Willow Springs, night of 10-23-08

Kevin Ritschel

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