Fremont Peak OR for Sat Sept 8, 2007

by Mark Johnston

Best limiting mag estimation was done by Jamie to get a mid 6.x range by midnight. The Sql meter was 21.3 with little fluctuation throughout the night. Little to no wind and a warm night.

Jamie dialed in some great Jupiter shots with the moons playing out a nice show including a shadow as well as disappearing around the backside. There was plenty of eyepiece sharing and jabbing to make for a fun and interactive night of astronomy. Galaxy hunting was decent as we were able to detect 3 members of Stephans Quintet in my 11" SCT and 17mm Nagler. Could not separate 7318a from b. Later in the night we had a bit of fun playing with the canon 15x50 IS binoculars in the M31 area as well as M33 which were high and good large-field eye candy.

My specific Sept. observations follow. (all numbers are NGC references and all are on Herschel 400 list, with many on Steve Gottlieb's fine list that is on the Orion DeepMap 600 Must-have map.):

You may find the Silicon Owl Herschel 400 site handy to see the objects below at: http://www.siowl.com/index.html?herschel which is a wonderful site.

6664 open cluster and 6712 globular in Scutum with 6712 being interesting because of it's one distinctly flat looking side.

6802,6823, and 6830 in Vulpecula are all open clusters with 6802 being almost like a 3 to 1 aspect ratio rectangle of size 3.2' Spent some time on 6823 because this open cluster sits in the middle of some nebulouscity (6820) with pictures showing a distinct dark lane like a 'finger' pointing toward 6823. We all looked at this guy with nebulouscity apparent but so faint that the finger eluded me (-;

The 6905 planetary as well as globular clusters 6934 and 7006 in Delphinus were next with planetary nebula 6905 showing some structure. Last for H400 objects that night was a nice surprise in Cetus where 584, 596, and 615 galaxies as well as 600 (not on H400 list) adding to the treat. This area is for sure a favorite and I recall a time at Montebello I think from last December where Albert and another TACo (sorry, forgot who it was). At that time they were tag-teaming and all excited about some cluster of galaxies in Cetus and I bet it was this spot. There are numerous other faint object as well and my guess is Albert was on top of them.

Mark(J)