Willow Springs, night of 10-23-08

Kevin Ritschel

Last night was perfect at Deep Sky Ranch in Willow Springs, cool, not cold, no wind and no clouds at all.

Dobzilla came out again last night to gorge on more faint-fuzzies. I observed till ~2 AM and logged about 30 NGC objects plus 21 ANONS never logged before. Some nice GX groups that I'll share on the 25th/1st.

Noteable:

1/ TX Pisces, the eastern-most star in "The Circlet" is another carbon star and a has a wonderful red-orange color. It's a jumping-off point to hop to several ANONs.

2/ The Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte System is a wild object - you have got to see this puppy (Uranometria chart 121 - Cetus)! It's an ANON going by the designation M-3-1-15; very low surface brightness, but this guy is BIG, about 1/4 degree. It fills more than half the field in the big dob and should be seen in much smaller systems. Supposed to be a member of the local group - I've seen it called a Dwarf E5 or an Irregular GX. IC1613 is another big faint GX in Cetus that has an even lower surface brightness, so this ANON is a tasty target. Going to try for it with the smaller scopes in the next day or two.

Kevin


Observing Reports Observing Sites GSSP 2010, July 10 - 14
Frosty Acres Ranch
Adin, CA

OMG! Its full of stars.
Golden State Star Party
Join Mailing List
Mailing List Archives

Current Observing Intents

Click here
for more details.