MB, Sun 5/6/2007

by Marek Cichanski

It was just me, Greg LaFlamme, and Pete Santangeli. It was a lot warmer than it had been on Saturday night, and it wasn't as windy at sunset. Unfortunately, we had some very annoying winds kick up later in the night. I most used the 18" at low power, e.g. a 22mm eyepiece. However, I could sometimes kick it up to a 9mm or a 7mm.

Cirrus clouds passed through at various times, so it wasn't the clearest night on record, but overall the sky was mostly clear.

Despite some challenging conditions, I had a lot of fun. Early on, Saturn looked very nice. I saw Rhea, Tethys, Enceladus, Dione, Iapetus, and Titan. I suspect that Iapetus had its bright side turned towards us. There were times when Saturn was very sharp, with very nice detail in the atmospheric bands. The wind shook the image around enough that I didn't bother with an Encke hunt, but the overall view of the Cassini and the planet's shadow on the rings, as well as the belts and polar region, were very nice.

Oh, and Venus looked really nice in the early twilight, too. It was at an altitude where I could sit comfortably and look at it, and it was really sharp and crisp. I put on an aperture mask (ca. 7"), and enjoyed a nice, sharp, diffraction-spike-free view of it. Best Venus View Ever, I'd say. It showed a really nice gibbous phase. Really spherical.

I also went after Porrima when it was culminating, and I think that it was 'snow-man-ing' at ca. 250x.

I had a lot of fun noodling around Downtown Virgo with the chart from Pocket Sky Atlas. In an MB sky, even with an 18", this is a pretty appropriate chart. In fact, one of the things that's fun about using an 18" and PSA is that you're always saying to yourself 'hey, there are even MORE galaxies than the atlas shows!' This is a fairly juvenile way to stack the deck, granted, but it's still fun. I was really pleased with the pair NGC 4754 and NGC 4762. The latter is a really nice edge-on spiral. These are in the 'foyer' of Downtown Virgo, just as you're leaving Vindemiatrix and casting out into the Realm of the Galaxies. I noodled around the heart of D.V. for a while, enjoying the views of multiple gx's in each eyepiece field. That rarely gets old.

I also looked at Hickson 44, which is centered on NGC 3190. I had been reading about it in Gendler's essays, and he pointed out that the group 3185/3187/3190/3193 is Hickson 44. I checked Alvin Huey's book, and saw that Hickson 44 is far and away the easiest Hickson group. It was fun in the 18" at MB, but I have to admit that 3185 and 3187 were tough. Faint little smudges. A dark sky would really help, I suspect.

Later on I enjoyed the chain 3681/3684/3686 in the tail area of Leo. Another nice galaxy group. These sorts of gx groups are fairly run-of-the-mill stuff for some, but it had been a long time since I'd looked at this sort of thing.

Another thing I did was to listen to Gendler's essays on my iPod. This is a project that I've been working on for a while. I've been reading Rob Gendler's essays, and some Burnham passages, into my computer and putting them on my iPod. Then I listen to them at the eyepiece, and learn something about the object. I ususally look at the object long enough to hear the essay a few times or several times through. Eventually I get quite enough of my own nasally drone and yank the earphones out of my ears, or switch to music. But, after enough repetition, hopefully some fun facts will start to stick.

This, I find, is about a zillion times more interesting for me than writing another 'considerably bright, pretty much elongated NNW-SSE, nucleus almost stellar' entry in a logbook. I'm not saying that isn't a cool thing to do, but right now this is more fun for me.

It's a pretty big investment of time, and I am forced to listen to my own voice, but so far I like it. I wish I could listen to some sultry-voiced movie starlet read the essays, but I don't have the kind of money necessary to hire someone like that to read them.

(BTW, Gendler's essays are at http://robgendlerastropics.com/textcontent.html)

I've also recorded some Burnham entries and a few entries from Kaler's 'The 100 Greatest Stars'. (Burnham's M42 entry, for example, is 29 minutes long!) I'd like to even record some chapters from an intro astronomy textbook. After listening to Timothy Ferris' 'The Red Limit' on tape a million times while driving to and from observing sites, I finally was able to keep straight the stories of Annie Cannon, Henrietta Leavitt, Harlow Shapley, Edwin Hubble, Vesto Slipher, etc... This current effort - and who knows how long my enthusiasm will last - is an attempt to learn some more astronomy through repetition at the eyepiece. Looking away from the sky or the eyepiece to read a book seems really inefficient, especially on a short night.

I finished the night with long stare sessions at M13 through the binoviewer with the 9mm Naglers. Whoo-ah. That experience really puts the 'immersiveness meter' to the redline. The wind vibe was annoying, but otherwise it was truly immersive. As Jamie says, more of this.

Wind was quite annoying at times, but wouldn't you know it, after Greg and Pete left, it got nice and still. This, of course, coincided with moonrise and tear-down. Natch. Temperatures had been nice and comfortable all night. Mid to high 60s, bone dry. Perfect 'just a sweater' weather. When the breeze was moderate, you felt like you were just bathing in this delectable stream of night air. Perfect observing temps. Too bad it hadn't been a little calmer, earlier.

Otherwise, a nice modest MB night. I'm a little sleepy today, but it was worth it. I have my fingers crossed for this coming weekend.

Marek