Plettstone, 5/19/07

by Bill Cone

Mysterious forces of nature must compell Plettstone scopes to make an annual pilgrimage to their native gravel and skies, sharing photons with their 3 poled brethren, accompanied by their human 'operators'. Michelle's front yard was a veritable retrospective of the Highe/Stone design and production efforts of the last 10 years or so. Albert had his latest scope, while Michelle was delivering her first ( I think ) 16" production model of a similar design to Rob Enns. I had my 18", Rob Hawley had a 15", and Bob Jardine had one of Albert's original designs, a 17". Rashad was using an 8" SCT, and an 80mm for some nice wide views, while Mark had his 18" Obsession. Drew had what looked like a 14 or 15" scope (Starmaster?) set up by the Observatory. Michelle even hauled out her 4" Genesis to join the fun.

As it grew dark, we debated the appearance and disappearance of Mercury over the chimney. Mark was able to spot it and hold it much sooner than the rest of the group. It is always humbling to realize how much more acute some people's eyes are than my own. I was all setup and collimated, so I lay down in my car for about 40 minutes to rest up, listening to the scattered conversations, as the light on Earth dimmed, and the universe began to reveal itself as myriad sparks in the deepening blue gradient of sky above the oak tree silhouettes.

The crescent moon was very close to Venus, which made a fine sight in the wide field refractors, finderscopes and binos. Venus was in it's second quarter, showing a stable half disc at the eyepiece. Rashad had Saturn in his 8" well before dark and was commenting on Cassini's division and the moons. So, the seeing was steady, though I never went above 242x all evening. The transparency was also decent, as I was able to pull in IC 4617, a mag 15.5 galaxy near M-13, though I think the contrast was off, as Joe-Bob spent quite some time looking for a large, low contrast object. In the wee hours, a high altitude haze began to drift in from the West, which gave everyone a good excuse to call it a night sometime after 2. The night began as fairly balmy, however, I slowly accumulated outerwear, until I had parka, gloves, and hat on by the time I turned in.

My observing plan for this evening was to continue coherently filling in the blanks in my Messier list (it looks like swiss cheese, and the spring objects are the main culprits), while examining the fields around the objects for other interesting targets. I also had made a chart of the H II regions in M-101 to look at, part of my ongoing "inside the Messiers" project. I had several targets in Virgo that I had made larger charts for, to help me ID the numerous NGC galaxies that floated nearby, however I spent so long in Leo and Ursa Major, that my Virgo targets were tangled in the oak tree branches like Charlie Brown's kite by the time I went back to the West. Live and learn. I settled for the upper reaches of Coma Berenices, where a few objects on my list resided, before rounding out the night with some summer eye candy. The sky was noticeably brighter in the South when most of us turned in, which was attributed to the high altitude haze reflecting the lights of the towns and cities in the central valley.

Here are notes on some of the more interesting targets I viewed:

M-97, PN, UMA. Owl Neb.: One of my best views of this object, but probably due in part to extended study on this night. Large, soft grey, circular glow, Averted vision shows central star. Eyes appear to be oriented NW-SE . Central star popping in and out. OIII filter shows mottling, with NE edge of glow being the brightest area. VHT filter gave best view: NE zone was brighter, and averted vision showed scalloping around the eyes.

M-101: Ga, Uma Very large, faint Ga. Dim, but one could discern the bent, crab-like arms of this face on galaxy. There is a bright star about 2 arc seconds N. of the core, which made it easy to rotate my chart, to match the view at the eyepiece. The galaxy itself has a core offset to the NE relative to the gestural mass of its arms. Viewing at 242X, (9mm Nagler w/paracorr), and panning around, I was able to pick out the following H II regions: NGC 5471: Bright spot at bottom (E.) of field. NGC 5462: Elongated, faint NGC 5461: Small, fairly bright NGC 5458, 5453, and 5455 form an isoceles triangle S. of core. NGC 5451: W. of core, Stellar core w/ surrounding glow NGC 5449: I could not see this patch, though it looks possible in the DSS photo. Simply invisible to my eyes, and I knew exactly where to look. NGC 5447, 5450: I could easily see this area as an extended glowing patch, but I was unable to separate it into 2 discrete regions. It would be like saying I saw California and Nevada from outer space, but could not separate them into states. Maybe higher magnification would have helped in this case. Next time I'll try a 7mm Nagler on this one.

Here's a link to the NGC/IC chart. If you want higher res,, simply download a DSS image, and make your own labels based on the NGC/IC chart. That's what I did.
http://www.ngcic.org/dss/n/5/n5457.jpg

M-101's HII regions are a good example of the interesting and challenging objects there are to look for inside some of the Messiers. Research continues.

M-53 vs. NGC 5053: These 2 GC's reside in Coma B., about 1 degree apart. I highly recommend these 2 neighbors as a study in contrast of structure, as well as the surprising subtlety of 5053's presence in the eyepiece. To my eyes, 5053 looked like a dim photo of a weak, dwarf galaxy, or a very faint open cluster. It is simply a faint, speckled concentration of stars in an oval form between two brighter stars. Very easy to pass over, if one is looking for a textbook globular with a concentrated core. That object really stretches the boundaries of what I thought a globular should look like. (of course I haven't seen a Palomar glob yet.) In contrast, M-53 is a small, but bright, ordinary looking globular, with ragged outlying stars.

M64: Ga, Com B. Large, fat, soft oval glow, elongated E-W. Very bright stellar core. Dark zone (black eye) elongated E-W on N. side of core.

On this object, the contrast appeared to be lower than it should be, as I've seen a blacker "eye" before. I looked at a few summer objects in Ophiucus, Scorpius, and Lyra, then called it a night.

All this through Mariposa, an 18, f 4.2 reflector with a Paracorr. Handcrafted by Michelle Stone, w/ original design by Albert Highe. A wonderful device for viewing the universe.

Many thanks to Michelle and Paul for hosting such a friendly, low-key gathering of good folks and providing such tasty food. Much appreciated.