Fremont Peak 1/17/09

Dave Goggin

It was a pretty quiet night at the Peak. A few people were down near the bathrooms doing some imaging. Another group from San Fran were at the pad next to us. The rest of the pads were empty.

The transparency wasn't especially good - we've seen the Fremont Peak sky much better. It was really hazy, which was exacerbated by the light pollution. On the other hand, the temperature was very mild with barely a whisper of wind, and only one not very determined mosquito visited us.

One very cool occurrence was when the group next to us spotted Canopus. Barely 1/2 degree above the horizon and visible through a gap in the trees in the valley below, it didn't look too impressive. But there it was! I'd never seen this star before, that privilege being usually restricted to those who live far to the south.

Some selected highlights, as seen thru Adrian's 9.25" SCT:

- The sculptor galaxy was suprisingly visible and impressive.

- The NGC 1973/1981 region was really impressive, bright nebulosity, and better than I expected.

- We think we saw the Perseus A galaxy NGC 1275, appearing as a small fuzzy star. Is that likely with this equipment?

- NGC 2261 showed some nebulosity at least along it's brighter side.

- NGC 2438 was surprisingly clear and well-defined

- Saw M109 for the first time ever. Quite amazed how bright it seemed, especially its core. M101 by contrast wasn't especially clear or impressive - It seemed like we were mostly seeing the core of M101, not its full disc

- We checked out IC 348 / IC 353. The cluster itself was OK, nothing special, but we were not able to see the nebulosity around it. Have any of you?

- M79 was great and well resolved and M78 was surprisingly visible and clear

- NGC 2362: It's a beautiful cluster but I for one couldn't see any nebulosity. Maybe an occulting bar over the central star would let us see the nebulosity better? Nice diamond shaped asterism near the central star.

A big disappointment was not being able to see any dark nebulas. In fact one key reason we traveled all the way to the peak was to spot and image some dark nebulas which one can't see from anywhere in San Francisco. Where do you all go to look at dark nebulas?

Ron, the observatory master, was showing a few interesting things in the 30" including omicron BC Eri.

As an aside - it is a pity how light pollution from Salinas, Hollister, etc has degraded this site. Are any of you who live near Fremont Peak willing to start a group to lobby for upgrade of the surrounding cities to full dark-sky friendliness? I also think light pollution reduction education would be worthwhile to integrate into the FPOA public programs.

-Dave