Jan 12 2008 Henry Coe Park

Mark Johnston

Overall a great night starting with a bit soft seeing but progressing into acceptable winter seeing after the partial moon set. Temperatures were from 45 deg F down to 38 deg F by midnight. Fog rose up from the S-E valley (fun to watch) and we all packed up before the fog really hit at 12:30. At best seeing SQM reading was 21.08, no star counts done but it was a fine winter night with San Jose and Gilroy lights being quite suppressed by fog (sweet).

Combination of observing and socializing through the night with around 8 or 9 mostly TACo folks. Also see Heather's nice OR. Just for Fun Observations Fun objects included messing with my 100mm scopes wide field of view with a newly acquired 22mm panoptic. Same field M80,M81 was interresting and a nice way to show contrast of edge-on VS mostly face-on. I really like the dual-barrel idea.

First time since last year to re-visit M108 and M97 (Owl Nebula) in same field of view. Last year at this time I was unable to do this as my FOV was far too narrow with 11" SCT only.

Played around with NGC7789 off of Cassiopeia as the seeing was at it's best (around 10pm or so). Love This cluster and find it is a nice one to judge how much swimming is going on.

Of course Orion nebula has to be seen when available and TonyH pulled up Horsehead in his 18".

Brief looks at Mars and later on Saturn with Bo pushing to 400x in his I think 15" was nice at meridian.

Below are the less spectacular objects and serve as my notes for Herschel 400 I and DeepMap 600 I will not be hurt and you will save time by stopping now.

Clear Skies,
Mark

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Observations with 11" SCT along side a 100mm Refractor (for field of view mostly). Most all objects viewed with 35mm panoptic as well as 17mm Nagler. 12 and 9mm Nagler for mag-up. DM600 means DeepMap600 and H400 means Herschel 400 I list.

NGC 6834 Cr 407 Mel 225 Open 7.8 5.0' 50 11.0 II 2 m LYN 19 52 12.0 +29 25 00
18:45 This H400 object is marked by 4 brighter stars in a line. These along with 2 other stars in some ways reminded me of a dipper. The cluster itself is very faint and in the low sky I was haveing trouble resolving the dimmer members with only 30% of the time averted showing these dim members. This object was best viewed with 17mm Nagler on 11" SCT but 12mm was also tried to attempt to resolve dim members with 20% of the time success.

NGC 6871 Cr 413 Open 5.2 20.0' 15 6.8 II 2 p n LYN 20 05 54.0 +35 46 00
19:00 DM600 object with two closely spaced small groupings of 2 and 3 brighter stars. Some very dim other stars very closeby but the main few stars of each group are prominant.

IC 4996 Cr 418 Open 7.3 5.0' 15 8.0 II 3 p n LYN 20 16 32.0 +37 38 40
19:20 DM600 object whis has 3 obvious brighter stars marking its place. Other dimmer stars were more difficult to observe but could be coaxed into view with averted vision.

NGC 7039 Cr 431 Open 7.6 24.0' 50 11.3 IV 2 m LYN 21 11 12.0 +45 39 00
19:45 DM600 object which is a very large, almost 1/2 deg. Three very bright stars mark the corners of a regular triangle and it seems the dim members of this cluster mostly lie along the 'sides' of the triangle.

NGC 7063 Cr 435 Open 7.0 7.0' 12 8.9 III 1 p LYN 21 24 30.0 +36 30 00
20:15 DM600 object with an interresting shape formed by the brighter members. It appears as a triangle corners with 3 most west stars and then the stars to the S-E form an elongated rectangle. There is 1 star in common with both shapes.

NGC 6217 UGC 10470 CGCG 355-14 Arp 185 MCG +13-12-8 Kaz 73 IRAS 16350+7818 PGC 58477 Glxy 11.8b 3.0x 2.4' 165 (R)SB(rs)bc RC3 16 32 38.7 +78 11 56
22:05 This H400 galaxy showed some elongation slightly off from N-S orientation. I thought I could detect some of one of the spirals starting out but this object was mostly face on and low in the sky so I cannot claim that arm. From DSS images later I think the elongation was the central bar of this almost face on galaxy.

NGC 7023 VDB 139 LBN 487 BrtN 14.0' R LBN 21 01 36.0 +68 10 00
22:25 DM600 Very obvious nebulous area around a bright central star. DSS images show a very broad region of the nebulous area with some dark lane and 1 arm extending out but this I missed.

NGC 7635 SH2 -162 LBN 548 BrtN 16.0x 6.0' E LBN 23 20 40.0 +61 12 00
23:00 This DM600 object, Bubble Nebula, was only just detectable and not in the darkest of skies. I have seen this once before in a better position so I think San Jose although covered in clouds was just not good for this observation. Barely detectable nebuloscity attempted with OIII and H-Beta as well as assorted lenses and no filter. After getting home I found on the web that H-Alpha was a better filter for this and maybe I should have tried other filters besides OIII and H-Beta. Was not able to convince myself I could see the 'bubble' part of this nebula as a bubble.

Cannot wait till next month because later in the night we get Leo and many Ursa Major H400 objects I wish to observe