February 13, 2010: A great massing of the TAC tribe

Mark Johnston

On Saturday Feb 13 the lot at Dino was stuffed with observers. Having lost count I would estimate there being from 20 to 25 scopes with photon deprived observers attached.

Transparency what what suffered this night with light haze phasing in and out throughout the night. The seeing was very good with 550x view of mars and later Saturn giving up astounding levels of detail. Best overhead SQM was 21.2 range around 1am so the night (when haze was minimal) was dark. SQM in a sky with poor transparency can be misleading.

This was a night where groups of observers would gather when the skies became too mushy and then wanter back to the eyepieces in the periods of acceptable transparency.

Having gone for the company as well as catching up on re-observing quite a few open clusters I left happy to have had such great company and more views than I have had since last December 23 at a solo Fremont Peak trek.

Because the open clusters were for the most part were not large spectacular ones I thought I would mention a discovery that is only respected in a very wide field scope (and here I was glad Greg Laflamme had brought his Orion 120ST). While going for Stock 2, which is rather large, I took a quick look at the Double Cluster and what became obvious on the UranoMetria page was a cascade of assorted magnitude stars stringing from the Double Cluster on up north to end just below Stock 2 almost as if Stock 2 was balanced on the end of this long cascade. As an extremely wide star view goes this was very kool.

I managed to observe 24 Herschel 400 list one open clusters and my only regret is I was unable to share them with Richard N. who so appreciates such objects. ;-)

Some other objects that were a treat for the night were as I mentioned the amazing views Mars gave up in the very great seeing conditions.

High mag 555x views of the Eskimo nebula, Ngc2392, gave up the multiple shell structure of this fine planitary and views in Greg's Huge dob reveled knots in the rather large Ngc2403 showpiece that Mark Wagner was pointing out. Thor's helmet was also available even with the not-so-hot transparency but is always a fun nebula to view.

I closed the night with an accidental discovery of an object that will be a favorite of mine. Stumbled upon SH2-274 as I was tracking down Ngc2395. Using an NPB filter this object was bright enough in the 18" dob to give up a great view of the crescent moon sort of overall shape with an impressive diameter of around 8 minutes. This objects shows detail and I cannot wait to get a better view when transparency is great because even in this not-so-hot transparency this object was a great find.

An early highlight of this trip for me was with all the 'due pomp and circumstance' Bob Jardine presented me with my Messier pin as the appointed 'director of pomp', Jamie, supplied the band. Thanks Guys.

Till next time we meet,
Marko