OR Saturday night 11 August, Peak

by Jamie Dillon

After the Wednesday night just before, when I had the Peak to myself, Saturday night was a zoo. The Perseids had clearly gotten enough press, and anyway there were some 250 people who showed up for the FPOA StarBQ. Cars everywhere, and people with white flashlights. There was a whole set of scopes on Coulter Row, people I hadn't met. David and Nathaniel Cooper were on Ranger Row, Nathaniel having dusted off his XT10. Jay Critchfield and his buddy Greg were at the SW lot. Hordes up at the Observatory, long mustaches and horsehair hats and all.

At sunset there was no place in the SW lot to put a scope, all cars. As a few left, we moved in fast. I ambled over to the trailhead, where there was some open pavement, asked the guy there if I'd be in his way. He looked at me like I had two heads. It was Dave North. He and Akkana were already playing with their scopes.

We had a fun night, why not? I got started by running down a galaxy in easter Virgo, over by Serpens, that I'd missed on DeepMap. NGC 5363 looked pretty much face-on, with a very bright stellar core and a bright halo. North saw some elongation, and so did I on prompt, just off E-W. It has an actual companion to the south, 5364, a real dim diffuse splotch. Ranger Derek had come over for comic relief, and got to see the Wild Duck, as well as outer planets. Neptune was its beautiful electric blue. Uranus looked much paler than in earlier years, with just a hint of green. I'd read somewhere, don't remember where, about Uranus turning a different face to us this year. Maybe a pole, not sure.

Jupiter showed an interesting long flat oval streak in the SEB, right at the meridian at 10 pm (0500 UT, 12 Aug).

The prize for the night went to ngc 672, in Triangulum, again off DeepMap. Never seen it before and where have you been all my life. A beautiful long spiral, that looked like twined rope. Fairly bright central spine, and several long strands lengthwise, esp along the northern side. IC 1727, a companion, was a round dim splotch off the SW end.

672 didn't look anywhere near as fancy as this the next Saturday night from Coyote. Even had a hard time selling it as eye candy to a tough audience of Jardine, Marcus and Delaney. I do remember how it looked from the Peak the weekend before.

This was all in Felix, my Celestron 11" f/4.5 Dobs with optics made by Discovery Telescopes. Was using a 22 Pan, 16mm UO Koenig, 10mm and 6mm Radians. No Barlow, no filters this night, oh no. The conditions weren't bad in the sky, though. Seeing was good, 4/5, and the LM was somewhere around 6.0.

Yes there were shooting stars that night, including some hot, bright Perseids with long tails.

DDK