Dinosaur Point 1/17/09

Julien Lecomte

I arrived at Dinosaur Point around 4:15pm. I set up in the middle the parking lot, which ended up being a fine location as I later found myself surrounded by Dave Cooper, Peter Natscher, Rob Enns and Rogelio Bernal Andreo. There was little wind, but there was a fairly thick haze visible that was made even more visible by the setting sun. I knew then that the weather conditions were not going to be ideal.

My goal for that evening was to 1) try out some new equipment (Starbound observing chair, Televue Panoptic 27mm, Televue Nagler 16mm, Orion RedBeam Self-Powered LED flashlight, ScopeStuff variable counterweight system, Catseye collimation tools, chemical foot warmers) and 2) start my Herschel 400 project.

Let's start with the equipment. I found the Catseye collimation tools (cheshire and auto-collimator) to be very nice once Peter Natscher explained to me how to use them ;-) I also tried Rob Enns' laser collimator, which gave me different results. This is probably because my secondary is not perfectly aligned underneath the focuser. I will have to tune this alignment with a sight tube at home.

I found the Starbound observing chair to be a great value, very comfortable. The ScopeStuff variable weight system was a great help when pointing near the horizon (it renders the altitude brake useless) The Televue Panoptic 27mm worked great, but I was barely able to reach focus with it... The Televue Nagler 16mm was my favorite eyepiece, delivering great views. I also used an old Vixen LV9mm, which made me feel like I was staring through a peep hole... I'll have to replace it with a Televue Nagler 9mm (the Ethos 8mm seems a bit too expensive) I found the Orion flashlight to be too bright (even on the "Low" setting) so I put some translucent tape in front of it. But then, I discovered that the battery life was not that great, and I had to manually crank it several times after approximately 3 hours of use. I'll have to see if I can remove a couple of LEDs to lower the brightness and increase the battery life. Finally, the chemical foot warmers worked nicely, but provided heat for only about 3 hours, not the 6 hours advertised...

Early on, Venus, combined with the haze, was a major source of light pollution. Overall, I feel like I will have to re-observe a lot of objects (especially galaxies and nebulae) Star clusters are usually less affected by light pollution and poor transparency.

I used two atlases: The Pocket Sky Atlas and the Sky Atlas 2000.0. I feel like the difference between these two atlases is too small to justify using both of them. Moreover, I prefer the compact format of the Pocket Sky Atlas. Therefore, I'll have to get the more detailed Uranometria vol. 1 & 2 in addition to the Pocket Sky Atlas, and sell the Sky Atlas 2000.0.

I only have a red-dot finder, and I sometimes wished I had an optical finder too, especially when the object I was seeking was surrounded by several other conspicuous objects. A couple of times, I wasn't quite sure which object I was looking at. I especially liked Albert Highe's setup (his red dot finder is attached to a right angle optical finder scope - although I still wonder whether I should get a right angle or a straight view finder scope...)

Besides my prepared observing list, I observed Sirius' companion through Peter Natscher's 24" scope. It was easy at 600x. I then tried with my 12" scope at 300x and I was able to see it too, though not as distinctly, and only during rare moments of steadier seeing. I also observed a couple of carbon stars including Hind's crimson star, and before leaving, around 1am, looked at M51 through Rob Enns' 16" scope. Although still low on the horizon, the spiral structure was obvious (but the bridge between M51 and its companion galaxy was not detected) Finally, Dave Copper AstroPhysics refractor gave superb views of Saturn.

Now for my observing list. As I am writing this, I noticed that I forgot to log a lot of important details (For example, instead of saying that a cluster is "large", I should have tried to estimate its size in arc minutes. I also noticed that as the night went on, the logging got worse...) When I re-visit some of these objects, I'll have to pay more attention to the quality of my logging. Overall, it was a decent night and I was quite happy with my newly acquired equipment. Cheers!

Location: Dinosaur Point [Latitude 37°03'54"N - Longitude 121°10'13"W
- Elevation 648ft
Observer: Julien Lecomte
Telescope: Meade Lightbridge 12" F/5
Eyepieces used:
- Televue Panoptic 27mm (56x - 1.2° TFOV)
- Televue Nagler 16mm (95x - 52' TFOV)
- Vixen LV9mm (170x - 18' TFOV)
(All times are PST)

NGC 247 Cet GX 00h47m -20°45' 21.4'×6.9'
6:40pm 95x - Elongated 4x1 N-S, low surface brightness, fairly uniform, only very slightly brighter in the middle.

NGC 157 Cet GX 00h34m -08º23' 4.2'X2.7'
6:50pm 95x - Pretty bright, elongated 2x1 NE-SW, fairly uniform. Faint star nestled inside the halo. Surrounded by two bright stars on a N-S line.

NGC 246 Cet PN 00h47m -11°52' 4.6'X4.1'
7pm 95x/170x + UHC filter - Pretty bright, round, with darker areas inside. The E-SE portion is darker. 3 easy stars nestled inside the nebulosity + 1 fainter.

NGC 584 Cet GX 01h31m -06°52' 4.2'X2.3'
7:10pm 95x/170x - Elongated 2x1 E-W, progressively brighter towards the middle, fairly bright overall. Nearby galaxy 5' E-SE (NGC 586)

NGC 596 Cet GX 01h32m -07°01' 3.2'X2.1'
7:15pm 95x/170x - Fairly bright, round, bright almost stellar core. 15' W of bright star.

NGC 615 Cet GX 01h35m -07°20' 3.6'X1.4'
7:20pm 95x/170x - Slightly less bright than NGC 584 or NGC 596. Elongated N-S, almost stellar core.

NGC 720 Cet GX 01h53m -13°44' 4.7'X2.4'
7:27pm 95x/170x - Slightly elongated NW-SE, fairly bright, bright almost stellar core.

NGC 908 Cet GX 02h23m -21°14' 6.0'X2.6'
7:32pm 95x - Fairly bright and uniform, gradually brighter towards the center, elongated 3x1 E-W

NGC 779 Cet GX 01h59m -05°57' 4.0'X1.2'
7:40pm 95x/170x - Fairly bright, elongated 3x1 almost N-S, bright almost stellar core. Eastern side felt darker for some reason. Photos don't show any dark lane however.

NGC 936 Cet GX 02h27m -01°09' 4.7'X4.1'
7:45pm 95x/170x - Pretty bright with a bright non stellar core. Looks round. This is supposed to be a barred spiral. I did not however detect any central bar structure. Faint galaxy 15' E (actually, NGC 941 lies about 10' E of NGC 936)

NGC 1022 Cet GX 02h38m -06°40' 2.4'X2.0'
7:52pm 95x/170x - Fairly bright, round, somewhat brighter in the middle. My notes mention that the halo did not seem perfectly uniform (?)

Looked at NGC 1042 nearby (not on H400 list)

NGC 1052 Cet GX 02h41m -08°15' 3.0'X2.1'
8pm 95x/170x - Fairly bright, round, somewhat brighter in the middle.

NGC 1055 Cet GX 02h41m +00°26' 7.6'X2.7'
8:25pm 95x/170x - My notes do not match the appearance of this object, so I must have looked at the wrong object.

NGC 772 Ari GX 01h59m +19°00' 7.2'X4.3'
8:30pm 95x - Almost round, fairly bright with a bright non stellar core. Did not see any hint of spiral structure.

NGC 1647 Tau OC 04h45m +19°06' 45'
8:40pm 56x - Large (40') cluster of bright scattered stars.

NGC 1817 Tau OC 05h12m +16°41' 16'
8:45pm 56x - Large (25') cluster, round, dense, with many dim star of comparable brightness.

NGC 1964 Lep GX 05h33m -21°56' 5.6'X2.1'
8:55pm 95x/170x - Slightly elongated SW-NE, fairly bright, almost stellar core. Dim halo. I noted the presence of a faint star in the halo right near the core. I forgot to include its relative position though.

NGC 1788 Ori BN 05h06m -03°20' 5'X3'
9:05pm 95x - Pretty faint, seems irregular.

NGC 1980 Ori OC+BN 05h35m -05°54' 13'
9:10pm 95x - This is the faint nebulosity around iota Orionis. Not an easy object given the brightness of iota Orionis.

NGC 1999 Ori BN 05h36m -06°42' 2'
9:20pm 95x/170x - Pretty round and bright, surrounding a star. Darker patch just west of the star.

NGC 2024 Ori BN 05h41m -01°51' 30'
9:25pm 95x - This is the "Flame Nebula". Large dark lanes, beautiful object, lots of intricate details. Better get Alnitak (Zeta Orionis) out the FOV to better see this one.

NGC 2022 Ori PN 05h42m +09°05' 28"X27"
Could not find it!

NGC 2169 Ori OC 06h08m +13°57' 6'
10pm 95x - 15 or so stars spelling "37" ;-) This is a fun object!

NGC 2185 Mon BN 06h11m -06°13' 4'X2'
Missed!

NGC 2215 Mon OC 06h20m -07°17' 11'
10:10pm 95x - 40 or so fairly bright stars scattered within a 10' radius.

NGC 2232 Mon OC 06h28m -04°50' 29'
10:20pm 95x - Large (30') cluster of about 20 scattered stars, including 10 Mon.

NGC 2186 Ori OC 06h12m +05°27' 4'
10:25pm 95x - This cluster is in a fairly rich area of the sky. Moreover, it's not very conspicuous. Therefore, in order to make sure that I saw the right object, I quickly drew the brightest stars on my notepad, and later matched it against a photo.

NGC 2194 Ori OC 06h13m +12°48' 10'
10:45pm 95x - Pretty dense and rich open cluster.

NGC 2204 CMa OC 06h15m -18°39' 12'
11pm 95x - 20+ stars in front of a somewhat milky background. Orange star 10' to the north.

NGC 2354 CMa OC 07h14m -25°41' 20'
11:10pm 56x - 40+ stars over a milky background. Several dark lanes split the cluster.

NGC 2362 CMa OC 07h18m -24°57' 8'
11:15pm 95x - Small cluster of about 30 fairly bright stars, centered on an even brighter star surrounded by a darker band.

NGC 2360 CMa OC 07h17m -15°38' 12'
11:20pm 95x - Large and compressed cluster of stars of comparable brightness.

NGC 2244 Mon OC+BN 06h31m +04°56' 24'
11:25pm 56x - Very bright and large cluster inside the Rosetta nebula.

NGC 2251 Mon OC 06h34m +08°21' 10'
11:30pm 95x - Not sure I found it. I did find nearby Hubble's variable nebula by chance.

NGC 2264 Mon OC+BN 06h40m +09°53' 20'
11:35pm 56x - The famous Christmas tree cluster. Very beautiful. Did not notice any nebulosity.