CalStar IX

Jamie Dillon

Camped by Turley for the 8th time. And of course we hung out with Carl, who used to come out with us a lot more often before his life took over. This year I set up Felix in the South End telescope ghetto with Albert Highe, The Gregs, Scott Baker, Mark Johnston, Dr. Kingsley, Joe Bob, George Feliz. A rum bunch and no mistake.

There were some moments that have to be noted. Taking a lesson from Kent Wallace was a treat. Kent showed off one of the "new" PNe from that H-alpha survey, also looked at Jones 1 in his 20" again. Sitting down with Dr Kingsley and getting to pore over some of the Herschels' papers was amazing. Caroline Herschel has been a hero of mine for a good long while, and here we were looking at her algebra lessons, as her brother began the education of this brilliant young woman with the beautiful penmanship.

Rashad was the buddy whom I'd spent the longest time not seeing. He was the first observer Liam and I talked with before finding this whole gang, back in spring '98. And here he was in that Panama hat that might be near as cool as the rest of him. Solid headgear.

If I try to name all the people I was so glad to see there would be stupid omissions. You're not going to find a more congenial, smart, wacky bunch of humans anywhere.

Observing!

Jones 1 in Felix, finally. Was distinct, like dark mandibles (chomp), but not bright like in Kent's scope.

Grus fu - I'd first checked out the Grus Quartet from Willow Springs, when even the two brightest ones, 7582 and 7590, were dim and hazy. Here I was watching the stars wheel by from Lake San Antonio, said at one point, 'Man, that's a lot of Grus over there'. Went back and added 7599, a member, along with 7632 to the SW, and two more down there, 7496 and 7531. All of these were distinct. However, the 4th member of the Quartet, 7552, I couldn't see. Yet.

Cetus yes Turley Cetus - there's this cool set of galaxies around ngc 596. I'd poked around this one set starting out at CalStar III, then at the Peak and Dino. Turns out I'd seen a couple of 'new' ones already, been atypically lax about logging them in the chart. LaFlamme helped out with this one dim disk, ngc 600, an official DDK warning object, SB 14.6. One I really hadn't seen before was really pretty, 636, bright core, swirl of halo, some darkness immediately around the core esp to the SE.

Crickets and peepers were going at night, a coyote not far away on Saturday night, magpies in the mornings. It's nice there. Skies were really good, big kid good, the two nights I was there, Friday and Saturday. Joe Bob and I got a limiting magnitude count of 6.5 overhead, which for our eyes is good for the planet, world class dark. Top all this off with sitting and singing with Dan on Sunday morning ... I Can See Clearly Now ...

It was a wang dang doodle.