Another fantastic time at Plettstone

by Carter Scholz

I brought along a list of faint Milky Way globs arranged in order of surface brightness, and DSS printouts. I managed to get 6541, Djorg 2, 6496, Palomar 11. I couldn't get 6380, 6256, Pal 6, or Pal 13. So SB=21.1 was doable but SB=21.8 was not, which would seem to corroborate Greg's sky brightness measurements. (6380 and 6256 were brighter, but very low in the sky.)

Faint galaxy groups are a new thing for me. They never showed up in my 8". With Albert's generous guidance I spent a lot of time in Stephan's Quintet (saw 4) and the Deer Lick group (around 7331 -- saw 4 companions), learning to really use averted vision, to parse out the averted smudges from the averted field stars. A new skill to practice. I went back to these two groups every night to work on it.

Jones 1 was a treat, a large faint planetary nebula like a pair of parentheses. Thanks to Ray Cash for suggesting it and giving the coordinates.

After Plettstone, I drove into Yosemite for a night, which turned out to be a mistake because of smoke from fires. Transparency started out okay and went downhill. By 1 a.m. the Milky Way was barely visible. Prior to that I logged 7013, 7492, 7332/7339, 7463/7464/7465.

For my last night I drove to East Park reservoir in Colusa county, and that was heaven -- in the black of the light pollution map, no smoke, great horizons, steady seeing. I was seeing mag 6.8 stars naked eye in UMi. Bino view of North American Nebula the clearest I have ever seen it. I worked a small patch of Draco: 5989: round smudge, held with direct vision 5987: small, moderately bright, elongated 5963/5965: nice pair, elong 5:1 and round, separated by 10'; moderately faint, held with direct vision, about 15' from 8th mag star 5906: striking edge-on, bright, arc of 3 stars points to it 5905/5908: mod. bright, elong 5:1 with dimmer round gal 15' away, about 10 mag-10 field stars between them 5874: between 2 10th mag field stars, averted vision, elong 2:1, about 20' NW of 5th mag star Following Albert's advice, I also worked a galaxy-rich area in Pisces, just east of Mirach: 382/383, 384/385, 379/380, 374, 392/394, 403, 408, 410. (I'm trying to learn to take notes, but I was getting tired.)

A wonderful long weekend -- my consolation for missing Lassen. Looking forward to Calstar.

Carter