My SSP 2007 observing report

by Andrew Pierce

It would have been nice to go to both SSP and GSSP, but this year my wife decided to come along and I thought, correctly as it turned out, that she would enjoy the Weston House B&B in Shingletown more than tenting at a campsite. I thought about commuting from Devastated but the shorter drive from the Shingletown airport and the convenience of leaving my stuff on site won out.

Thursday night turned out to be pretty enjoyable, despite the clouds. After checking out a few objects in the "offramp" area of the Milky Way, the south became untenable and I pointed my 14.5 inch Teleport dob to the northeast on objects normally left for fall.

M31 showed well, with two dark lanes and its companion galaxies looked quite detailed. Love that M110 under dark skies. M33 was clearly spiral despite being near the horizon. Perhaps the clouds covering 80% of the sky actually damped down Redding. I also looked at two other Local Group members, NGC 185, which is bright and borders on eye candy, and NGC 147, a treat for averted vision. So seven members of the Local Group on a night most people had given up on. Fu indeed. About 12:30 a.m. I enjoyed a chocolate muffin at the Red Light café at the end of the runway and later, when the sky went away completely, had a longish chat with Jim Ster about star party politics.

Walking around I saw a scope that looked a lot like the new Obsession UC design, but bigger. It turned out to be Shneor Sherman's, I think, made by Bruce Sayre. Anyone at SSP in prior years saw his 22 inch binocular version. I understand Bruce was in a car accident on Dersch Road on the way to SSP, but is OK. So that's where Mr. Kriege got his new design. Actually the bottom part is different, but the family resemblance was clear.

I also tried out some special night myopia glasses, one full diopter stronger than my normal prescription, made by Dr. Lee Hoglan after Rob Hawley let me borrow his flippers last year to help me calibrate. What a difference. It's nice to see fifth and sixth mag stars clearly for the first time ever. And so to bed.

On Friday my wife came out and we looked at eye candy, including Jupiter and the lovely crescent Venus, for a time. I drove her back to Weston House, returned to the runway and got seriously into my "don't leave Shingletown without this" list. I accidentally left my finderscope at home, so I turned to the Sky Commander DSCs without guilt or reservation.

My first serious objects were Barnard 352 and 353 in Cygnus, which just sort of popped up while cruising the Milky Way. Both are obvious dark nebulae, best seen with Pentax 40 mm eyepiece. Also saw the smallish OC, NGC 6996. The two Barnards point right at the bright part of the North America nebula, which looked quite well defined with a 40 mm EP and Ultrablock filter. One of the best views I've had of this nebula. Also looked at Pelican nebula wedged between two bright stars, and B 356 and the deep black large B361.

Next stop was the Cat's Paw nebula in Sco, NGS 6334, which, as usual, didn't look like much--this is one for the photographers. Did see it both with and without filters.

Visited Snake nebula area in Oph, initially saw what was probably B68, and eventually a portion of the Snake Neb (B72). Had never seen this at prior SSPs, or even in Molokai, but I did see it at Willow Springs last summer, perhaps a little better than at SSP.

On to the B86 and NGC6520 OC pair in Sag which looked three dimensional with 17 mm EP. Also found the neighboring Gottlieb challenge object, the recently discovered (1987) glob Djorgovski 2, which Uranometria charts as ESO 456-38.

Other targets found were B92; NGC 6726, the nebula down in Cor Aus, and neighboring glob 6723 which is darned bright; NGC 6781, PN in Aquila, a nice sight; NGC 6946 the visibly spiral galaxy in Cep and its neighboring OC.

M33 was seen naked eye before I took a look at NGC 6822, the local group galaxy in Sag, which was elusive, more like an OC than a galaxy.

NGC 6888, the Crescent nebula was bright in 17 mm EP with OIII filter, showed a very convoluted structure, more to it than just a crescent.

Saw M13 and the curved shape of the constellation Cor Aus with the naked eye.

THE VEIL WAS AWESOME. Saw entirety of Pickering's Triangular Wisp, it had lots of structure, saw 6974-79 potion of the Veil as well. Whole thing a pleasure to cruise around with 24 Pan and OIII filter.

NGC 7006 in Del was tiny, a glob. Helix neb outstanding both with and without OIII. NGC 7331, gx in Peg was bright, with a few additional galaxies around. Saw at least 4 of Stephan's Quintet but did not linger.

M31 naked eye view showed elongation. In the scope with a relaxed eye it was swirly.

Saturday was the public night. The energy level was refreshing and there were a lot of people who were entry level astronomers getting there first looks through bigger scopes. As the public melted away about 11:30 I found the extremely faint NGC 6325, glob in Oph; did not see B57, or NGC 6813, a nebula in Vul; did see IC 4954 an elongated reflection neb along an arc of stars in Vul.

There was a 25 inch dob with a bunch of folks around it down the runway. I claimed I could find comet Linear VZ13, and eventually did. Came back to my scope and looked at M22 and the very nice M55. Hit some more eye candy and so to bed.

Andrew Pierce