MBello Mon 4Feb08. A break from the rain

Mark Johnston

Enjoyed both George and Marek's ORs

Shared some very fine views of Saturn through both their scopes as well. Was parked just east of Jeff Wiess who is always a good neighbor and Elisabeth Oppenheimer was just east. George Feliz was 'all by himself' off to the south and Marek was to the far west.

Productive night with about 20 (new to me) object logged, mostly DeepMap600 several H400 and a few freebies thrown in along the way.

Highlights IMHO:

Fun to listen to George and Marek 'building' scope stories and boy were they at it. Good stuff.

Was not even aware of comet 46P/Wirtanen that George picked out so that was a fun surprise.

Managed to cover all the deep south DeepMap600 targets and a few more northern Herschel 400s all on on my 'hope to catch' list. Felt good but I was still colder than in say mid June LOL.

While in the lower Fornax/mid Eridanus area I really liked getting 6 visible galaxies in a 1 deg field. Dominating and off to one side was NGC1380 and along the top of the field was a parallelogram with 1374/1375 (appeared as one) 1381, 1387, and then 1379. Felt like 'Downtown Virgo'. There are many more around with the bright spherical 1399 and 1404 pair just outside this field. My guess is Albert and many seasoned TACos have caught the whole lot down there as it is really quite a nice area loaded with dim ones.

One of the more fun discoveries were NGC1851 which is on DeepMap600 as well as being Caldwell 73. It had a very packed core and gradual drop off of stars. Located a deep -40 degrees it still was a good one (but it was no M13 or Omega Centauri.

Had trouble picking out much detail in NGC1365 with only the central bar easily available and parts of the 2 arms showing only 10-20% of the time with averted only. Will return for sure.

Mark