A Half-Night Of Very Nice Edge-On Discoveries

Mark Johnston

Up till the miracle at 10:30 things looked bleek and I only hung around because I had all my stuff setup and the company of the 6 or so other guys was a nice social introduction to the observers from the 'other side of the hill'. See separate report just posted on Bonny Doon Airport.

Observed from 10:30 to 1am with open, clear skies of a fairly steady 20.70 to 20.80 Mag/ArcSec. Nice temps perhaps in mid 40s and light winds from time to time.

Due to early high level clouds with occasional sucker holes my first 2 observations were DeepMap clusters of Stock23 and NGC1746 intermixed with Saturn and discouraging looks at M42. It was just a tease up till 10:30 when POOF! MAGIC! Clouds dissolved into a gorgeous night.

Was using my side-by-side 11" SCT/100mm refractor combo but mostly on the 11" SCT. Tony Hurtado had his 18" and other scopes in the gang went from 8" through 20" obsession. Great group of guys and thanks to Paul Duncan who urged us to check out this site sometime. Some quick visits with old friends (spread through the night) included Horsehead, Flame, M46 with PN 2438 (Thanks Tony and his 18"), NGC7789 (my CAS favorite), M35 with 'mini-M35' (2158), M38 & 1907. IS Binocs: M44 beehive, M45 Pleiades. Oh and oh yes ... the obligatory pilgrimage to M42.

This night the planned observations that seemed to keep surprising me were the large number of rather large edge-on galaxies which included NGC2685, NGC3079, NGC3198 and NGC3115 (I had already viewed the spindle but I wanted to do it again as I was on a roll with these guys plus wanted to compare the views). These are ALL very worthwhile to visit.

NGC3242, Ghost of Jupiter, was looking nice in the south-west which is darkest at this site.

Once it got to the west I took a look at IC405 which is HUGE! I could only scan this guy and tried a view through my 100mm refractor. I did not experiment with filters and in hindsight should have tried the OIII as it really could have used the help I think. Best contrast was with my 11" but then I could only trace along it and see the edge against the darker backdrop of the skies. Will have to revisit this one.

Logged 15 objects new to my observations which this time were mostly Herschel 400 with 4 DeepMap exclusives (Quite a few of the H400 objects are also on DeepMap 600).

Will return to Bonny Doon Airport without a question.

Mark