has bipolar outflow jets. It was in a nondescript part of central Ophiuchus, and finding it turned into an all-out epic. The encoders on the Challenger were certainly a help, as was TheSky, but there's always a little bit of uncertainty about just how accurate they are at any given moment. In retrospect, I realize that I need to create FOV indicators for the various finder scopes and for the 31 Nagler / ParaCorr field. This would have helped immensely. As it was, it took both of us working in concert to find this thing after countless dead ends and red herrings. The wind was starting to blow like crazy, the star patterns refused to get recognized, I accidentally loosened the friction on the DEC axis at one point... it was just one thing after another. I found myself sitting on the observatory floor, looking through one of the Lumicon finders, while David pushed the back of the scope and checked the computer screen. But we would not be denied!

Then there was the matter of the star chart. Now, I don't want to cast any aspersions, because David was kind enough to print the thing out in the first place, which is far more that I can say for myself. The only problem was the way the different stellar magnitudes were displayed. Let's just say that there weren't a lot of diametrical differences between the various stars on the chart. You might have been able to tell which stars were supposed to be brighter and which ones dimmer... if you had a dial micrometer and a jewler's loupe. ;-) Lordy!

Finally, the moment came... I was half-lying up on the ladder, looking through the Terminagler, and I had a bright star matched up against the chart. Thus commenced the Cavalcade of Thats: "Okay, so that's that... and that would make this that... and so that's that other thing, and then that's that, now lessee, what's that? Oh yeah, that's that. Okay, so then if that's that, then that would be... that! Ah, now let's go find that..."

David broke in by remarking that if he had a nickel for every time I'd said "that", he could BUY the Challenger. I'm helpless with mirth, just thinking about it.

FINALLY, gentle reader, a fuzzy, elongated object hove into view! Hosanna! The wind was now first cousin to a Patagonian gale, (see www.torresfilm.com for a sample of the type) and it wasn't too certain that the nebula would stay centered while we changed to a higher-power eyepiece... but miracle of miracles, it did, and we enjoyed a nice view of a neat bipolar outflow nebula, with the eyepiece acting like it was April 18, 1906.

Sheesh! That took some doing. I think Frank Miller's gonna write a graphic novel about it, and call it "2". "Two brave amateur astronomers, against a veritable Persian Empire of wind gusts and indecipherable starfields!" You had to say to yourself "fine, then we will star-hop in the shade!"

By then it was 2:30, and David headed for civilization. I looked at a few globs in the Teapot, since it kept the scope low and (somewhat) out of the wind, and then I packed it in and closed up at 3. Had to be careful not the let the roof get away from me as I closed it. Whew! Turnbuckles on! What a relief. Then a bit of kip followed by the Friday morning commute back home.

All in all, a really fun night at the Peak, even if there were some challenges. Good company, good conversation, neat objects... life is good.

Marek