July 18-21, 2009: 4-night photon binge on top of Mt Lassen

Mark Johnston

A 4-day Trek to the Great Lassen Highspot of Bumpass Hell for the nights of July 18-21

The call was made Sat July 18 to 'just do it' so Greg Laflamme and myself ascended Mt Lassen and met up with Peter Natscher with his 24" f/3.7 Starmaster dob and Dave Cooper with an amazing 155mm AP who had been holding down Bumpass Hell for the previous 2 nights. Forecasts looked questionable but I can say that in hindsight I have never been so very very glad to be so very very wrong about thinking it would be a mistake. The second night had the largest population and yet all TACo set of observers as we were joined by Carter Scholz with his 12.5" ATMed dob with a mighty fine mirror and Scott Backer with 18" (first-light) ultralight. What a classy place to choose for 1st light!

A host of eye candy spread over the nights included the following highlights:

• Antaries split and Nu Scorpius 'double double' split in Dave Cooper's AP 155mm. These splits were shining examples of why AP refractors rock. Thanks Dave!
• Ngc6820 with central carbon star and InkSpot B86 had about 3 stars in front.
• Ngc6888 Crescent Nebula offered outstanding views in Gregs 22" and Peters 24".
• Ngc7320C trailing object to Stephens Quintet 1st in Gregs 22" then my 18" (a challange in the 18", easy in 22").
• Ngc6946 and OC 6939, Cep showpiece pair with 6946 giving up an awesome amount of structure.
• Ngc6712 GC and IC1295 in Peter's 24" first and later I used 18" for detailed observations.
• Assorted segments of the Veil in Peter's 24" were how does one say ... wow.
• M31 with GREAT dual dust lanes nicely showing in my 18" with 26mm Nag/PC.
• Jones1 in Gregs Scope (A TACo favorite as it would seem)

Stop here or be prepaired to 'slog' ...

My observations were using an 18" f/3.7 Starmaster for the most part. A summary is below with 2 out of 4 detailed ORs still in the works as the total consists of over 200 new observations that have to make it from recording to ORs. This trip to Lassen easly included well over 10 hours of pre-trip observational preparation time for DSS image printouts and list attack order planning in order to make the most of the sky in 4 nights.

Sat July 18: Some light clouding with quite acceptable seeing and good transparency in selected portions of the sky. This was not the best of the 4 nights but was a fine night.

As we setup the clouds were massing to the north and some early views through Dave Coopers 155 MFR (Mighty Fine Refractor) showed wonderful splits of Antares as well as Nu Scorpius (mini double-double). At the time I truly felt that would perhaps be my only observation of note for the night. Luck be as it was, it was only the first of many because the clouds after sunset were sparse and always left sections of the sky very workable, especially to the West where most of my 1st night objects tended to reside. We made jokes about the larger than normal Barnard Dark Nebula and Bok Globules to the south which were truly black clouds that moved south.

This first night my focus was assorted Herschel 400 list 2 objects and a few couple galaxy groups. Of the Herschels, Ngc5426 was part of Arp 271 with partner Ngc5427 and a small but interesting mid-sized pair. 5506/5507 H2 objects are bright enough pair to be nice in mid-sized scope I should think. Ngc5597 H2 is paired with Ngc5595 for a nice high power pair.

Moving on to non-Herschel 400 list 2 objects, the group of galaxies around Ngc6112 makes my 'favorite' list because it yeilds a form of a 'y' with Ngc6106 at the base and the tops being 6109 and 6108. Odd-man-out is Ngc6177. Later a challenge was the D member of Hickson 88, Ngc6975, which was to be later observed by Greg on Sunday where I caught a better view of Ngc6975, the D member. Lastly the Ngc6962 group was a nice mix of bright to dim galaxies that makes my galaxy group favorites list.

Once this night started to get going by 12 it was clear that there was NO mistake in making the trip start on Saturday. Yee-HAW! This fair night at Lassen was better than many a good night at most bay area sites.

Sun July 19: Better night than Saturday being clear but then light haze impacting observations after 1:30 or so.

Highlight of this night for me was a detailed observation of M101 including 10 knots that Steve Gottlieb had helped me clarify the correct locations per his Sky and Telescope notes he supplied a few months back. This was a blast and tracking was very helpful. The structure of M101 on this night was in fine form. Cat's eye nebula and it's dim apparent neighbor of IC 4677 were observed as a curiosity. Galaxy groups planned pre-trip from UranoMetria browsing included groups near Ngc5222, Ngc7147, and Ngc7396. The group around Ngc7396 was a favorite group. I was unusually tired this night and packed it in early about the time some light haze was impacting mostly the West and south as I recall.

Mon July 20: This I would call the best of the 4 nights with 21.71 holding for a fair period of time and NELM 7+

Started off with 13 Herschel 400 list 2 objects and 10 or so objects near these 'list objects'. Ngc5129 is a H2 object but with an assortement of apparent neighbors of mixed mag galaxies. Globular cluster Ngc5053 appears almost more like a fine blanket of an Open cluster and if it is really a globular, it is about the lowest concentration possible, almost no core. Ngc5490 proximity objects included IC 983 which is a HUGE face-on but with extremely low surface brightness so I only saw it fading off into the black. Ngc5560 Herschel list 2 has a neighbor of Ngc5566 that would make a nice pair in a mid-sized scope. Ngc5861 gives up some structure plus has a few near neighbor galaxies in a row heading out NW from 5861 also making a nice mid-sized scope target and as such makes the favorite list. If you like very long edge-ons then Ngc5529 is a mag 12.8 favorite that is from Herschel 400 list 2.

Other highlights of this night included finishing off my 1st pass of the Adventures in Deep Space 'Interesting Hickson Groups' list with Hickson 90,97,99,10, 15. Hickson 97 has a deceptively difficult B member of IC 5359 at mag 15.7 but with enough surface to make it difficult. Hickson 15 would be my pick for a favorite of this night's Hicksons with F being the challenge at mag 16.1b. I gave a sky candy tour to a couple, Jackie and Mike, that included M13, M22, M31/32/110, Double Cluster, and M8 which they both enjoyed quite a bit.

Tue July 21: Also a very good night with great galaxy group hunting conditions.

This night was loaded mostly with galaxy groups. I had stumbled across groups near M5 earlier in the day so added the groups including Ngc5538 and Ngc5806 to my lists of pre-prepared DSS printouts made for this trip. Because I was near it I re-enjoyed a very nice group known as Hickson 68 centered around Ngc5354 and a favorite. Another favorite is an extremely tight group centered on Ngc7436. Other groups were centered around Ngc5590, Ngc 5378, Ngc5352, Ngc5326, Ngc6229, and Ngc7449. Yes, this was a galaxy fest night with heavy use of the 5mm TAK LE. This night also include the curiosity of Zwicky's Triplet made in both Greg's 22" and my own scope.