I spent last night catching up on the AL Carbon Star list with the 8-inch. I'm really enjoying the list -- often the stars are a challenge to find but the colors are rewarding and so unusual. And I love this 8-inch scope; I was able to resolve airy disks throughout the session.
ST Camelopardalis was plainly orange in the finder and a deep orange in the eyepiece, fairly bright, around 7th magnitude.
UU Aurigae was a quick find this time, as I was just able to make out Psi-3 Aurigae and point the scope to it;, then I could see UU in the finder. The star itself is orange, and I could not find the pair, though I assume it was the faint star preceding by a wide margin.
TX Aurigae was not particularly colorful, slightly yellow and the brightest in the field.
UV Aurigae was a faint double star, the A was orange and the fainter B appeared bluish. I read today there is a "Leaping Minnow" asterism 1-1/2 degrees to the SW, but this was out of my field -- however I do recall noticing a cluster while searching for this star, so I may have seen it but did not note it.
S Aurigae: the AL guide calls this extremely faint and impossible to judge the color. I must have caught it at a bright moment as it appeared a pretty summer yellow.
FU Aurigae is quite close to M37, the outlying stars of which were on the edge of the FOV. It's color and brightness make it a twin of the red star at the center of M37. FU must be quite neglected as most observers will likely only look at M37 in their field and miss FU entirely.
V Aurigae: Here I agree with the AL guide; faint star, cannot judge the color, though I think it was a faint yellow.
SY Eridanus was a faint but very nice deep red star.
RT Orionis was a nice burnt red color
BL Orionis was found using Gamma Geminorium as a starting point, and I could see it red in the finder. Lovely orange red in the scope
TU Geminorium was orange in the finder and a yellowish orange in the scope. It's not far off from M35, and this one too I am sure is neglected by observers.
VW Geminorium was faint, probably 10th magnitude, and a dim red. It took some scanning in the scope to find it. The color was not obvious at first.
It's cloudy tonight so no observing. I need the rest in any case.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
backyard colorful stars and more
Spent last night out with the 8-inch in the backyard chasing down targets in the Stellar Evolution and Carbon Star lists. The moon didn't clear the neighbor's roof until about 10:20pm, so there was ample time to observe -- though the moon did wash out the sky for the most part. M1 and M78 were on the list but were unobservable. But the stars were really nice.
Epsilon Eridani was just visible naked eye so I could use the reflex sight alone to point to it. It was a nice orange-yellow color and the brightest star by far in a poor field. At 10.5 light years it is the third closest star visible to the naked eye and the closest star to host a planetary system (pending confirmation of Alpha Centauri Bb). It's a young star, 1 billion years old, and it has a massive planet orbiting it at 3 AU, with two asteroid belts, one inside and one outside of that orbit. SETI has listened to signals from it without success (so far...).
Hind's Crimson Star (R Leporis) is a truly amazing sight. It is relatively small and faint but a very deep red color. I was able to resolve the airy disk. It is a carbon star which varies brightness from 5.5 to 11.7 every 420 days or so. It is supposed to be its most red when it is most faint. The current AAVSO Light Curve Generator pegs it at 8.5 now, and brightening. This will be one to watch next year and into the spring of 2017 when it should be more faint.
Bellatrix (Gamma Orionis) was an icy blue with some hints of green. It is very young, 20 million years, and is 250 light years away, and is 8.5x the size of the sun and 3.8x as hot.
4 (Omega) Aurigae was a surprise double star. The A was a surprising sickly blue-green color, and the B was a tawny brown, nicely split 5" away.
NGC 1931: I was surprised I could resolve this given the sky conditions and presence of the moon. It is supposed to look like a mini Orion Nebula, but I was only able to resolve two wings of the brighter nebulosity around a brighter central "star" which flashed into view with averted vision.
M37: Hundreds of mag 8-9 stars in branches and streams with clouds of fainter stars behind, broken up with dark lanes. A distinctive red star in the center. Enough to make one weep for the beauty of it.
UU Aurigae was a bright orange. The chart says it is a double but there was none seen even at 184x.
Theta 1 Orionis, the brightest star of the Trapezium. I hoped to resolve the E and F stars in the 8-inch, but the sky did not cooperate; transparency fell off sharply.
Zeta Orionis: Multiple star. The A component is the brightest O-class star visible. I could resolve four components, the very faint D preceding the group. I could almost imagine the group swinging around its bright A.
Y Tauri was visible in the finder as a very faint red spot. In the scope the color was nearly as red as Hind's Crimson Star.
W Orionis: Appeared orange in the finder and in the scope was a deep orange, at the end of a string of three other stars.
S Camelepordaris was a very long hop from Delta Aurigae, but worth it! Deep orange-red in a triangle of stars.
Once the ~80% waning gibbous moon had cleared the neighbor's roof I had a look at 184x. I could see fog blowing past the moon naked eye, and in the scope it was rippling. But I was very intrigued by the terminator, which I don't often see at this phase. There were many mons just lighting up in their nighttime craters, and there were many dark bays and channels. Most interesting was the shadow of one peak projected onto the lit side of another mountain range behind it. I am very unsure of where this was, exactly. While I made a sketch of the feature I neglected to make a sketch of the finder view to help me find it in the Rukl atlas later. A lesson for the future!
Epsilon Eridani was just visible naked eye so I could use the reflex sight alone to point to it. It was a nice orange-yellow color and the brightest star by far in a poor field. At 10.5 light years it is the third closest star visible to the naked eye and the closest star to host a planetary system (pending confirmation of Alpha Centauri Bb). It's a young star, 1 billion years old, and it has a massive planet orbiting it at 3 AU, with two asteroid belts, one inside and one outside of that orbit. SETI has listened to signals from it without success (so far...).
Hind's Crimson Star (R Leporis) is a truly amazing sight. It is relatively small and faint but a very deep red color. I was able to resolve the airy disk. It is a carbon star which varies brightness from 5.5 to 11.7 every 420 days or so. It is supposed to be its most red when it is most faint. The current AAVSO Light Curve Generator pegs it at 8.5 now, and brightening. This will be one to watch next year and into the spring of 2017 when it should be more faint.
Bellatrix (Gamma Orionis) was an icy blue with some hints of green. It is very young, 20 million years, and is 250 light years away, and is 8.5x the size of the sun and 3.8x as hot.
4 (Omega) Aurigae was a surprise double star. The A was a surprising sickly blue-green color, and the B was a tawny brown, nicely split 5" away.
NGC 1931: I was surprised I could resolve this given the sky conditions and presence of the moon. It is supposed to look like a mini Orion Nebula, but I was only able to resolve two wings of the brighter nebulosity around a brighter central "star" which flashed into view with averted vision.
M37: Hundreds of mag 8-9 stars in branches and streams with clouds of fainter stars behind, broken up with dark lanes. A distinctive red star in the center. Enough to make one weep for the beauty of it.
UU Aurigae was a bright orange. The chart says it is a double but there was none seen even at 184x.
Theta 1 Orionis, the brightest star of the Trapezium. I hoped to resolve the E and F stars in the 8-inch, but the sky did not cooperate; transparency fell off sharply.
Zeta Orionis: Multiple star. The A component is the brightest O-class star visible. I could resolve four components, the very faint D preceding the group. I could almost imagine the group swinging around its bright A.
Y Tauri was visible in the finder as a very faint red spot. In the scope the color was nearly as red as Hind's Crimson Star.
W Orionis: Appeared orange in the finder and in the scope was a deep orange, at the end of a string of three other stars.
S Camelepordaris was a very long hop from Delta Aurigae, but worth it! Deep orange-red in a triangle of stars.
Once the ~80% waning gibbous moon had cleared the neighbor's roof I had a look at 184x. I could see fog blowing past the moon naked eye, and in the scope it was rippling. But I was very intrigued by the terminator, which I don't often see at this phase. There were many mons just lighting up in their nighttime craters, and there were many dark bays and channels. Most interesting was the shadow of one peak projected onto the lit side of another mountain range behind it. I am very unsure of where this was, exactly. While I made a sketch of the feature I neglected to make a sketch of the finder view to help me find it in the Rukl atlas later. A lesson for the future!
Sunday, December 27, 2015
backyard work
Yesterday morning I worked on my roll off shed, redoing the wire connections on the differential thermostat. I am sure the connections are correct now, but the system still doesn't work -- the fan did not come on, nor did the light bulb light. I will need Harry's help to figure it out.
The sun had cleared the neighbor's pine tree so I installed my solar filters and had a nice look at sunspot complex AR2473. It had quadrupled in size in the last couple of days and had been threatening a coronal mass ejection. There was one giant spot which appeared like a honeycomb section, with seemingly straight sides. Trailing away from it were multiple small spots and disruptions, configured roughly as two triangles. I scanned around and found AR2472, which was one small distinct spot with its mate visible with averted vision only. I could not find AR2470 or AR2475. The image at 277x was turbulent but usable.
The weather was to be very clear that night so I opened the shed before dinner and set a fan behind the primary. I wanted to be sure the image problems I have been having were due to the atmosphere and not an un-equalized primary. I continued my many weeks project of aligning the equatorial platform, tracking some stars at meridian and to the west. Toward 10:30pm I decided close was good enough, and bolted down the platform. I was able to track in declination for 10 minutes, and the right ascension errors I was seeing I think were due to mount speed errors. The set-up should be good enough for my purpose, which is astrometry of double stars, and general observing of the planets, moon, and so on. Maybe even some short exposure astrophotography or lucky imaging of double stars.
After bolting down I turned the scope to Rigel, which had cleared the tree, and was happy to see I could split it well -- though I did not see clean airy disks. I next moved to the Trapezium and could just see the E and F components, but again the image was not clean. The sky seemed pretty steady but maybe there was some turbulence up there to blame. But ever since I had this mirror tested and learned it is overcorrected (and has a turned edge which I fixed by masking off the outer 1/2 inch of the mirror) I have been concerned about whether this mirror is the best quality to have spent the effort to mount in an observatory, and whether I will be able to do the astrometry I have planned. It's merely a good mirror, not a great one... I'm hoping for some truly steady nights to prove it one way or another.
The sun had cleared the neighbor's pine tree so I installed my solar filters and had a nice look at sunspot complex AR2473. It had quadrupled in size in the last couple of days and had been threatening a coronal mass ejection. There was one giant spot which appeared like a honeycomb section, with seemingly straight sides. Trailing away from it were multiple small spots and disruptions, configured roughly as two triangles. I scanned around and found AR2472, which was one small distinct spot with its mate visible with averted vision only. I could not find AR2470 or AR2475. The image at 277x was turbulent but usable.
The weather was to be very clear that night so I opened the shed before dinner and set a fan behind the primary. I wanted to be sure the image problems I have been having were due to the atmosphere and not an un-equalized primary. I continued my many weeks project of aligning the equatorial platform, tracking some stars at meridian and to the west. Toward 10:30pm I decided close was good enough, and bolted down the platform. I was able to track in declination for 10 minutes, and the right ascension errors I was seeing I think were due to mount speed errors. The set-up should be good enough for my purpose, which is astrometry of double stars, and general observing of the planets, moon, and so on. Maybe even some short exposure astrophotography or lucky imaging of double stars.
After bolting down I turned the scope to Rigel, which had cleared the tree, and was happy to see I could split it well -- though I did not see clean airy disks. I next moved to the Trapezium and could just see the E and F components, but again the image was not clean. The sky seemed pretty steady but maybe there was some turbulence up there to blame. But ever since I had this mirror tested and learned it is overcorrected (and has a turned edge which I fixed by masking off the outer 1/2 inch of the mirror) I have been concerned about whether this mirror is the best quality to have spent the effort to mount in an observatory, and whether I will be able to do the astrometry I have planned. It's merely a good mirror, not a great one... I'm hoping for some truly steady nights to prove it one way or another.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Comet Catalina C/2013 US10
I had another look at the comet this morning. I slept fitfully during the night and decided to get up when I woke suddenly at 4:30am. The full moon was declining to the west, and I hoped since it was opposite the comet its light would not wash it out -- this hope proved unfounded. Seeing seemed very good, and transparency was pretty good considering some high clouds or fog about.
Using Arcturus as a starting point I quickly found the comet by hopping to 15 Bootis, which turns out to be a widely separated pair with a pretty, bright yellow primary. I saw the comet first in the eyepiece (31mm 48x 1.7 degree TFOV), following 15 Bootis about a third of a degree, looking like a faint unresolved globular cluster. The coma was large, and brighter with averted vision, but I could not see the nucleus. I looked through the finder and saw a very faint patch only after tapping the scope.
Using the same eyepiece with the comet filter, I could see the faintest of a thin tail trailing to the south west -- which seems to be the wrong direction as it should be trailing away from the sun. (Frustratingly many people posting pictures and sketches on the web fail to indicate the cardinal directions on their image, so I can't confirm where the tail should be headed!) I needed to tap / move the scope to see it. It actually became more difficult to see -- it was apparent at first glance but after a few minutes I struggled to see it. Exceedingly faint, if there at all.
Using 113x without the filter the nucleus was easily seen, almost stellar, and really popped out with averted vision. Even with the higher magnification the coma seemed not to have lost any of its size. Adding the comet filter confirmed my impression of the tail direction.
I then turned to Jupiter, which disappointingly could not bear magnification at all -- seeing had suddenly turned quite bad. At the start of the session I was getting airy disks, but now everything was bloated. No Galilean moon events happening, so I turned to Mars, which was a nice ruddy color, and I detected a hint of dark patches and lighter pole. Venus was much lower in the sky than a couple weeks ago when I first saw the comet. I looked at some favorite double stars (Zeta Leonis, Cor Caroli, Delta Corvi), but all were bloated and only hinted at the color and beauty of these pairs.
As it neared 6:00 am the sounds of the highway grew louder, I could hear the engine roar of the garbage truck as it started its round through the neighborhood, and the sky was beginning to brighten. I had a look at the moon awhile, but even at 113x the image was turbulent. I started to think how good it would be to have some coffee, so packed up and came inside.
I hope to have more chances at this comet in the coming weeks under more favorable skies.
Using Arcturus as a starting point I quickly found the comet by hopping to 15 Bootis, which turns out to be a widely separated pair with a pretty, bright yellow primary. I saw the comet first in the eyepiece (31mm 48x 1.7 degree TFOV), following 15 Bootis about a third of a degree, looking like a faint unresolved globular cluster. The coma was large, and brighter with averted vision, but I could not see the nucleus. I looked through the finder and saw a very faint patch only after tapping the scope.
Using the same eyepiece with the comet filter, I could see the faintest of a thin tail trailing to the south west -- which seems to be the wrong direction as it should be trailing away from the sun. (Frustratingly many people posting pictures and sketches on the web fail to indicate the cardinal directions on their image, so I can't confirm where the tail should be headed!) I needed to tap / move the scope to see it. It actually became more difficult to see -- it was apparent at first glance but after a few minutes I struggled to see it. Exceedingly faint, if there at all.
Using 113x without the filter the nucleus was easily seen, almost stellar, and really popped out with averted vision. Even with the higher magnification the coma seemed not to have lost any of its size. Adding the comet filter confirmed my impression of the tail direction.
I then turned to Jupiter, which disappointingly could not bear magnification at all -- seeing had suddenly turned quite bad. At the start of the session I was getting airy disks, but now everything was bloated. No Galilean moon events happening, so I turned to Mars, which was a nice ruddy color, and I detected a hint of dark patches and lighter pole. Venus was much lower in the sky than a couple weeks ago when I first saw the comet. I looked at some favorite double stars (Zeta Leonis, Cor Caroli, Delta Corvi), but all were bloated and only hinted at the color and beauty of these pairs.
As it neared 6:00 am the sounds of the highway grew louder, I could hear the engine roar of the garbage truck as it started its round through the neighborhood, and the sky was beginning to brighten. I had a look at the moon awhile, but even at 113x the image was turbulent. I started to think how good it would be to have some coffee, so packed up and came inside.
I hope to have more chances at this comet in the coming weeks under more favorable skies.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
20151215 in the back yard
Spent an hour in the back yard with the 12.5-inch. I planned to just hop double star to double star for a leisurely evening; it's been a while since I've done that. But the seeing was quite poor: bloated stars even at just 170x. I believe it was tube currents, in spite of my fan. The air temperature drops 20 degrees once the sun sets, and it still takes a few hours for the mirror to equilibrate, fans or no.
So I had a look at low power, mainly at M42 the Orion Nebula. It was very bright and green color, with streaks of red/pink color on the "fish's" back. Plenty of mottling, and the trapezium was plain, if only resolved to four stars. Great arcs of nebulosity extending around the fish. I put on a UHC filter since people rave about it; the sky was darker and the nebula more defined with the contrast, but the stars turned an artificial green color. I much preferred the unfiltered view.
High bands of cloud moved in, and the poor seeing made me decide to pack it in earlier than I hoped. I'm still a bit tired from waking early these last two mornings. I'll have to tell my body to let me sleep late tomorrow morning.
It's supposed to be rainy the next week, so this might be the last session for a while.
So I had a look at low power, mainly at M42 the Orion Nebula. It was very bright and green color, with streaks of red/pink color on the "fish's" back. Plenty of mottling, and the trapezium was plain, if only resolved to four stars. Great arcs of nebulosity extending around the fish. I put on a UHC filter since people rave about it; the sky was darker and the nebula more defined with the contrast, but the stars turned an artificial green color. I much preferred the unfiltered view.
High bands of cloud moved in, and the poor seeing made me decide to pack it in earlier than I hoped. I'm still a bit tired from waking early these last two mornings. I'll have to tell my body to let me sleep late tomorrow morning.
It's supposed to be rainy the next week, so this might be the last session for a while.
20151215 Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina
This comet is special: Aside from having both dust and gaseous tails, the comet’s speed has achieved escape velocity from our solar system. These next couple of months are your only chance to see this particular celestial object.
This morning at 5:30am from my Fremont, CA backyard, I found the comet straightaway. I first used 8x56 binoculars to sweep over from Mars (which has replaced Theta Virginis as a naked eye reference) to the field and could make out a moderately bright small fuzzy patch. I then set-up my 8” f/7.25 reflector in the right area in my yard to see the comet, which was in a slice of sky between a tree and a neighbor’s house. Again using Mars as an orientation point, I could make out Zeta Virginis and pointed the telescope to it, then made a quick hop to the comet, which was near Upsilon Virginis.
At 42x the coma was fairly bright, round, bluish grey haze with a sharply brighter center. After some time I could begin to make out a bulge on the edge of the coma, which would be the beginnings of a tail. The comet was in the NW corner of a Sagittarius-shaped asterism, in the “spout.”
I read that the comet responds well to a SWAN band filter. I was using a 35mm eyepiece for my initial observation, and hoped to use it for the filtered view since it would have an ideal exit pupil at 4.5mm. But I could not get the filter to thread onto it, so switched to a 22mm eyepiece instead. At 67x, 2.8mm exit pupil, the coma appeared brighter and larger, nearly reaching a nearby field star it did not reach in the unfiltered view. I could just barely detect dual tails: an extremely faint blunt and about half a degree long dust tail, and an excessively faint and wispy thin one degree long ion tail—reminiscent of seeing the Eastern Veil Nebula in light polluted skies. I’m guessing the higher magnification helped me see the dust tail, and the filter helped me see the ion tail. But both were really tough.
Seeing and transparency, which had been average before, took a turn for the worse. I had a look at Jupiter in case there were any transits happening (there weren’t), and had a view of Mars and Venus, both mushy. At 6:10am I saw a long bright fireball meteorite near Hydra / Corvus, which left the faintest of smoke trails. I then noticed a bright satellite in Leo, headed SE, and tracked it with my finderscope. At times I was able to lead it into the center so it would rush through my eyepiece, a bright swift dot. I followed it all the way to the horizon. I’ve been looking for references today as to which satellite it was (ISS?) but so far have not identified it.
This morning at 5:30am from my Fremont, CA backyard, I found the comet straightaway. I first used 8x56 binoculars to sweep over from Mars (which has replaced Theta Virginis as a naked eye reference) to the field and could make out a moderately bright small fuzzy patch. I then set-up my 8” f/7.25 reflector in the right area in my yard to see the comet, which was in a slice of sky between a tree and a neighbor’s house. Again using Mars as an orientation point, I could make out Zeta Virginis and pointed the telescope to it, then made a quick hop to the comet, which was near Upsilon Virginis.
At 42x the coma was fairly bright, round, bluish grey haze with a sharply brighter center. After some time I could begin to make out a bulge on the edge of the coma, which would be the beginnings of a tail. The comet was in the NW corner of a Sagittarius-shaped asterism, in the “spout.”
I read that the comet responds well to a SWAN band filter. I was using a 35mm eyepiece for my initial observation, and hoped to use it for the filtered view since it would have an ideal exit pupil at 4.5mm. But I could not get the filter to thread onto it, so switched to a 22mm eyepiece instead. At 67x, 2.8mm exit pupil, the coma appeared brighter and larger, nearly reaching a nearby field star it did not reach in the unfiltered view. I could just barely detect dual tails: an extremely faint blunt and about half a degree long dust tail, and an excessively faint and wispy thin one degree long ion tail—reminiscent of seeing the Eastern Veil Nebula in light polluted skies. I’m guessing the higher magnification helped me see the dust tail, and the filter helped me see the ion tail. But both were really tough.
Seeing and transparency, which had been average before, took a turn for the worse. I had a look at Jupiter in case there were any transits happening (there weren’t), and had a view of Mars and Venus, both mushy. At 6:10am I saw a long bright fireball meteorite near Hydra / Corvus, which left the faintest of smoke trails. I then noticed a bright satellite in Leo, headed SE, and tracked it with my finderscope. At times I was able to lead it into the center so it would rush through my eyepiece, a bright swift dot. I followed it all the way to the horizon. I’ve been looking for references today as to which satellite it was (ISS?) but so far have not identified it.
Monday, December 14, 2015
12/13/15, Geminid meteor shower & a try for Catalina
I sat out in the backyard from 9:30pm to 10:45pm to watch the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. It was clear but with poor transparency and shreds of marine layer clouds passing swiftly overhead. I saw 31 total for the time spent, mostly in Aurgia and Taurus, with a few in Gemini only late in the session, and these headed to the east. A few were bright long streaks, but without smoke trails. Most were quick little dashes, and seemed to fall from their place. #24 and 25 were in Taurus, about 5 seconds apart. Most were emanating from the east and were true Geminids; the first one I saw came from Cassiopeia and headed toward Gemini. It was cold but I was fine in my down parka and heavy boots. I once fully dark adapted I could see Orion's shield stars and even the line of stars (14, 16, 19) in Auriga's middle. I tried to see some open clusters with the Vixens but the sky was too bright.
I've wanted to try to see comet Catalina and the morning of 12/14 was the first clear sky chance I had. I told myself if I happened to wake up early enough I would go out -- and somehow my body woke me up at exactly 5am. I put back on my winter clothes (which I set out from the night before after the meteor watch) and took my 8" reflector to give it a go. I became very disorientated trying to find the right location. The far eastern end of Virgo, where the comet was supposed to be, is hard for me to navigate to, since there are so many faint stars. I tried sweeping with binoculars but didn't see anything. I eventually tried to star hop from Arcturus, but I didn't bring a bright enough red flashlight and I had trouble reading the charts. Eventually I ran out of night sky and twilight took over. I looked at Jupiter and Mars, which were both mushy in the poor seeing. Venus was as bright as some of the planes heading toward Oakland airport. I will try again tomorrow morning, assuming I can wake myself up again, and this time more carefully plan.
But, the irony is, I saw seven meteorites while I was out in the morning, darting around Leo and Virgo. This in a shorter period of time than last night's watch, and with me more focused on trying to find the blasted comet, looking in my finder or the binoculars. So when was the real peak?
I've wanted to try to see comet Catalina and the morning of 12/14 was the first clear sky chance I had. I told myself if I happened to wake up early enough I would go out -- and somehow my body woke me up at exactly 5am. I put back on my winter clothes (which I set out from the night before after the meteor watch) and took my 8" reflector to give it a go. I became very disorientated trying to find the right location. The far eastern end of Virgo, where the comet was supposed to be, is hard for me to navigate to, since there are so many faint stars. I tried sweeping with binoculars but didn't see anything. I eventually tried to star hop from Arcturus, but I didn't bring a bright enough red flashlight and I had trouble reading the charts. Eventually I ran out of night sky and twilight took over. I looked at Jupiter and Mars, which were both mushy in the poor seeing. Venus was as bright as some of the planes heading toward Oakland airport. I will try again tomorrow morning, assuming I can wake myself up again, and this time more carefully plan.
But, the irony is, I saw seven meteorites while I was out in the morning, darting around Leo and Virgo. This in a shorter period of time than last night's watch, and with me more focused on trying to find the blasted comet, looking in my finder or the binoculars. So when was the real peak?
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Fremont Peak, 12/12/15
Clear Sky Clock predicted four hours of clear weather before the next raft of clouds was to move in. Based on the prediction I packed the car for just an evening's viewing. Even though I brought my 20-inch, I still had enough room in the minivan to bring Val along with our Astroscan for her to use. We arrived a bit early and hiked up to the small radio tower, before setting up the telescopes and eating a picnic dinner as it fell dark. I saw the very young moon over the peak and pointed it out to Val -- just before some fast moving clouds covered it over.
I decided to tear down my scope, knowing we would not be lucky that night. I joked with Val that as soon as I put the scope back into the car it would be clear -- and it was. But, seeing a wall of cloud to the north, I could tell it would be short-lived. Instead I scouted the sky with binoculars as it was finally dark. Val asked what that bright cluster was just coming over the trees -- it was the Pleiades. She aimed the Astroscan to it herself and had a look (16x, 2.8 degree TFOV). She was so excited and ran to get her notebook to make a sketch. She described it as a running man and asked me to look into the scope to see what she saw. She said she had discovered a new constellation and was very proud.
I scanned the area of Cassiopeia, Perseus, and Taurus as this was the only area of sky open to us. The Double Cluster was naked eye and I pointed it out to Val, and we had a look through the Astroscan. There were so many more stars in the nearly three degree field of view, the two clusters were just about lost in the crowd. Next we viewed the "S" shaped chain of stars in Melotte 20 (Alpha Persei Cluster). While Val was having some hot chocolate I kept scanning through my 2.1x42 Vixens. The Hyades and Pleiades fit in the FOV, and they look like a double cluster, just nearer; there are so many more stars to be seen in the Vixens it joins the two. I also found where M34 was in the Vixens as they could not be seen naked eye, and pointed the Astroscan to it for a look: a nest of stars.
I tried out a new chart stand I put together with a used a monitor arm which had been discarded from some test chamber equipment at work. When attached to the side of my ladder I can position it conveniently whether standing on the ladder or on the ground. I told Val this was a project worth posting on Cloudy Nights Forums for other astronomers to read about, as opposed to my roll off shed which is clumsily built, of I was embarrassed and afraid people would be critical. Val said something very wise: "Don't worry if they make fun of you; they all have faults of their own."
The Geminid meteor shower was to be active this night, as I was scanning around I kept my eye open for them. I saw one, a streak seemingly dropped from the sky, but Val missed it. Clouds were fast encroaching the whole viewing area, but we were determined to stay until Val had seen a meteor. Unfortunately we didn't. But it was not a disappointment. We both had a wonderful time under the stars together, even if it was only for an hour.
I decided to tear down my scope, knowing we would not be lucky that night. I joked with Val that as soon as I put the scope back into the car it would be clear -- and it was. But, seeing a wall of cloud to the north, I could tell it would be short-lived. Instead I scouted the sky with binoculars as it was finally dark. Val asked what that bright cluster was just coming over the trees -- it was the Pleiades. She aimed the Astroscan to it herself and had a look (16x, 2.8 degree TFOV). She was so excited and ran to get her notebook to make a sketch. She described it as a running man and asked me to look into the scope to see what she saw. She said she had discovered a new constellation and was very proud.
I scanned the area of Cassiopeia, Perseus, and Taurus as this was the only area of sky open to us. The Double Cluster was naked eye and I pointed it out to Val, and we had a look through the Astroscan. There were so many more stars in the nearly three degree field of view, the two clusters were just about lost in the crowd. Next we viewed the "S" shaped chain of stars in Melotte 20 (Alpha Persei Cluster). While Val was having some hot chocolate I kept scanning through my 2.1x42 Vixens. The Hyades and Pleiades fit in the FOV, and they look like a double cluster, just nearer; there are so many more stars to be seen in the Vixens it joins the two. I also found where M34 was in the Vixens as they could not be seen naked eye, and pointed the Astroscan to it for a look: a nest of stars.
I tried out a new chart stand I put together with a used a monitor arm which had been discarded from some test chamber equipment at work. When attached to the side of my ladder I can position it conveniently whether standing on the ladder or on the ground. I told Val this was a project worth posting on Cloudy Nights Forums for other astronomers to read about, as opposed to my roll off shed which is clumsily built, of I was embarrassed and afraid people would be critical. Val said something very wise: "Don't worry if they make fun of you; they all have faults of their own."
The Geminid meteor shower was to be active this night, as I was scanning around I kept my eye open for them. I saw one, a streak seemingly dropped from the sky, but Val missed it. Clouds were fast encroaching the whole viewing area, but we were determined to stay until Val had seen a meteor. Unfortunately we didn't. But it was not a disappointment. We both had a wonderful time under the stars together, even if it was only for an hour.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
20151107 Pinnacles
With SJAA.
Pinnacles was fun! It sure was cold, but we all seemed to have dressed for it. Unfortunately there was some moisture in the air so transparency was not better than average – SQML didn’t get above 20.90 but nonetheless I filled my notebook with observations. I like the site pretty well: it’s very accessible. On the downside one needs to shield one’s eyes from the occasional passing car and bring an eyepatch to preserve one’s dark adaptation in the lit bathrooms. It was fun meeting the names from the emails and share views. Here are a few of my more memorable observations, in my 20”:
NGC 3172, “Polarissima Borealis”: This is a spiral galaxy in UMi which has the distinction of being the closest NGC object to Polaris, less than 1° away. It’s an otherwise unremarkable tilted spiral, small and fairly bright with a stellar nucleus. I noticed it on my way to…
IC 3568, “Lemon Slice”, a planetary nebula with a bright disk, a dim central star almost lost inside, and a faint shaggy outer ring surrounding the disk. There is a faint star just on the edge of the western halo.
HDW3, highly evolved & dispersed planetary nebula in Perseus. Impossible to see without an OIII filter. Extremely faint and large, with a diffuse / irregular edge. Many faint stars in the field.
NGC 891, galaxy in Andromeda. Very long 5:1 edge on, nearly spans 0.5° FOV at 205x. A prominent dark lane runs much of the length, visible direct vision but really pops out with averted vision
NGC 1618, 1622, & 1625: Very cool string of three nearly edge on spirals arrayed near Nu Eridani. I thought Nu’s brightness would hurt the view, and while the galaxies were somewhat brighter with Nu out of the field, it was still a pretty arrangement to see these so close to a bright star.
Barnard’s Loop: Using 2.1x42mm Vixen binoculars fitted with H-Beta filters, I had a try to find the large faint nebulosity around Orion when as it neared meridian. The constellation fit the FOV from head to foot and more, and at first I could not see the loop. Then I could trace a “C” shape of faint milky wash extending from between the belt stars and Betelgeuse back and around to the Sword. Once seen it was obvious to me and I could pick it out easily. M42 appeared as a lumpy bubble. I could not quite make out the head nebula, it was merely sensed, being a slightly lighter dark than the dark sky. The Rosette was easy and bright. I look forward to trying these again on a better night.
Hands down, though, the sight of the night was the Trident missile test just after dark. As we were all setting up I happened to look up at a bright triangular cloud. It had a long central tubular blue-green glow, and a bright point which was moving! “What the heck is that!?” I called out, “up in the sky!” We soon realized it had to be a rocket launch, I assumed from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was very strange how large the cloud lasted, and how wide it had become. Gary had the presence of mind to train his telescope on the missile itself and tracked it as it headed west. It was the most remarkable sight: a spinning point with swirls of light spinning out from it, like a dual-ended sprinkler, spinning fast. I could see pulses coming off it. Gary explained these were to make the rocket spin as it traveled. As it happens, this was the official “first light” object of Gary’s 15” dob – quite an object indeed! The triangular cloud dissipated slowly, and after 20 minutes there was still the long blue-green glow in the sky. Amazing. In the back of my mind I felt reassured there was only one rocket – more of them would have spelt trouble.
An SJAA member took this photo:
NGC 3172, “Polarissima Borealis”: This is a spiral galaxy in UMi which has the distinction of being the closest NGC object to Polaris, less than 1° away. It’s an otherwise unremarkable tilted spiral, small and fairly bright with a stellar nucleus. I noticed it on my way to…
IC 3568, “Lemon Slice”, a planetary nebula with a bright disk, a dim central star almost lost inside, and a faint shaggy outer ring surrounding the disk. There is a faint star just on the edge of the western halo.
HDW3, highly evolved & dispersed planetary nebula in Perseus. Impossible to see without an OIII filter. Extremely faint and large, with a diffuse / irregular edge. Many faint stars in the field.
NGC 891, galaxy in Andromeda. Very long 5:1 edge on, nearly spans 0.5° FOV at 205x. A prominent dark lane runs much of the length, visible direct vision but really pops out with averted vision
NGC 1618, 1622, & 1625: Very cool string of three nearly edge on spirals arrayed near Nu Eridani. I thought Nu’s brightness would hurt the view, and while the galaxies were somewhat brighter with Nu out of the field, it was still a pretty arrangement to see these so close to a bright star.
Barnard’s Loop: Using 2.1x42mm Vixen binoculars fitted with H-Beta filters, I had a try to find the large faint nebulosity around Orion when as it neared meridian. The constellation fit the FOV from head to foot and more, and at first I could not see the loop. Then I could trace a “C” shape of faint milky wash extending from between the belt stars and Betelgeuse back and around to the Sword. Once seen it was obvious to me and I could pick it out easily. M42 appeared as a lumpy bubble. I could not quite make out the head nebula, it was merely sensed, being a slightly lighter dark than the dark sky. The Rosette was easy and bright. I look forward to trying these again on a better night.
Hands down, though, the sight of the night was the Trident missile test just after dark. As we were all setting up I happened to look up at a bright triangular cloud. It had a long central tubular blue-green glow, and a bright point which was moving! “What the heck is that!?” I called out, “up in the sky!” We soon realized it had to be a rocket launch, I assumed from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was very strange how large the cloud lasted, and how wide it had become. Gary had the presence of mind to train his telescope on the missile itself and tracked it as it headed west. It was the most remarkable sight: a spinning point with swirls of light spinning out from it, like a dual-ended sprinkler, spinning fast. I could see pulses coming off it. Gary explained these were to make the rocket spin as it traveled. As it happens, this was the official “first light” object of Gary’s 15” dob – quite an object indeed! The triangular cloud dissipated slowly, and after 20 minutes there was still the long blue-green glow in the sky. Amazing. In the back of my mind I felt reassured there was only one rocket – more of them would have spelt trouble.
An SJAA member took this photo:
20151020 The Lunar Eagle
I’ve seen the Lunar X, and the Lunar Y, and Huygens’s Sword. Last night another image presented itself to me, which I’d like to call the Lunar Eagle.
I was out the evening of 10/20/15 at 7:30pm, scanning the shadowed and lit edge of the moon as I usually do. 12.5” f/7 277x on an equatorial platform. Seeing was average and transparency poor, with thin fog blowing past the moon making it look like it was sailing through a cloud. Huygens’s Sword was nice, with Rupes Recta casting a widening shadow along its length. I came upon the area of Mare Imbrium and followed the Montes Apenninus which I suddenly noticed what looked like an eagle perched atop the mountains, near crater Eratosthenes. On Rukl this is plate 21, 16° N 6° W.
The “eagle” was facing forward, and had two deep black eyes, a bright beak, and a rounded breast. Its “legs” were long, the right crossed in front of the left. Two dark craters appeared as its wings, as if it had just landed there and was folding them up. How bizarre. I used my celphone to snap this photo, a bit zoomed in on the phone.
The more I look at the moon the more I see. And since my sketching skills leave so much to be desired I think I’m going to have to get a DSLR, minimum, to better capture these strange sights.
I was out the evening of 10/20/15 at 7:30pm, scanning the shadowed and lit edge of the moon as I usually do. 12.5” f/7 277x on an equatorial platform. Seeing was average and transparency poor, with thin fog blowing past the moon making it look like it was sailing through a cloud. Huygens’s Sword was nice, with Rupes Recta casting a widening shadow along its length. I came upon the area of Mare Imbrium and followed the Montes Apenninus which I suddenly noticed what looked like an eagle perched atop the mountains, near crater Eratosthenes. On Rukl this is plate 21, 16° N 6° W.
The “eagle” was facing forward, and had two deep black eyes, a bright beak, and a rounded breast. Its “legs” were long, the right crossed in front of the left. Two dark craters appeared as its wings, as if it had just landed there and was folding them up. How bizarre. I used my celphone to snap this photo, a bit zoomed in on the phone.
The more I look at the moon the more I see. And since my sketching skills leave so much to be desired I think I’m going to have to get a DSLR, minimum, to better capture these strange sights.
20151011 Dinosaur Point
Having observed the prior night at Willow Springs I was happy to have the chance to go to Dinosaur Point the following evening. Dino was being opened by Jamie Dillon on TAC; I wanted to go partly to cultivate a friendship with him and anyone else going. I wanted to observe from the site to make sure it was a good option during the rainy season. I was able to have a couple of short naps during the day, and I was surprisingly awake for the evening.
I arrived at around 6:30 and parked in the lot. Jamie and David C. were already there. Mark from Santa Cruz showed up a short time later. Jamie convinced me to set up my 20”, and I told him the story of how I found the chassis on Craigslist and rebuilt it. He complemented the movements etc.
After set-up and during the sunset I ate some dinner (jambalaya, French bread, and Gouda cheese bought from Safeway on the way down). Jamie noticed columns of midges swarming up from the tops of the oak trees all around the parking lot. They looked like streamers being blown up from the trees, and they made a strange soft buzzing sound. It was a wonderful sight, they must have been settling in for the evening.
As I began to observe I could tell the scope was not cooled. It’s a problem; I often see bloated and shaky stars. I also wonder if the fans are causing vibration affecting the image. I viewed objects at random using my atlas, not having any plan in mind. I found interacting galaxy group Hickson 88 and called Jamie over. I saw four faint cores of which two were in the middle of a line; it turns out the two are condensations within one galaxy. Jamie pulled out Uranometria and confirmed three galaxies were in the group. The next day on Aladin I found there is a fourth member a little separated from the line of three and dimmer, which is why it probably didn’t show in Uranometria, and why I didn’t notice it. I need to pan the eyepiece around a little more to catch such objects.
David had what think was a 6” AstroPhysics Starfire, a very excellent telescope. I looked through it later in the night when he had framed M31, M32, and M110 in the same FOV. It was pretty, to be sure. I looked through Jamie’s 10” Discovery dob, which put up very beautiful star images. He was showing a cluster in Cassiopeia that looked like a small flight of geese. The cool thing, as he explained, was these stars are in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way, which is one arm over from the Orion (where most of the stars we see reside). Mark remarked, those are really bright stars we’re seeing. Jamie is a passionate guy, and delights in the astrophysical aspects of the objects we see.
Clouds started moving in around 10pm from the north and transparency was never very good. We looked through holes to the south and northeast until about midnight when we decided to pack up. The lights from the Los Banos dam were not terribly bothersome, but there was some haze which reflected light into the sky and didn’t help. Best reading was 21.00 SQML pointed south. I think the site is ok but actually not much better than Henry Coe; so if I have a choice I may as well go to Henry Coe since its closer.
I arrived at around 6:30 and parked in the lot. Jamie and David C. were already there. Mark from Santa Cruz showed up a short time later. Jamie convinced me to set up my 20”, and I told him the story of how I found the chassis on Craigslist and rebuilt it. He complemented the movements etc.
After set-up and during the sunset I ate some dinner (jambalaya, French bread, and Gouda cheese bought from Safeway on the way down). Jamie noticed columns of midges swarming up from the tops of the oak trees all around the parking lot. They looked like streamers being blown up from the trees, and they made a strange soft buzzing sound. It was a wonderful sight, they must have been settling in for the evening.
As I began to observe I could tell the scope was not cooled. It’s a problem; I often see bloated and shaky stars. I also wonder if the fans are causing vibration affecting the image. I viewed objects at random using my atlas, not having any plan in mind. I found interacting galaxy group Hickson 88 and called Jamie over. I saw four faint cores of which two were in the middle of a line; it turns out the two are condensations within one galaxy. Jamie pulled out Uranometria and confirmed three galaxies were in the group. The next day on Aladin I found there is a fourth member a little separated from the line of three and dimmer, which is why it probably didn’t show in Uranometria, and why I didn’t notice it. I need to pan the eyepiece around a little more to catch such objects.
David had what think was a 6” AstroPhysics Starfire, a very excellent telescope. I looked through it later in the night when he had framed M31, M32, and M110 in the same FOV. It was pretty, to be sure. I looked through Jamie’s 10” Discovery dob, which put up very beautiful star images. He was showing a cluster in Cassiopeia that looked like a small flight of geese. The cool thing, as he explained, was these stars are in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way, which is one arm over from the Orion (where most of the stars we see reside). Mark remarked, those are really bright stars we’re seeing. Jamie is a passionate guy, and delights in the astrophysical aspects of the objects we see.
Clouds started moving in around 10pm from the north and transparency was never very good. We looked through holes to the south and northeast until about midnight when we decided to pack up. The lights from the Los Banos dam were not terribly bothersome, but there was some haze which reflected light into the sky and didn’t help. Best reading was 21.00 SQML pointed south. I think the site is ok but actually not much better than Henry Coe; so if I have a choice I may as well go to Henry Coe since its closer.
20151010 Willow Springs 3000
Knowing the importance of dark sites, I contacted Robert Ayers in the spring of 2015 asking if I could use his observing property in central California. Bob asks to meet and observe with the people he allows into the site, but it was not until September that he had the opportunity to invite me. It’s a 2 hour drive from Fremont to the Willow Springs development near Panoche Pass; then up a 2.5 mile unmaintained dusty & rocky dirt road to the property. There are some steep and rocky sections of the road which could be dangerous after wet weather, so this might turn out to be a summer / fall site.
But, the sky is very dark. When we observed together in September I brought my 8” f7.25 reflector, and had an amazing experience exploring dark nebulae, which require good dark sky to observe. The site is very quiet, being away from all roads; only the sound of the wind, insects, and birds. But, because it was remote and a mile away from the nearest house, it would be best if I go there with someone else to reduce the risk. So I asked my friend Balint, whom I met at GSSP in July, to get in touch with Bob.
For the October new moon I watched the forecasts and it looked to be the best Friday night. I arranged with Bob and Balint to go. I borrowed my in-law's Highlander to drive up the dirt road. Since Balint had not been to the site yet he decided to carpool with me to tell whether his car could handle the road. I stayed home from work that day to pack and prepare for the session. We had a lot of traffic on the way down, and despite leaving at 3:00 from Fremont, I didn’t get to San Jose to pick up Balint until 4:40; then the drive down with more traffic and a fire in Gilroy; a stop in Hollister for food; then the drive to the site. By the time we arrived it was dark. We set-up our tents first, then our scopes. I brought my big binoculars but thought not to set them up – I was already tired from the drive – but Balint wanted them so I set them up – and I was glad I did.
I had made a list of southern objects to observe. I plan to complete the H2 list, whose objects are mostly above 30 degrees, but I wanted to exploit the good southern horizon at the site. I started out at Formahaut, a star in PcA which recently had the first exoplanet ever to be imaged. The planet itself will be named by the IAU in December. I then wandered around. My mirror was not equalized to the temperature and all the stars looked bloated and fuzzy; it was several hours before it settled. This is a good reason to bring a smaller scope or binoculars along, so you have something to do while the telescope cools.
I tried some planetary nebulae in Aries, and intended to try for Sh-1 which Steve Gottlieb had written about in TAC, but didn’t make it there. I went back down and explored Fornax and was really impressed with what we found there: The Propeller (a perfect barred spiral); the Fornax dwarf in which I found four of six globular clusters; and finally the densely populated Fornax cluster with so many bright galaxies to explore—I just panned the scope and let them pop into view. I viewed the Helix Nebula for the first time, in the main scope and in the binos. We tried for the Sculptor Dwarf, which appeared as a brownish stain, reaching out of the field of view. A big surprise was NGC 253, the Silver Dollar galaxy: very large, bright, with dark lanes and mottling and HII regions. I had a finder chart which pointed out a dwarf galaxy to this beauty, and Balint and I tried very hard to find it but could not. I detected some brightening in the area but not in the exact correct location—I think I was seeing some of the halo.
I moved on next to M33 and proceeded to find all of the HII and star clouds marked on the finder chart I brought with me. It was so easy to do. I love my 20” scope! It brings so much of the universe to me. Orion was rising high up and I showed Balint the Horsehead Nebula and M42 – the first time he had seen them. The sky was so good at that point I was able to see the Flame Nebula through the binoculars.
Toward 4:00am (or so, I didn’t check my watch) I knew I was done, I could no longer observe. So I put my eyepieces away and went into my tent to sleep. I didn’t put the rain fly on the tent and could see Orion high above me. I must have slept soundly for about an hour or two before needing to go pee. I got up and saw Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and a thin waning moon rising in the east. The sky was very clear and still, with only some crickets singing. I should have gone to the scope to study the planets and the moon, which I rarely see at this phase. But I went back into the tent. I only slept a little while longer before waking. I ate some breakfast as more birds sang. The silhouettes of two horses were on the eastern ridge about 500 yards away; I could tell they were watching me, curious. After Balint got up I saw a black wild pig about 100 yards away walking up toward the gate. Thankfully we did not run into any snakes or spiders – I nearly ran over a tarantula crossing J1 during our drive down, they are out seeking mates during mating season.
But, the sky is very dark. When we observed together in September I brought my 8” f7.25 reflector, and had an amazing experience exploring dark nebulae, which require good dark sky to observe. The site is very quiet, being away from all roads; only the sound of the wind, insects, and birds. But, because it was remote and a mile away from the nearest house, it would be best if I go there with someone else to reduce the risk. So I asked my friend Balint, whom I met at GSSP in July, to get in touch with Bob.
For the October new moon I watched the forecasts and it looked to be the best Friday night. I arranged with Bob and Balint to go. I borrowed my in-law's Highlander to drive up the dirt road. Since Balint had not been to the site yet he decided to carpool with me to tell whether his car could handle the road. I stayed home from work that day to pack and prepare for the session. We had a lot of traffic on the way down, and despite leaving at 3:00 from Fremont, I didn’t get to San Jose to pick up Balint until 4:40; then the drive down with more traffic and a fire in Gilroy; a stop in Hollister for food; then the drive to the site. By the time we arrived it was dark. We set-up our tents first, then our scopes. I brought my big binoculars but thought not to set them up – I was already tired from the drive – but Balint wanted them so I set them up – and I was glad I did.
I had made a list of southern objects to observe. I plan to complete the H2 list, whose objects are mostly above 30 degrees, but I wanted to exploit the good southern horizon at the site. I started out at Formahaut, a star in PcA which recently had the first exoplanet ever to be imaged. The planet itself will be named by the IAU in December. I then wandered around. My mirror was not equalized to the temperature and all the stars looked bloated and fuzzy; it was several hours before it settled. This is a good reason to bring a smaller scope or binoculars along, so you have something to do while the telescope cools.
I tried some planetary nebulae in Aries, and intended to try for Sh-1 which Steve Gottlieb had written about in TAC, but didn’t make it there. I went back down and explored Fornax and was really impressed with what we found there: The Propeller (a perfect barred spiral); the Fornax dwarf in which I found four of six globular clusters; and finally the densely populated Fornax cluster with so many bright galaxies to explore—I just panned the scope and let them pop into view. I viewed the Helix Nebula for the first time, in the main scope and in the binos. We tried for the Sculptor Dwarf, which appeared as a brownish stain, reaching out of the field of view. A big surprise was NGC 253, the Silver Dollar galaxy: very large, bright, with dark lanes and mottling and HII regions. I had a finder chart which pointed out a dwarf galaxy to this beauty, and Balint and I tried very hard to find it but could not. I detected some brightening in the area but not in the exact correct location—I think I was seeing some of the halo.
I moved on next to M33 and proceeded to find all of the HII and star clouds marked on the finder chart I brought with me. It was so easy to do. I love my 20” scope! It brings so much of the universe to me. Orion was rising high up and I showed Balint the Horsehead Nebula and M42 – the first time he had seen them. The sky was so good at that point I was able to see the Flame Nebula through the binoculars.
Toward 4:00am (or so, I didn’t check my watch) I knew I was done, I could no longer observe. So I put my eyepieces away and went into my tent to sleep. I didn’t put the rain fly on the tent and could see Orion high above me. I must have slept soundly for about an hour or two before needing to go pee. I got up and saw Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and a thin waning moon rising in the east. The sky was very clear and still, with only some crickets singing. I should have gone to the scope to study the planets and the moon, which I rarely see at this phase. But I went back into the tent. I only slept a little while longer before waking. I ate some breakfast as more birds sang. The silhouettes of two horses were on the eastern ridge about 500 yards away; I could tell they were watching me, curious. After Balint got up I saw a black wild pig about 100 yards away walking up toward the gate. Thankfully we did not run into any snakes or spiders – I nearly ran over a tarantula crossing J1 during our drive down, they are out seeking mates during mating season.
20151002 OR Lunar Occultation of Aldebaran
I noticed in S&T’s October issue (page 49) the moon was to occult of Aldebaran the morning of October 2, 2015. I checked the times and found they would fit nicely in my morning schedule. Disappearance was at 6:17am, reappearance at 7:17am. That would leave enough time to get up, observe the disappearance, have breakfast and get ready for work, observe the reappearance and leave for work right after. Luckily the sky was clear!
I left my Astroscan in the kitchen overnight so I just needed to bring it outside to observe; and bring it in afterward. I went outside shortly after 6:00am (still in my bathrobe!) and quickly found Aldebaran fairly wide from the bright side of the moon (@ 89x). It was nice to see Orion, the wintertime favorite, high in the sky with Canis Major prancing at his heels. I looked at the Orion Nebula; it was there, and I could see the Trapezium, but transparency was not very good with some thin fog in the air.
Back to the moon; Aldebaran was now noticeably closer. I watched as the moon moved perceptibly eastward toward the star – which was interesting since in the eyepiece the whole scene drifted the opposite direction, to the west. It was heading toward Aldebaran at a slight angle, from the telescopic SW to the NE. The effect would have been more dramatic if I had a tracking mount and centered the view on Aldebaran. The moving moon recalled my experience last week seeing shadow and light changes along the terminator; it’s wondrous to see change happen in the sky.
Now the moon’s limb was nearly touching the star; it seemed to float inside the narrow, slightly out of focus band of light my telescope presented of the limb. Then the star winked out. It was so sudden! And there was no bringing it back, no matter how I moved the scope around, looking for the lost star.
I came back outside at 7:10 to find my eyepiece had fogged over – I forgot, it’s now the time of year when we have to manage our equipment for dew! I used a different eyepiece with a wider view (38x) and could see the whole moon. The sky was robin’s egg blue, no stars were visible. I stared at the moon’s nocturnal area and waited, waited. I checked my watch—I was nervous I had missed it—then peered back in the eyepiece: Aldebaran was back in view. In the two seconds I looked at my watch, I had missed the instant of reappearance! The lesson is, be patient. Aldebaran was just beyond the edge of the nocturnal part of the moon, and had followed that south-westerly angle I noticed just before it disappeared.
This was my first lunar occultation of a star, and it was fun. I now have another kind of observing project to add to my backyard observing routine: double stars, planets, asteroids, the antics of the Galilean moons, shadows along the lunar terminator, and now lunar occultation. It would be fun to see a star’s disappearance and reappearance under high power, especially if it happens near mountains on the moon’s limb: I imagine it would be like watching a sun set and rise on earth.
I left my Astroscan in the kitchen overnight so I just needed to bring it outside to observe; and bring it in afterward. I went outside shortly after 6:00am (still in my bathrobe!) and quickly found Aldebaran fairly wide from the bright side of the moon (@ 89x). It was nice to see Orion, the wintertime favorite, high in the sky with Canis Major prancing at his heels. I looked at the Orion Nebula; it was there, and I could see the Trapezium, but transparency was not very good with some thin fog in the air.
Back to the moon; Aldebaran was now noticeably closer. I watched as the moon moved perceptibly eastward toward the star – which was interesting since in the eyepiece the whole scene drifted the opposite direction, to the west. It was heading toward Aldebaran at a slight angle, from the telescopic SW to the NE. The effect would have been more dramatic if I had a tracking mount and centered the view on Aldebaran. The moving moon recalled my experience last week seeing shadow and light changes along the terminator; it’s wondrous to see change happen in the sky.
Now the moon’s limb was nearly touching the star; it seemed to float inside the narrow, slightly out of focus band of light my telescope presented of the limb. Then the star winked out. It was so sudden! And there was no bringing it back, no matter how I moved the scope around, looking for the lost star.
I came back outside at 7:10 to find my eyepiece had fogged over – I forgot, it’s now the time of year when we have to manage our equipment for dew! I used a different eyepiece with a wider view (38x) and could see the whole moon. The sky was robin’s egg blue, no stars were visible. I stared at the moon’s nocturnal area and waited, waited. I checked my watch—I was nervous I had missed it—then peered back in the eyepiece: Aldebaran was back in view. In the two seconds I looked at my watch, I had missed the instant of reappearance! The lesson is, be patient. Aldebaran was just beyond the edge of the nocturnal part of the moon, and had followed that south-westerly angle I noticed just before it disappeared.
This was my first lunar occultation of a star, and it was fun. I now have another kind of observing project to add to my backyard observing routine: double stars, planets, asteroids, the antics of the Galilean moons, shadows along the lunar terminator, and now lunar occultation. It would be fun to see a star’s disappearance and reappearance under high power, especially if it happens near mountains on the moon’s limb: I imagine it would be like watching a sun set and rise on earth.
20150924 OR, Sunrise in Schickard
The night of 24 September I observed from my back yard in Fremont, CA with my 8” f7.25 reflector. Bands of mackerel altocumulus cloud were running overhead; they moved deceptively quickly and were fun to watch, illuminated as they were by a 10th day waxing gibbous (82% illuminated) moon. My agenda for the night was to observe some carbon stars in Pegasus and Andromeda. Transparency was obviously poor, but seeing was surprisingly steady, Pickering 7 and even 8 at times.
While star hopping to ST Andromedae I paused at STF 3050, a close (2.3” separation) near equal brightness pair (6.46 & 6.72 magnitude). Above it was STT 513, a lovely blue-white and orange pair, 6.82 / 9.34 magnitude, 3.2” separation. After finishing my carbon star list I turned my attention to the moon for a bit of wandering around.
My favorite activity while observing the moon is to scan along the terminator and watch for all the interesting shadow patterns and the lit ridges and peaks which float or sometimes entirely disconnect from the rest of the lit surface due to the low angle of the sunlight. It was a lunar morning, and just as here on Earth, peaks and ridges (crater walls) were illuminated by the rising sun, while the slopes and crater floors were in shadow. I easily imagined a tide of darkness flowing into bays and channels along a jagged coast. It had mostly cleared from earlier in the night.
The moon bore high magnification well; I settled in at 368x (0.6 exit pupil, 0.3° TFOV), with an occasional atmospheric ripple but not at all distracting. I soon found a very wide “bay” filled with darkness and traced the ridges of the crater, which had several small craters along its ridgeline, and an interesting hooked crater along a part of the base. Then, in the darkened area I noticed two bright points – the peaks of what must be mons inside the crater. I continued scanning around the area and after a few minutes looked in the dark space again, and this time I saw an elliptical wash of faint light in between the two points. I could only describe it as if it were a galaxy: a 3:2 elliptical glow of even surface brightness, dim, closer to the bright point to its lunar east, and followed by a second bright point to the lunar west, a little further away.
This was interesting! The elliptical glow was not there 10 minutes before. I don’t think I was seeing more because of better dark adaptation as would happen with a DSO – this was the moon, after all, and even with a filter in place my eye carried an afterimage – the view in the eyepiece was brighter than my nighttime surroundings. I watched more. The wash of light began to reveal an extension on its eastern side; it now appeared like a mittened hand reaching to grasp the closer point. I ran inside to get my Atlas of the Moon by Rukl. I identified the crater was Schickard, as the ridgeline craters and the curved crater matched my view and the atlas (plate #62). I made some sketches. The “wash” was centered at approximately 53°W 45°S. I believed I was witnessing the slightest angle of light of the lunar morning illuminating features which happened to be at the right elevation to catch the light.
At about 10:30pm I noticed more changes: two smaller washes appeared to the lunar north; the one to the northeast of the first wash was closer than the one more directly to the north. My astonishment was taken to greater heights. At 11:00, it was time for bed; I had to go to work early Friday morning, and besides I was about to lose sight of the moon behind some trees. Luckily I was able to get a fairly decent snapshot of what I was seeing with my phone:
This morning I found a very good photo of the crater on line, and in it I was able to locate the two mons in the same orientation as my sketches. It’s not very clear in the photo but it appears the floor of the crater bulges out – is there a plateau running between, or is it just the curve of the moon?
I also found a topographic map from USGS. Unfortunately it doesn’t show the elevation to a fine enough scale to differentiate a plateau (I was hoping it would be like a topographic map one uses for hiking here on Earth). So I don’t know if it was because of their elevation, or just an accident of the varying height of the crater wall causing light to slip through and illuminate these areas, or what.
Curious to know whether others have observed this, I found on http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Schickard that “Clair-Obscur effect: when the morning-terminator runs at 54° or 55° West there's an Equilateral triangle of 3 illuminated dots at the northeastern part of Schickard's nocturnal floor (observed by Danny Caes during the night of march the 30th, 2007, through the 23-cm Cooke/Steinheil refractor of Ghent-Belgium).”
I may have observed two of these dots, but I did not notice a third—though I think I was in the southeast area of the nocturnal floor? The observation does not mention the washes I describe; so perhaps I saw something new? In any case, this citation led me to learn what a Clair-Obscur effect is: usually short lived plays of light and dark on the moon’s surface. https://the-moon.wikispaces.com/clair-obscur.
We mostly notice the night-to-night changes on the moon as it runs through its phases. Nonetheless the moon is constantly moving, sunlight and shadow slowly traversing its surface. It ought to be possible, at the right angle and at the right elevation, for a feature to become illuminated over a short period. If anyone out there is a lunar expert or knows how to get in touch with one, I’d love the help to try and further validate this observation.
Sources:
Rulk, Antonin, Atlas of the Moon, Kalmbach Publishing Co. 1996
Hare, T.M., Hayward, R.K., Blue, J.S., Archinal, B.A., Robinson, M.S., Speyerer, E.J., Wagner, R.V., Smith, D.E., Zuber, M.T., Neumann, G.A., and Mazarico, E., 2015, Image mosaic and topographic map of the moon: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3316, 2 sheets, http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sim3316.
While star hopping to ST Andromedae I paused at STF 3050, a close (2.3” separation) near equal brightness pair (6.46 & 6.72 magnitude). Above it was STT 513, a lovely blue-white and orange pair, 6.82 / 9.34 magnitude, 3.2” separation. After finishing my carbon star list I turned my attention to the moon for a bit of wandering around.
My favorite activity while observing the moon is to scan along the terminator and watch for all the interesting shadow patterns and the lit ridges and peaks which float or sometimes entirely disconnect from the rest of the lit surface due to the low angle of the sunlight. It was a lunar morning, and just as here on Earth, peaks and ridges (crater walls) were illuminated by the rising sun, while the slopes and crater floors were in shadow. I easily imagined a tide of darkness flowing into bays and channels along a jagged coast. It had mostly cleared from earlier in the night.
The moon bore high magnification well; I settled in at 368x (0.6 exit pupil, 0.3° TFOV), with an occasional atmospheric ripple but not at all distracting. I soon found a very wide “bay” filled with darkness and traced the ridges of the crater, which had several small craters along its ridgeline, and an interesting hooked crater along a part of the base. Then, in the darkened area I noticed two bright points – the peaks of what must be mons inside the crater. I continued scanning around the area and after a few minutes looked in the dark space again, and this time I saw an elliptical wash of faint light in between the two points. I could only describe it as if it were a galaxy: a 3:2 elliptical glow of even surface brightness, dim, closer to the bright point to its lunar east, and followed by a second bright point to the lunar west, a little further away.
This was interesting! The elliptical glow was not there 10 minutes before. I don’t think I was seeing more because of better dark adaptation as would happen with a DSO – this was the moon, after all, and even with a filter in place my eye carried an afterimage – the view in the eyepiece was brighter than my nighttime surroundings. I watched more. The wash of light began to reveal an extension on its eastern side; it now appeared like a mittened hand reaching to grasp the closer point. I ran inside to get my Atlas of the Moon by Rukl. I identified the crater was Schickard, as the ridgeline craters and the curved crater matched my view and the atlas (plate #62). I made some sketches. The “wash” was centered at approximately 53°W 45°S. I believed I was witnessing the slightest angle of light of the lunar morning illuminating features which happened to be at the right elevation to catch the light.
At about 10:30pm I noticed more changes: two smaller washes appeared to the lunar north; the one to the northeast of the first wash was closer than the one more directly to the north. My astonishment was taken to greater heights. At 11:00, it was time for bed; I had to go to work early Friday morning, and besides I was about to lose sight of the moon behind some trees. Luckily I was able to get a fairly decent snapshot of what I was seeing with my phone:
This morning I found a very good photo of the crater on line, and in it I was able to locate the two mons in the same orientation as my sketches. It’s not very clear in the photo but it appears the floor of the crater bulges out – is there a plateau running between, or is it just the curve of the moon?
I also found a topographic map from USGS. Unfortunately it doesn’t show the elevation to a fine enough scale to differentiate a plateau (I was hoping it would be like a topographic map one uses for hiking here on Earth). So I don’t know if it was because of their elevation, or just an accident of the varying height of the crater wall causing light to slip through and illuminate these areas, or what.
Curious to know whether others have observed this, I found on http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Schickard that “Clair-Obscur effect: when the morning-terminator runs at 54° or 55° West there's an Equilateral triangle of 3 illuminated dots at the northeastern part of Schickard's nocturnal floor (observed by Danny Caes during the night of march the 30th, 2007, through the 23-cm Cooke/Steinheil refractor of Ghent-Belgium).”
I may have observed two of these dots, but I did not notice a third—though I think I was in the southeast area of the nocturnal floor? The observation does not mention the washes I describe; so perhaps I saw something new? In any case, this citation led me to learn what a Clair-Obscur effect is: usually short lived plays of light and dark on the moon’s surface. https://the-moon.wikispaces.com/clair-obscur.
We mostly notice the night-to-night changes on the moon as it runs through its phases. Nonetheless the moon is constantly moving, sunlight and shadow slowly traversing its surface. It ought to be possible, at the right angle and at the right elevation, for a feature to become illuminated over a short period. If anyone out there is a lunar expert or knows how to get in touch with one, I’d love the help to try and further validate this observation.
Sources:
Rulk, Antonin, Atlas of the Moon, Kalmbach Publishing Co. 1996
Hare, T.M., Hayward, R.K., Blue, J.S., Archinal, B.A., Robinson, M.S., Speyerer, E.J., Wagner, R.V., Smith, D.E., Zuber, M.T., Neumann, G.A., and Mazarico, E., 2015, Image mosaic and topographic map of the moon: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3316, 2 sheets, http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sim3316.
OR, Fremont Peak, 9/6/15
I met my friend Balint at Fremont Peak last night, he with his 16” and I with my 20”. We welcomed some campers as it grew dark: a high school physics teacher from Alameda; a young family of four; and later a group of six of family and friends. The latter group included some astrophysics students in their 20s, one of whom just started a job with Northrup Grumman working on the James Webb Space Telescope. I urged her to launch it ASAP! I showed various Messier objects, M31, and 7331. I showed Stephen’s Quintet, which appeared as a misty triangle with just four brighter condensations -- too difficult for an unsuspecting member of the general public to pick out! But they were very appreciative and stayed until about 10pm or so.
Seeing was very good but we were bothered by sky glow to the south, west, and north. Sadly it seems Fremont Peak is now limited to east, southeast, and zenith views. Many of the targets I planned to view were now sinking into sky glow, so I turned my attention to Pegasus which was well placed. At around midnight we noticed the air became noticeably warmer, and realized we were in the inversion layer. Seeing & transparency became superb for the site and the SQML improved from the 20.3 earlier to 20.90.
We looked at M31 which was impressive to our previous guests but not so much to us; now I was wowed by making out at first two and then three dark lanes rippling out from the core. The galaxy as a whole extended well beyond my finder’s 4° FOV, and I could notice the twists I had seen last year in a 6” outside of Yosemite.
After M31, I used my Interstellarum atlas and wandered object to object at random – and it took me to some interesting places.
NGC 7463 & 7465, Gx, Peg. 7463 was the brightest in the group, elongated 5:2 slightly WNW-ESE, the diffuse halo seemed slightly twisted. Averted vision split the core in two, and once seen I can hold the small companion [NGC 7464] with direct vision, just separated to the SE. NGC 7465 was close by to the SE, stellar nucleus with bright bar like core and ball shaped halo, 3:2 NNW-SSE.
Arp 13 / NGC 7448, Gx, Peg. Direct vision with a faint, small stellar nucleus. Halo was large 3:1 NW-SE, strongly mottled. The halo had three, maybe four relatively brighter condensations in northern and eastern sections, barely glimpsed with averted vision.
NGC 7441, Gx, Peg. With direct vision had a bright oval core and a diffuse halo 3:2 SW-NE. Averted vision showed the core as a smooth flattened disk, nebulous. A faint star to the NE was in line with the position angle.
AGC 2634, Galaxy cluster, Peg. Brightest of the group is NGC 7720, but nonetheless appeared small and dim. I saw it had two components A and B, and looked for a double nucleus but could only make out an egg shape. 7720 is the apex of a triangle with two ICs, 5342 to the SE, 5341 to the SW; both of these appeared as dim, bloated non stellar patches. With averted vision I could just make out a very faint non-stellar point, which I find on Aladin this morning is CGC-476-090.
This session will have to tide me over until next new moon, as my work schedule it too full to let me attend CalSTAR. I hope everyone going has a great time.
Seeing was very good but we were bothered by sky glow to the south, west, and north. Sadly it seems Fremont Peak is now limited to east, southeast, and zenith views. Many of the targets I planned to view were now sinking into sky glow, so I turned my attention to Pegasus which was well placed. At around midnight we noticed the air became noticeably warmer, and realized we were in the inversion layer. Seeing & transparency became superb for the site and the SQML improved from the 20.3 earlier to 20.90.
We looked at M31 which was impressive to our previous guests but not so much to us; now I was wowed by making out at first two and then three dark lanes rippling out from the core. The galaxy as a whole extended well beyond my finder’s 4° FOV, and I could notice the twists I had seen last year in a 6” outside of Yosemite.
After M31, I used my Interstellarum atlas and wandered object to object at random – and it took me to some interesting places.
NGC 7463 & 7465, Gx, Peg. 7463 was the brightest in the group, elongated 5:2 slightly WNW-ESE, the diffuse halo seemed slightly twisted. Averted vision split the core in two, and once seen I can hold the small companion [NGC 7464] with direct vision, just separated to the SE. NGC 7465 was close by to the SE, stellar nucleus with bright bar like core and ball shaped halo, 3:2 NNW-SSE.
Arp 13 / NGC 7448, Gx, Peg. Direct vision with a faint, small stellar nucleus. Halo was large 3:1 NW-SE, strongly mottled. The halo had three, maybe four relatively brighter condensations in northern and eastern sections, barely glimpsed with averted vision.
NGC 7441, Gx, Peg. With direct vision had a bright oval core and a diffuse halo 3:2 SW-NE. Averted vision showed the core as a smooth flattened disk, nebulous. A faint star to the NE was in line with the position angle.
AGC 2634, Galaxy cluster, Peg. Brightest of the group is NGC 7720, but nonetheless appeared small and dim. I saw it had two components A and B, and looked for a double nucleus but could only make out an egg shape. 7720 is the apex of a triangle with two ICs, 5342 to the SE, 5341 to the SW; both of these appeared as dim, bloated non stellar patches. With averted vision I could just make out a very faint non-stellar point, which I find on Aladin this morning is CGC-476-090.
This session will have to tide me over until next new moon, as my work schedule it too full to let me attend CalSTAR. I hope everyone going has a great time.
OR, East Zion, 9 April 2015
I had the good fortune to take a brief vacation to Zion National Park last week. As there were seven of us in the minivan, I packed just my little Astroscan 4.25” reflector. I observed from our accommodations to the east of the park, 4000’ elevation. SQML was 21.43 at 10pm and 21.81 at midnight – the second darkest sky I have observed from yet (Lake San Antonio last fall was a bit darker). There was a bit of glow on the WNW horizon, possibly from St. George and/or Las Vegas.
I only had one eyepiece with me, yielding 30x & 1.5° TFOV.
I first attempted M101. I wasn’t even fully dark adapted, yet there it was with direct vision, large and slightly out of round, averted vision revealing some mottling. I proceeded to do a mini Messier survey in the area, and was amazed that all the objects were easy finds with direct vision—which is not the case at this aperture at the routine Bay Area sites. I supposed these were the sort of views Messier & Méchain had. M108 & M97 were in the same FOV, and I could just make out the Owl’s darkening eyes with AV. M64 had a bright core with a slowly fading halo, one side of which was cut off by the dark lane. M100 had a bright core with a large, dim round halo with the barest hints of spiral.
My “sight of the night” was Markarian’s Chain, with M84 & M86, but also IC 4388 as a dim streak above them, and IC 4402 below them, and the other members trailing off (IC 4438, 4435, 4461, 4473…). I used the chain to galaxy hop to M88 and M91. From there I got a bit lost, but I didn’t mind. What a place to be lost in. I stopped my logging and took in the view; this was a vacation, after all.
As dark as the sky was, it is still merely “rural” Bortle 3. We visited Bryce Canyon, I in hope of observing from the rim, but sadly the weather turned partly cloudy. As we had a long drive home the next day, I decided to save it and the other Utah dark sites for another time. What a difference a dark sky makes.
I first attempted M101. I wasn’t even fully dark adapted, yet there it was with direct vision, large and slightly out of round, averted vision revealing some mottling. I proceeded to do a mini Messier survey in the area, and was amazed that all the objects were easy finds with direct vision—which is not the case at this aperture at the routine Bay Area sites. I supposed these were the sort of views Messier & Méchain had. M108 & M97 were in the same FOV, and I could just make out the Owl’s darkening eyes with AV. M64 had a bright core with a slowly fading halo, one side of which was cut off by the dark lane. M100 had a bright core with a large, dim round halo with the barest hints of spiral.
My “sight of the night” was Markarian’s Chain, with M84 & M86, but also IC 4388 as a dim streak above them, and IC 4402 below them, and the other members trailing off (IC 4438, 4435, 4461, 4473…). I used the chain to galaxy hop to M88 and M91. From there I got a bit lost, but I didn’t mind. What a place to be lost in. I stopped my logging and took in the view; this was a vacation, after all.
As dark as the sky was, it is still merely “rural” Bortle 3. We visited Bryce Canyon, I in hope of observing from the rim, but sadly the weather turned partly cloudy. As we had a long drive home the next day, I decided to save it and the other Utah dark sites for another time. What a difference a dark sky makes.
OR Fremont Peak 12 June 2015
Friday night I went up to the Peak to catch-up on my H400 list. Having spent most of my March and April sessions on Herschel Sprints, and being clouded out in May, I was surprised to notice at how fast the sky had moved. I had many targets in UMa, Cvn, and Vir, but they are all setting soon after astronomical twilight. I used to never pay attention to the changing of the constellations, but now it’s of primary concern in my astronomical life planning.
This part of the list is dominated by elliptical galaxies, so many of which have the same description (stellar nucleus, glowing core), differing in their brightness, degree of elongation, and position angle. I try not to get bored with them, keeping in mind their vast distance, the wonder of light, and thinking of all the life which could be lurking in there. All the same, it was a delight to come across striking and unusual objects on the trail, along with quite a few lagniappes. All with 20” f5.25 reflector, 121x, 0.7°. Transparency was excellent but seeing was average; it was windy all night and at times my scope weathervanes while I was taking notes or checking my chart.
NGC 3998, 3982, plus 3990 & 3972, UMa: Four galaxies in FOV! 3998 was bright, with stellar nucleus, 3:2 NW-SE, diffuse faint halo. Just west of it is 3990, a small elliptical glow NW-SE. 3972 is further to the SW, a large, dim 4:1 elongation, NW-SE, AV needed to bring out the halo. 3982 to the far SW in the field, a little smaller than 3998, glowing round patch brighter in the middle.
NGC 4026, UMa: Bright round ball of a core with a long thin halo running N-S. Like a ball with a spear through it.
NGC 4631 plus 4627, Cvn: Wow! Huge, long and thin, running W-E. Brighter core lopsided to the E, a larger mass of core with a spiral arm spanning out edge on? Floating just above and to the SW of center is a small bright patch, NGC 4627, which might be orbiting 4631? [I found later it is a dwarf elliptical, called the “calf” next to the “whale” 4631].
NGC 4656 plus 4631, Cvn: Immediately saw as two galaxies, both with dim halos with flowing cores, and seem to be interacting [It seems this just might be one galaxies, with two bright components, but it is twisted]. The larger and brighter is 4656, running SW-NE, and 4631 is 4657. [Later I find this referred to the Hockey Stick. BTW 4631 was just out of the FOV to the N, I wonder if it is exerting some influence on 4656?]
NGC 4485 & 4490, Cvn: Wow! 4490 is larger, elliptical SSW-NNE, bright core and mottled halo—not spiral, rather clouded. 4485 is smaller, 3:1, N-S. There is the faintest of wisps coming from 4490 to 4485, suggesting interaction? [they are!]
NGC 4449, Cvn: A nice ragged, mottled mess! Some bright spots scattered in the halo [these are HII regions]. Glowing core, halo spreads to a fan shape to the S
NGC 4085 & 4088, UMa: 4085 is large, WNW-ESE, with a bright round bulge for a core that makes it look like a flying saucer. 4088 is to the NNE, a thin streak with a glowing core. Nice!’
NGC 4565, Com: Wow! Beautiful long edge on, 5:1, NNE-SSW. The bright core seems to float. The tips of the halo keep going to edge of FOV with AV! Seems to be a dark lane running along the eastern ridge of the halo.
For the ride home in the morning, I had the company of a cricket which had stowed away in my gear. I released it in my backyard upon arriving home, hopefully to keep me and my family company through the summer.
PS. The above was my original post to a local forum; what follows are other musings I had while writing the draft of the report, worth preserving here:
I have become more keenly aware of the passage of time, taking up astronomy. Phases of the moon, if we care to notice; most of us only track it to see when there will be a new moon so we can go out to observe. Usual milestones, kids finishing school, graduations, deaths of older family members. But in the stars: in March I waited until 2am for Coma Bern to pass meridian, standing atop the ladder to see it; now it was fast setting in the west, and to keep up with H400 I could observe standing and crouching.
How many small elliptical stellar nucleus can you take—and then wow! Interacting, edge on, something interesting. Moving well through the Virgo cluster then the wind moved my scope; when I looked after making a note I was lost. But what a place to be lost in! 7 galaxies in view! As if the universe said, forget looking at that, how about this? You try to remind yourself of how special it is, how many millions of light years it has traveled to reveal itself to you, you think of all the stars, planets, and even life that is there.
We see the plants change – rings of Saturn tilt up and down, if we watch long enough. Transits of Galilean moons, the red spot. Planets move closer or further apart. A large part of astronomy is to understand the motion of the universe – Kepler building on Brahe’s observations, Newton.
Astronomy reveals our transience to ourselves. In the time it has taken for the light of the Virgo galaxies to travel to us, the sun has taken dozens of laps around the milky way – if we could be timeless and observe the sky as it changes, we would see the stars flowing past; at times we plunge into a star cloud and others we are nearly flung out of the arm, giving us new perspectives on deep space and, looking down, on our own galaxy, seeing more of its face than we can see now, being caught in its disk. And those galaxies too spin, if we were able to see them as they are at this moment, omnipresent vision, some might still be spiral but they’d be unrecognizable to us. The interacting galaxies would have continued their dance into new and endlessly strange contortions. For the ride home I had the company of a cricket which had stowed away in my gear. Or was that my heart trying to talk to me?
Later, 2:30am Virgo having gone too low for me to continue, I scanned the milky way which I had simply ignored up to then. I viewed many objects which I had seen for the first time less than a year ago; and was pleased to find them without referring to a chart. Trifid, M24, Lagoon. The swan nebula, which with the help of a OIII filter filled out and turned into the omega nebula. The ring, which showed more darkening and squashed roundness, but no central star. NA nebula. The veil, which was visible without filter but OIII really made it come out – traced it around, east, west, triangle. Andromeda clearing the trees to the east of the lot. Summer is coming!
The sky is a mirror; what am I in this immensity of time? What is my place? Do I reveal myself to me, looking at these objects and thinking of them?
“The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.” Charles Simic, The World Doesn’t End
This part of the list is dominated by elliptical galaxies, so many of which have the same description (stellar nucleus, glowing core), differing in their brightness, degree of elongation, and position angle. I try not to get bored with them, keeping in mind their vast distance, the wonder of light, and thinking of all the life which could be lurking in there. All the same, it was a delight to come across striking and unusual objects on the trail, along with quite a few lagniappes. All with 20” f5.25 reflector, 121x, 0.7°. Transparency was excellent but seeing was average; it was windy all night and at times my scope weathervanes while I was taking notes or checking my chart.
NGC 3998, 3982, plus 3990 & 3972, UMa: Four galaxies in FOV! 3998 was bright, with stellar nucleus, 3:2 NW-SE, diffuse faint halo. Just west of it is 3990, a small elliptical glow NW-SE. 3972 is further to the SW, a large, dim 4:1 elongation, NW-SE, AV needed to bring out the halo. 3982 to the far SW in the field, a little smaller than 3998, glowing round patch brighter in the middle.
NGC 4026, UMa: Bright round ball of a core with a long thin halo running N-S. Like a ball with a spear through it.
NGC 4631 plus 4627, Cvn: Wow! Huge, long and thin, running W-E. Brighter core lopsided to the E, a larger mass of core with a spiral arm spanning out edge on? Floating just above and to the SW of center is a small bright patch, NGC 4627, which might be orbiting 4631? [I found later it is a dwarf elliptical, called the “calf” next to the “whale” 4631].
NGC 4656 plus 4631, Cvn: Immediately saw as two galaxies, both with dim halos with flowing cores, and seem to be interacting [It seems this just might be one galaxies, with two bright components, but it is twisted]. The larger and brighter is 4656, running SW-NE, and 4631 is 4657. [Later I find this referred to the Hockey Stick. BTW 4631 was just out of the FOV to the N, I wonder if it is exerting some influence on 4656?]
NGC 4485 & 4490, Cvn: Wow! 4490 is larger, elliptical SSW-NNE, bright core and mottled halo—not spiral, rather clouded. 4485 is smaller, 3:1, N-S. There is the faintest of wisps coming from 4490 to 4485, suggesting interaction? [they are!]
NGC 4449, Cvn: A nice ragged, mottled mess! Some bright spots scattered in the halo [these are HII regions]. Glowing core, halo spreads to a fan shape to the S
NGC 4085 & 4088, UMa: 4085 is large, WNW-ESE, with a bright round bulge for a core that makes it look like a flying saucer. 4088 is to the NNE, a thin streak with a glowing core. Nice!’
NGC 4565, Com: Wow! Beautiful long edge on, 5:1, NNE-SSW. The bright core seems to float. The tips of the halo keep going to edge of FOV with AV! Seems to be a dark lane running along the eastern ridge of the halo.
For the ride home in the morning, I had the company of a cricket which had stowed away in my gear. I released it in my backyard upon arriving home, hopefully to keep me and my family company through the summer.
PS. The above was my original post to a local forum; what follows are other musings I had while writing the draft of the report, worth preserving here:
I have become more keenly aware of the passage of time, taking up astronomy. Phases of the moon, if we care to notice; most of us only track it to see when there will be a new moon so we can go out to observe. Usual milestones, kids finishing school, graduations, deaths of older family members. But in the stars: in March I waited until 2am for Coma Bern to pass meridian, standing atop the ladder to see it; now it was fast setting in the west, and to keep up with H400 I could observe standing and crouching.
How many small elliptical stellar nucleus can you take—and then wow! Interacting, edge on, something interesting. Moving well through the Virgo cluster then the wind moved my scope; when I looked after making a note I was lost. But what a place to be lost in! 7 galaxies in view! As if the universe said, forget looking at that, how about this? You try to remind yourself of how special it is, how many millions of light years it has traveled to reveal itself to you, you think of all the stars, planets, and even life that is there.
We see the plants change – rings of Saturn tilt up and down, if we watch long enough. Transits of Galilean moons, the red spot. Planets move closer or further apart. A large part of astronomy is to understand the motion of the universe – Kepler building on Brahe’s observations, Newton.
Astronomy reveals our transience to ourselves. In the time it has taken for the light of the Virgo galaxies to travel to us, the sun has taken dozens of laps around the milky way – if we could be timeless and observe the sky as it changes, we would see the stars flowing past; at times we plunge into a star cloud and others we are nearly flung out of the arm, giving us new perspectives on deep space and, looking down, on our own galaxy, seeing more of its face than we can see now, being caught in its disk. And those galaxies too spin, if we were able to see them as they are at this moment, omnipresent vision, some might still be spiral but they’d be unrecognizable to us. The interacting galaxies would have continued their dance into new and endlessly strange contortions. For the ride home I had the company of a cricket which had stowed away in my gear. Or was that my heart trying to talk to me?
Later, 2:30am Virgo having gone too low for me to continue, I scanned the milky way which I had simply ignored up to then. I viewed many objects which I had seen for the first time less than a year ago; and was pleased to find them without referring to a chart. Trifid, M24, Lagoon. The swan nebula, which with the help of a OIII filter filled out and turned into the omega nebula. The ring, which showed more darkening and squashed roundness, but no central star. NA nebula. The veil, which was visible without filter but OIII really made it come out – traced it around, east, west, triangle. Andromeda clearing the trees to the east of the lot. Summer is coming!
The sky is a mirror; what am I in this immensity of time? What is my place? Do I reveal myself to me, looking at these objects and thinking of them?
“The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.” Charles Simic, The World Doesn’t End
Monday, December 7, 2015
Observing Report: Revisiting the Herschel Sprint
The night of April 16, 2015, I made my second attempt at a drift method Herschel Sprint. I made a few changes from my March 2015 attempt.
I used a 20-inch f/5.25 telescope, so I should have every chance to see all the objects on the list. I used a zoom eyepiece which when set at 18mm yielded 148× and 0.3° true field of view (TFOV). I used HIP48413 (RA 9h 52m 59s, Dec 0° 00′ 13.6″) as my calibration star, as before. The time of its meridian transit, according to Stellarium, was 9:20:30 p.m. PDT. But, rather than using a clock and a list to follow each object’s right ascension, I pressed the “record” button on my digital recorder the moment the calibration star was at meridian and centered in the eyepiece. I hoped this would allow me to simply record my observations without removing my eye from the eyepiece; so long as I said “centered” when the object being described was centered in the eyepiece, the recording would give me a fairly accurate elapsed time which I could later compare to the object list and charts to confirm what I saw. Using my inclinometer to find the upper and lower limits of the sweep’s declination band, I used C-clamps to attach wood blocks to the altitude bearing on my telescope to restrict altitude movement within the band. I was thus freed from worrying about navigation and could concentrate on observing and describing, as Herschel could. All I had to do was gently, so as not to disturb the telescope’s collimation, bob the telescope up and down in an even tempo to cover all of the sky within the band.
I once again observed from the Fremont Peak Observatory Association’s site at Fremont Peak State Park (elevation 2700’), California. The temperature dropped into the 40s after dark and it was windy. Seeing was 5/7 and transparency 4/5; SQML was 20.60.
It’s very difficult for me to untangle my observations and report my results. I spent a good part of this weekend transcribing my recording and noting the elapsed time of each of my comments. When I review these times versus what the elapsed time of the Sprint objects would be from my calibration star, I have very few matches. NGC 3274 is a certain match: according to the Sprint list it would appear at 00:39:18 elapsed time. My comment at 00:39:14 on the recording is “close to center, there's a triangle of stars, between two at the base there’s cloudiness, a galaxy, E-W elongation” which closely matches what I find on the NGC/IC Project photograph and description. But few of the others have an obvious corresponding match.
One reason was the unevenness of my altitude movement tempo. Before starting I timed my calibration star’s transit across the eyepiece from east to west; it took 74 seconds. To cover the band completely I tried to move the telescope up in the band in 20 seconds, then down in 20 seconds, and so on. This should cover the band in altitude in thirds of eyepiece FOV. But the sky moves quickly through the eyepiece at that pace, leaving very little time to perceive and describe what one sees. Very often I could not keep that pace, or I might linger on an object just to make an observation of it, spoiling my timing and making me miss small swaths of sky, which incrementally added up to a lot of missed sky. Often I would see a galaxy just at the western edge of the FOV, having nearly missed it, and have just a few seconds to describe it.
The swiftness of an object’s passage through the FOV is evidenced in the poor quality of my descriptions, which for the most part are brief and just describe the overall impression, and are not helpful to confirm the object from a photograph or another’s description later. As a result, most of my observations are unidentified.
Since my first attempt in March, I read Discoverers of the Universe by Michael A. Hoskin. In it I learned that William’s brother Alexander had fitted the telescope with a mechanism which would ring a bell when the telescope was at the top and bottom limits of a sweep’s declination band, to give William’s assistant, pulling on the ropes, cues when to raise or lower the telescope. I wondered whether William had the assistant use a metronome to help maintain an even tempo — William was a musician, after all. However, metronomes did not come into use until the early 19th century. In any case, a musician’s timing helps. In order to keep a smooth, even movement, I needed to grasp my UTA in both arms, in a hug, and move the telescope with my body, adjusting my head to keep my eye positioned — this became physically tiring as the night progressed.
From the book I also learned Herschel could move his telescope a small amount in azimuth and could track an object for about 15 minutes. This gave him more time to perceive and describe interesting objects. Also, Caroline did not rely on just a sidereal clock but primarily on Flamsteed’s catalogue (volume 3 of the Historia Coelestis Britannica). Caroline would list out the stars which would be in the path of that night’s sweep, and forewarn William of their coming; William would then describe the nebulae’s distance and position from these reference stars. I lacked this second set of eyes to help with navigation.
As the night progressed I realized that my elapsed time would not be enough to help locate an object later; since many of the objects appeared on the edges of the FOV, my elapsed time would be many seconds off. So I tried to remark whether I was near the top or bottom of the band, and to remark on any double star, red star (which might be a carbon star), or pattern of stars which might give me more reference points when reviewing the charts later. This has been of some help so far, but my progress is slow.
In all I recorded 175 observations. The majority of these were not bright, easily seen galaxies, but faint objects which I decided to describe in case later I could confirm them as galaxies. There were a large number of NGC, IC, and MGC objects in the band of the sweep, so it’s possible I observed objects not on the Herschel Sprint list. I wanted to cover my bases by describing everything I had the slightest suspicion of being a galaxy. I separate the objects I observed into three categories:
High confidence: 56 objects were palpable hits, clearly visible as galaxies. Whether bright or faint, I was able to verbalize a complete description of the nucleus, core, halo, size, and position angle. I am in the process of identifying these on my charts.
Medium confidence: 62 objects I suspect are galaxies but I am not sure. My descriptions are typically “low surface brightness,” “dim patch,” “some glow with AV,” “small, faint.” My uncertainty comes from my lack of experience observing anything dimmer than a typical 11-12th apparent magnitude galaxy. These might be the usual fare for those used to observing faint objects; I am unfamiliar how they would appear in the eyepiece.
Low confidence: 57 objects are very uncertain. My descriptions are along the lines of “dim hazy star” or “mistiness.” Too uncertain to have more than a slight suspicion they are galaxies. I’d need to find them on a chart to prove it to myself — and to gain more experience observing very faint objects to recognize them correctly.
It’s frustrating not to have more certainty in what I saw, and I will spend the next few weeks settling a final tally. On the one hand, I had the desire to bear witness and “prove” I saw the objects by identifying them. But on the other hand, through the night I permitted myself to have that feeling of discovery. I can hear the excitement in my voice during playback when an obvious galaxy comes into view, such as at elapsed time 1:09:30: “real pretty one, right near the top of the band, glowing core, stellar nucleus with AV, elongated NE-SW, pretty one. Large. Spanning 1/3 FOV, fat, 3:2 a nice fat one,” or at 2:45:39: “big, beautiful long one, bright core, you can see a dark lane, it's so long, oh my god and it's nearly out of FOV, I just barely got it. That's a nice one. 30 seconds too late.”
And that sums up the experience of visual astronomy for me. I feel the melancholy thrill of beauty fleetingly held; the intellectual astonishment trying to understand our true relation to the universe; the challenge of describing it to others so they may share. That Herschel was able to do these things so successfully speaks to his greatness. As I remarked to another observer, when doing the Herschel Sprint, you know you are in the presence of the Master.
I used a 20-inch f/5.25 telescope, so I should have every chance to see all the objects on the list. I used a zoom eyepiece which when set at 18mm yielded 148× and 0.3° true field of view (TFOV). I used HIP48413 (RA 9h 52m 59s, Dec 0° 00′ 13.6″) as my calibration star, as before. The time of its meridian transit, according to Stellarium, was 9:20:30 p.m. PDT. But, rather than using a clock and a list to follow each object’s right ascension, I pressed the “record” button on my digital recorder the moment the calibration star was at meridian and centered in the eyepiece. I hoped this would allow me to simply record my observations without removing my eye from the eyepiece; so long as I said “centered” when the object being described was centered in the eyepiece, the recording would give me a fairly accurate elapsed time which I could later compare to the object list and charts to confirm what I saw. Using my inclinometer to find the upper and lower limits of the sweep’s declination band, I used C-clamps to attach wood blocks to the altitude bearing on my telescope to restrict altitude movement within the band. I was thus freed from worrying about navigation and could concentrate on observing and describing, as Herschel could. All I had to do was gently, so as not to disturb the telescope’s collimation, bob the telescope up and down in an even tempo to cover all of the sky within the band.
I once again observed from the Fremont Peak Observatory Association’s site at Fremont Peak State Park (elevation 2700’), California. The temperature dropped into the 40s after dark and it was windy. Seeing was 5/7 and transparency 4/5; SQML was 20.60.
It’s very difficult for me to untangle my observations and report my results. I spent a good part of this weekend transcribing my recording and noting the elapsed time of each of my comments. When I review these times versus what the elapsed time of the Sprint objects would be from my calibration star, I have very few matches. NGC 3274 is a certain match: according to the Sprint list it would appear at 00:39:18 elapsed time. My comment at 00:39:14 on the recording is “close to center, there's a triangle of stars, between two at the base there’s cloudiness, a galaxy, E-W elongation” which closely matches what I find on the NGC/IC Project photograph and description. But few of the others have an obvious corresponding match.
One reason was the unevenness of my altitude movement tempo. Before starting I timed my calibration star’s transit across the eyepiece from east to west; it took 74 seconds. To cover the band completely I tried to move the telescope up in the band in 20 seconds, then down in 20 seconds, and so on. This should cover the band in altitude in thirds of eyepiece FOV. But the sky moves quickly through the eyepiece at that pace, leaving very little time to perceive and describe what one sees. Very often I could not keep that pace, or I might linger on an object just to make an observation of it, spoiling my timing and making me miss small swaths of sky, which incrementally added up to a lot of missed sky. Often I would see a galaxy just at the western edge of the FOV, having nearly missed it, and have just a few seconds to describe it.
The swiftness of an object’s passage through the FOV is evidenced in the poor quality of my descriptions, which for the most part are brief and just describe the overall impression, and are not helpful to confirm the object from a photograph or another’s description later. As a result, most of my observations are unidentified.
Since my first attempt in March, I read Discoverers of the Universe by Michael A. Hoskin. In it I learned that William’s brother Alexander had fitted the telescope with a mechanism which would ring a bell when the telescope was at the top and bottom limits of a sweep’s declination band, to give William’s assistant, pulling on the ropes, cues when to raise or lower the telescope. I wondered whether William had the assistant use a metronome to help maintain an even tempo — William was a musician, after all. However, metronomes did not come into use until the early 19th century. In any case, a musician’s timing helps. In order to keep a smooth, even movement, I needed to grasp my UTA in both arms, in a hug, and move the telescope with my body, adjusting my head to keep my eye positioned — this became physically tiring as the night progressed.
From the book I also learned Herschel could move his telescope a small amount in azimuth and could track an object for about 15 minutes. This gave him more time to perceive and describe interesting objects. Also, Caroline did not rely on just a sidereal clock but primarily on Flamsteed’s catalogue (volume 3 of the Historia Coelestis Britannica). Caroline would list out the stars which would be in the path of that night’s sweep, and forewarn William of their coming; William would then describe the nebulae’s distance and position from these reference stars. I lacked this second set of eyes to help with navigation.
As the night progressed I realized that my elapsed time would not be enough to help locate an object later; since many of the objects appeared on the edges of the FOV, my elapsed time would be many seconds off. So I tried to remark whether I was near the top or bottom of the band, and to remark on any double star, red star (which might be a carbon star), or pattern of stars which might give me more reference points when reviewing the charts later. This has been of some help so far, but my progress is slow.
In all I recorded 175 observations. The majority of these were not bright, easily seen galaxies, but faint objects which I decided to describe in case later I could confirm them as galaxies. There were a large number of NGC, IC, and MGC objects in the band of the sweep, so it’s possible I observed objects not on the Herschel Sprint list. I wanted to cover my bases by describing everything I had the slightest suspicion of being a galaxy. I separate the objects I observed into three categories:
High confidence: 56 objects were palpable hits, clearly visible as galaxies. Whether bright or faint, I was able to verbalize a complete description of the nucleus, core, halo, size, and position angle. I am in the process of identifying these on my charts.
Medium confidence: 62 objects I suspect are galaxies but I am not sure. My descriptions are typically “low surface brightness,” “dim patch,” “some glow with AV,” “small, faint.” My uncertainty comes from my lack of experience observing anything dimmer than a typical 11-12th apparent magnitude galaxy. These might be the usual fare for those used to observing faint objects; I am unfamiliar how they would appear in the eyepiece.
Low confidence: 57 objects are very uncertain. My descriptions are along the lines of “dim hazy star” or “mistiness.” Too uncertain to have more than a slight suspicion they are galaxies. I’d need to find them on a chart to prove it to myself — and to gain more experience observing very faint objects to recognize them correctly.
It’s frustrating not to have more certainty in what I saw, and I will spend the next few weeks settling a final tally. On the one hand, I had the desire to bear witness and “prove” I saw the objects by identifying them. But on the other hand, through the night I permitted myself to have that feeling of discovery. I can hear the excitement in my voice during playback when an obvious galaxy comes into view, such as at elapsed time 1:09:30: “real pretty one, right near the top of the band, glowing core, stellar nucleus with AV, elongated NE-SW, pretty one. Large. Spanning 1/3 FOV, fat, 3:2 a nice fat one,” or at 2:45:39: “big, beautiful long one, bright core, you can see a dark lane, it's so long, oh my god and it's nearly out of FOV, I just barely got it. That's a nice one. 30 seconds too late.”
And that sums up the experience of visual astronomy for me. I feel the melancholy thrill of beauty fleetingly held; the intellectual astonishment trying to understand our true relation to the universe; the challenge of describing it to others so they may share. That Herschel was able to do these things so successfully speaks to his greatness. As I remarked to another observer, when doing the Herschel Sprint, you know you are in the presence of the Master.
Observing Report: The Herschel Sprint
Prologue:
This month marks the end of the first year of my stargazing adventure. Almost everything I look at is new, and a thrilling discovery to me. So when I saw an internet forum post referencing the S&T article on William Herschel’s “Night of Discovery” of April 11, 1785, during which he discovered 73 galaxies, I thought to celebrate by replicating his observation session, known as the “Herschel Sprint.” As an extra challenge, I decided to approximate Herschel’s experience as closely as I could.
S&T posted a list of all the objects to be observed on their website. They suggested “purists” could make the sweep more authentic by using the drift method — fixing the telescope at meridian and only moving it 2-3° in altitude, letting the objects drift by as Herschel was forced to because of his mount. One could approximate his view by using an older style eyepiece with 45-50° apparent field of view (AFOV) at 150x.
But why stop there, I thought? His telescope used an 18.7-inch speculum mirror, which (if Wikipedia is to be believed) has 66% of the reflectivity of a modern mirror, equating to an approximate effective aperture of 12.5 inches. I happen to have a 12.5-inch f/7 scope! I could use the 15-mm RKE eyepiece from my Astroscan to match the 45° AFOV, at 148x in the 12.5-inch. Best of all, I had previously observed only five of the objects on the list. These five objects (NGC 3245, 3486, 3504, 3277, and 3414) were observed on February 16, 2015 using a 20-inch telescope. Unless I looked in my notes, I had no memory of what they looked like; besides, they would appear significantly dimmer in my 12.5-inch scope. So, 68 of 73 objects would be completely new to me, and 5 of 73 would be “practically” new.
Incidentally, I’m now one month younger than Herschel was in 1785, so we have our ages in common too! I remember reading in a 19th-century biography that Herschel intensified his deep-sky observing when he found himself “on the wrong side of 45,” as Caroline Herschel is said to have put it. This more or less explains the drive behind my observing.
I took care to preserve my ignorance, such as it was, by not doing any new research about Herschel’s night or the objects to be observed. I downloaded the spreadsheet list of objects from the S&T website, but deleted all of the columns except the NGC number, RA, and Dec. — other columns contained some hints, like “low surface brightness,” so I avoided them. I wanted some way of confirming the object I was looking at during the sweep.
At first I thought of navigating by star-hopping in the eyepiece; so I photocopied the relevant pages from Uranometria 2000.0 and traced lines between each object on the list to plot my course. But I soon realized I could easily get lost; estimating how many degrees to move in the eyepiece over a several-hours-long session would be confusing. Then I remembered from my prior reading that Caroline Herschel, as she took dictation, had next to her an accurate clock set to sidereal time, and the telescope had a contraption using ropes, pulleys, and a barrel top marked in altitude degrees. As she took dictation, she could note an object’s right ascension from the clock and the declination from the scale on the barrel. I didn’t think it would be cheating to use modern equivalents: a digital clock and a digital inclinometer. I could find a star at 0° declination that was also preceding the first object on the list. When this star reached meridian, and with it centered in the eyepiece, I could set the time on the clock to the star’s sidereal time and set the inclinometer mounted to my tube to zero. Thus calibrated, I could move my scope in altitude only to the first list object’s declination and wait for it to pass through. So long as I didn’t move in azimuth, these guides would remain accurate enough throughout the session and help me find the objects.
The S&T spreadsheet showed right ascension in tenths of minutes, and declination in seconds of arc; I converted these into minutes & seconds for right ascension, and tenths of degrees for declination, to match what I would see on the digital clock and the inclinometer, and printed it out to use at the telescope. I kept my Uranometria charts as back-up, but did not refer to them to find the list objects.
This would be a severe test of my visual descriptive skills, which — since the objects pass through the FOV in less than a minute — would require great economy of perception and expression. There wouldn’t be enough time to dwell on an object, search for fine detail, or write and sketch my observation as I normally do, but I did have a digital voice recorder that I velcroed near the focuser for dictation.
What would run through my mind as the pageant unfurled before me? All that was left was to wait for a cloudless, moonless night.
Report:
I arrived at Fremont Peak Observatory Association's site at Fremont Peak State Park, California, at sundown and was observing soon after. I used the 15-mm RKE from the beginning, because I wanted to become accustomed to its FOV and how objects would appear. I ran through some H400 objects, and could tell right away the night ahead would be more challenging than I thought.
My February session at the Peak under similar conditions was with my 20-inch, and I recall all my observations spoke of finding objects with direct vision, with averted vision helping to reveal some fine detail. This time, objects were still bright enough to be found but averted vision (AV) was more necessary to bring out more of the object, such as a galaxy’s halo or mottling. Only a handful of the Sprint objects are plotted in my Pocket Sky Atlas — which is targeted for small and medium size scopes and includes all the Messier, Herschel 400, and Caldwell objects. I was still able to find the H400 objects (mostly in Leo’s hindquarters) perfectly well and enjoy them, but the comparative dimness with the 20-inch was a foreshadowing of how the Sprint session would go.
I used Stellarium beforehand to find a preceding, 0° calibration star that was bright enough for me to find. I used HIP48413 (RA 9h 52m 59s, Dec 0° 00’ 13.6”), which according to Stellarium would reach meridian at 11:14:35 p.m. PDT on 3/18/15. It was an easy find off Iota (ι) Hydrae. As it neared meridian I kept it in the center of view and monitored my watch; at the right moment I set the inclinometer to zero, and set my clock (an alarm clock with red numerals) to 9:53. Then I moved the scope up to 27.7° to wait for the first object, NGC 3196. But while I was waiting the inclinometer’s backlight went off. I thought the unit itself turned off; when I pressed the “on” button, the unit reset zero to default bubble level zero! I went back to my calibration star and reset to zero again, but since I lost the sidereal time I skipped NGC 3196 and went to NGC 3245, which I found by star-hopping with the chart. Fortunately the declination angle matched what it should be. I held the galaxy in view until the sidereal time caught up with NGC 3245; I then stopped my azimuth movement and started the Sprint.
NGC 3245 was one of the objects I observed in February with the 20-inch. My description then was: “205x Long bright nucleus running N-S, small diffuse halo, 2.3’ x 1’ visible. Easily found and bright.” Now with the 12.5-inch it was: “148x elliptical, glowing nucleus with DV, bright core with AV; 3:1 N-S. In a triangle of stars. Somewhat difficult to find.” I saw less of the galaxy, and it was dimmer. The Sky Quality Meter w/Lens (SQM-L) reading in February was 20.71; now it was 20.60 or so — about the same. This was to be one of the brightest objects I was to observe during the Sprint.
I soon abandoned the thought of doing a pure sweep. Because I had to navigate, and because I wanted some way of following the list, I decided to simply move the scope to the altitude of the next object on the list, and monitor the clock to wait for it to pass into view. My clock didn’t display seconds so it was difficult to judge time precisely. Often the objects would be at nearly the same RA time but at different declinations, and I would spend too much time on one and miss the next.
But the main problem was the difficulty in seeing the objects to begin with — I didn’t know how the object would appear, so I was scanning and using AV and just trying to see if there was anything in view. I sometimes suspected my calibration was slightly off, and I was like a ship whose bearing was wrong by a slight angle, causing it sail further off course over time. But from time to time I would find an object at the listed location, and it would restore my confidence in my setup. Certainly Herschel’s sky was not affected by light pollution, so he may have been able to see more at comparable apertures — we use larger apertures and higher altitudes to compensate for our light pollution. But I think my difficulty lay with my eye, which hasn’t been fully trained to see dim objects. I haven’t been at this long enough.
In the end I counted 28 “did not find” objects. 15 I regard as tentative – where my verbal description was not quite confirmed by my later check of the NGC/IC Project or Aladin websites, which I use post-session to confirm my observations. 30 objects I can confidently confirm. My descriptions are composed primarily of the adjectives “very faint,” “exceedingly dim,” and “difficult.”
I don’t want to leave the wrong impression: I was really enjoying myself. Any night out under the stars is a good night, and here I was stretching my abilities and having fun. There were some very good moments. My most exciting sight was NGC 4169, 4173, 4174, and 4175, a U-shaped cluster of galaxies known as The Box. It was incredible to see them drift across the view, one galaxy revealing itself after the next. I will admit, though, my biggest disappointment was the Coma Cluster. I had anticipated I would see a flurry of galaxies fly past my little window on the universe, and I was really looking forward to it. As it turned out, I missed the whole thing because I had missed one of the leading galaxies, which put my timing off for the rest. Since in this game there was no going back, I had to let them go.
The total Sprint takes about five and a half hours. There are gaps of 10, 15, or 20 minutes here and there where Herschel did not find any new object. He most likely kept working, but I took breaks. Finally, after nearly three and a half hours, just after yet another exceedingly dim glow in NGC 5263, the great globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272) drifted into the eyepiece from the east in all its glory. I checked my inclinometer and my clock, and was very surprised to find I was only 0.2° off in my declination and ~30-60 seconds off in RA — little enough that M3 still floated cleanly into the FOV. It proved to me that my navigation was accurate, and the problem was the challenge of the objects and my own abilities.
M3 is not one of Herschel’s discoveries, but I am sure he would have let it pass through his eyepiece, and enjoy, as I did, feasting on a big, bright object after such labor. Full circle: M3 was the first globular I ever saw, from Monte Bello Open Space Preserve at the end of last April, found with the help of a kind fellow observer.
There is a long gap from M3 to the next object on the list. On the Uranometria charts there are a few NGC objects, but I see from the NGC/IC Project website they were discovered by others. There were also several Abell galaxy clusters, too dim for even Herschel to find. It was past 3am and I was tired, so I skipped forward and star-hopped to the last two galaxies. I trained my scope on the Corona Cluster, just to see how it would look at this aperture and decide whether Herschel had a chance to see it. I detected some grayish mottling, but I saw no distinct object; this is probably what Herschel saw too, and could not recognize it for what it was. But all those dim ovals he could see, not clouds but with some structure, must have given him an inkling these were not simply “nebulae,” these were a different class of object altogether. If only he knew what we know now!
After so much dimness I craved a big bright galaxy, so I viewed M51. I could see both galaxies, and the extension between them, and with AV could trace spiral arms coiling in and out of the bright center. That was very satisfying. I ended the night with a bang: Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2, which was just coming out over the hills at ~4:30am, found with the aid of the AAVSO chart. I was pretty worn out and didn’t try a magnitude comparison, but it was the brightest star in my binocular field. I later found its current estimate is magnitude 5.2.
I want to try the Sprint again, but next time with the 20-inch. I’ll find a way to restrain that scope’s altitude movement within the 3° band, so that I can leave the list behind and sweep as Herschel did, and enjoy the view to the fullest. On the bright side, with so many objects left unobserved on the list, it will still be a night of discovery for me.
PS: In their original article S&T invited persons who attempted the Sprint to send them an email to let them know how it went. I emailed my report and was surprised that they wanted to post it on their website, which they did on April 1, 2015. The above report was edited (and improved) slightly from my original by one of S&T's editors.
This month marks the end of the first year of my stargazing adventure. Almost everything I look at is new, and a thrilling discovery to me. So when I saw an internet forum post referencing the S&T article on William Herschel’s “Night of Discovery” of April 11, 1785, during which he discovered 73 galaxies, I thought to celebrate by replicating his observation session, known as the “Herschel Sprint.” As an extra challenge, I decided to approximate Herschel’s experience as closely as I could.
S&T posted a list of all the objects to be observed on their website. They suggested “purists” could make the sweep more authentic by using the drift method — fixing the telescope at meridian and only moving it 2-3° in altitude, letting the objects drift by as Herschel was forced to because of his mount. One could approximate his view by using an older style eyepiece with 45-50° apparent field of view (AFOV) at 150x.
But why stop there, I thought? His telescope used an 18.7-inch speculum mirror, which (if Wikipedia is to be believed) has 66% of the reflectivity of a modern mirror, equating to an approximate effective aperture of 12.5 inches. I happen to have a 12.5-inch f/7 scope! I could use the 15-mm RKE eyepiece from my Astroscan to match the 45° AFOV, at 148x in the 12.5-inch. Best of all, I had previously observed only five of the objects on the list. These five objects (NGC 3245, 3486, 3504, 3277, and 3414) were observed on February 16, 2015 using a 20-inch telescope. Unless I looked in my notes, I had no memory of what they looked like; besides, they would appear significantly dimmer in my 12.5-inch scope. So, 68 of 73 objects would be completely new to me, and 5 of 73 would be “practically” new.
Incidentally, I’m now one month younger than Herschel was in 1785, so we have our ages in common too! I remember reading in a 19th-century biography that Herschel intensified his deep-sky observing when he found himself “on the wrong side of 45,” as Caroline Herschel is said to have put it. This more or less explains the drive behind my observing.
I took care to preserve my ignorance, such as it was, by not doing any new research about Herschel’s night or the objects to be observed. I downloaded the spreadsheet list of objects from the S&T website, but deleted all of the columns except the NGC number, RA, and Dec. — other columns contained some hints, like “low surface brightness,” so I avoided them. I wanted some way of confirming the object I was looking at during the sweep.
At first I thought of navigating by star-hopping in the eyepiece; so I photocopied the relevant pages from Uranometria 2000.0 and traced lines between each object on the list to plot my course. But I soon realized I could easily get lost; estimating how many degrees to move in the eyepiece over a several-hours-long session would be confusing. Then I remembered from my prior reading that Caroline Herschel, as she took dictation, had next to her an accurate clock set to sidereal time, and the telescope had a contraption using ropes, pulleys, and a barrel top marked in altitude degrees. As she took dictation, she could note an object’s right ascension from the clock and the declination from the scale on the barrel. I didn’t think it would be cheating to use modern equivalents: a digital clock and a digital inclinometer. I could find a star at 0° declination that was also preceding the first object on the list. When this star reached meridian, and with it centered in the eyepiece, I could set the time on the clock to the star’s sidereal time and set the inclinometer mounted to my tube to zero. Thus calibrated, I could move my scope in altitude only to the first list object’s declination and wait for it to pass through. So long as I didn’t move in azimuth, these guides would remain accurate enough throughout the session and help me find the objects.
The S&T spreadsheet showed right ascension in tenths of minutes, and declination in seconds of arc; I converted these into minutes & seconds for right ascension, and tenths of degrees for declination, to match what I would see on the digital clock and the inclinometer, and printed it out to use at the telescope. I kept my Uranometria charts as back-up, but did not refer to them to find the list objects.
This would be a severe test of my visual descriptive skills, which — since the objects pass through the FOV in less than a minute — would require great economy of perception and expression. There wouldn’t be enough time to dwell on an object, search for fine detail, or write and sketch my observation as I normally do, but I did have a digital voice recorder that I velcroed near the focuser for dictation.
What would run through my mind as the pageant unfurled before me? All that was left was to wait for a cloudless, moonless night.
Report:
I arrived at Fremont Peak Observatory Association's site at Fremont Peak State Park, California, at sundown and was observing soon after. I used the 15-mm RKE from the beginning, because I wanted to become accustomed to its FOV and how objects would appear. I ran through some H400 objects, and could tell right away the night ahead would be more challenging than I thought.
My February session at the Peak under similar conditions was with my 20-inch, and I recall all my observations spoke of finding objects with direct vision, with averted vision helping to reveal some fine detail. This time, objects were still bright enough to be found but averted vision (AV) was more necessary to bring out more of the object, such as a galaxy’s halo or mottling. Only a handful of the Sprint objects are plotted in my Pocket Sky Atlas — which is targeted for small and medium size scopes and includes all the Messier, Herschel 400, and Caldwell objects. I was still able to find the H400 objects (mostly in Leo’s hindquarters) perfectly well and enjoy them, but the comparative dimness with the 20-inch was a foreshadowing of how the Sprint session would go.
I used Stellarium beforehand to find a preceding, 0° calibration star that was bright enough for me to find. I used HIP48413 (RA 9h 52m 59s, Dec 0° 00’ 13.6”), which according to Stellarium would reach meridian at 11:14:35 p.m. PDT on 3/18/15. It was an easy find off Iota (ι) Hydrae. As it neared meridian I kept it in the center of view and monitored my watch; at the right moment I set the inclinometer to zero, and set my clock (an alarm clock with red numerals) to 9:53. Then I moved the scope up to 27.7° to wait for the first object, NGC 3196. But while I was waiting the inclinometer’s backlight went off. I thought the unit itself turned off; when I pressed the “on” button, the unit reset zero to default bubble level zero! I went back to my calibration star and reset to zero again, but since I lost the sidereal time I skipped NGC 3196 and went to NGC 3245, which I found by star-hopping with the chart. Fortunately the declination angle matched what it should be. I held the galaxy in view until the sidereal time caught up with NGC 3245; I then stopped my azimuth movement and started the Sprint.
NGC 3245 was one of the objects I observed in February with the 20-inch. My description then was: “205x Long bright nucleus running N-S, small diffuse halo, 2.3’ x 1’ visible. Easily found and bright.” Now with the 12.5-inch it was: “148x elliptical, glowing nucleus with DV, bright core with AV; 3:1 N-S. In a triangle of stars. Somewhat difficult to find.” I saw less of the galaxy, and it was dimmer. The Sky Quality Meter w/Lens (SQM-L) reading in February was 20.71; now it was 20.60 or so — about the same. This was to be one of the brightest objects I was to observe during the Sprint.
I soon abandoned the thought of doing a pure sweep. Because I had to navigate, and because I wanted some way of following the list, I decided to simply move the scope to the altitude of the next object on the list, and monitor the clock to wait for it to pass into view. My clock didn’t display seconds so it was difficult to judge time precisely. Often the objects would be at nearly the same RA time but at different declinations, and I would spend too much time on one and miss the next.
But the main problem was the difficulty in seeing the objects to begin with — I didn’t know how the object would appear, so I was scanning and using AV and just trying to see if there was anything in view. I sometimes suspected my calibration was slightly off, and I was like a ship whose bearing was wrong by a slight angle, causing it sail further off course over time. But from time to time I would find an object at the listed location, and it would restore my confidence in my setup. Certainly Herschel’s sky was not affected by light pollution, so he may have been able to see more at comparable apertures — we use larger apertures and higher altitudes to compensate for our light pollution. But I think my difficulty lay with my eye, which hasn’t been fully trained to see dim objects. I haven’t been at this long enough.
In the end I counted 28 “did not find” objects. 15 I regard as tentative – where my verbal description was not quite confirmed by my later check of the NGC/IC Project or Aladin websites, which I use post-session to confirm my observations. 30 objects I can confidently confirm. My descriptions are composed primarily of the adjectives “very faint,” “exceedingly dim,” and “difficult.”
I don’t want to leave the wrong impression: I was really enjoying myself. Any night out under the stars is a good night, and here I was stretching my abilities and having fun. There were some very good moments. My most exciting sight was NGC 4169, 4173, 4174, and 4175, a U-shaped cluster of galaxies known as The Box. It was incredible to see them drift across the view, one galaxy revealing itself after the next. I will admit, though, my biggest disappointment was the Coma Cluster. I had anticipated I would see a flurry of galaxies fly past my little window on the universe, and I was really looking forward to it. As it turned out, I missed the whole thing because I had missed one of the leading galaxies, which put my timing off for the rest. Since in this game there was no going back, I had to let them go.
The total Sprint takes about five and a half hours. There are gaps of 10, 15, or 20 minutes here and there where Herschel did not find any new object. He most likely kept working, but I took breaks. Finally, after nearly three and a half hours, just after yet another exceedingly dim glow in NGC 5263, the great globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272) drifted into the eyepiece from the east in all its glory. I checked my inclinometer and my clock, and was very surprised to find I was only 0.2° off in my declination and ~30-60 seconds off in RA — little enough that M3 still floated cleanly into the FOV. It proved to me that my navigation was accurate, and the problem was the challenge of the objects and my own abilities.
M3 is not one of Herschel’s discoveries, but I am sure he would have let it pass through his eyepiece, and enjoy, as I did, feasting on a big, bright object after such labor. Full circle: M3 was the first globular I ever saw, from Monte Bello Open Space Preserve at the end of last April, found with the help of a kind fellow observer.
There is a long gap from M3 to the next object on the list. On the Uranometria charts there are a few NGC objects, but I see from the NGC/IC Project website they were discovered by others. There were also several Abell galaxy clusters, too dim for even Herschel to find. It was past 3am and I was tired, so I skipped forward and star-hopped to the last two galaxies. I trained my scope on the Corona Cluster, just to see how it would look at this aperture and decide whether Herschel had a chance to see it. I detected some grayish mottling, but I saw no distinct object; this is probably what Herschel saw too, and could not recognize it for what it was. But all those dim ovals he could see, not clouds but with some structure, must have given him an inkling these were not simply “nebulae,” these were a different class of object altogether. If only he knew what we know now!
After so much dimness I craved a big bright galaxy, so I viewed M51. I could see both galaxies, and the extension between them, and with AV could trace spiral arms coiling in and out of the bright center. That was very satisfying. I ended the night with a bang: Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2, which was just coming out over the hills at ~4:30am, found with the aid of the AAVSO chart. I was pretty worn out and didn’t try a magnitude comparison, but it was the brightest star in my binocular field. I later found its current estimate is magnitude 5.2.
I want to try the Sprint again, but next time with the 20-inch. I’ll find a way to restrain that scope’s altitude movement within the 3° band, so that I can leave the list behind and sweep as Herschel did, and enjoy the view to the fullest. On the bright side, with so many objects left unobserved on the list, it will still be a night of discovery for me.
PS: In their original article S&T invited persons who attempted the Sprint to send them an email to let them know how it went. I emailed my report and was surprised that they wanted to post it on their website, which they did on April 1, 2015. The above report was edited (and improved) slightly from my original by one of S&T's editors.
OR, Fremont Peak, 2/15/2015
I drove down to the FPOA area with fellow SJAAer Sizhuang Liu, who was looking forward to an all nighter, as was I. We arrived around 5pm and set up our scopes under cloudy skies; I was full of confidence they would dissipate by nightfall. It took a couple hours longer for the clouds to finally clear, and we had a good night with very good seeing and average transparency; SQML was from 20.3-20.9.
I enjoyed getting to know Sizhuang during the wait; he shared stories of his and his friends’ observing adventures in China. The next time I think the “hassle factor” to get out and observe is too high, I’ll think of Sizhuang and his friends, carrying refractors in their backpacks and a 10” reflector and dobsonian mount by hand for hours on subways, busses, and overpriced rural taxis up washed-out narrow mountain roads just to get to a NELM 6.0 sky. Such dedication, and fun!
Galaxy season has started in earnest and they dominated my observations, all with a 20” f5.25, highlights as follows:
NGC 3344, Leo, 205x: Bright, easily found DV, AV helped pop out hints of spiral structure, especially an arm starting south of the stellar nucleus and hooking west, and an opposite member starting north and hooking east. 3’x4’ visible, longer E-E. Three close faint foreground stars to east, two of which are superimposed on the halo.
NGC 3395 & 3396. LMi, interacting galaxies, 205x NGC 3395 is fairly bright, with mottled halo texture. Orientated NNE-SSW, 1.5’ x 0.7’ visible, with a distinct backwards “S” shape, the southern arm reaching out towards 3396. NGC 3396 is a little dimmer than its companion, elongated 3:1, 1’ long major axis visible, WNW-ESE.
NGC 3190, 3193, & 3185, Leo. 205x I went seeking 3190 & 3193, but discovered 3185 in the same FOV. 3190 was the brightest of a line of three galaxies. It was a long edge on, 4:1 NW-SE with a stellar nucleus, about 2’x0.5” visible, with a darkening in the halo to the SW. 3193 was to the NE, bright & easily seen, roundish and small, with a stellar nucleus. 3185 was to the SW, the dimmest of the three, bright nucleus with a diffuse halo, orientated NW-SE. Had I been more diligent, I might’ve also seen NGC 3187 to the NW of 3190, which I see on Aladin this morning and is a striking spiral. I will need to try this one again.
NGC 3184, UMa, face on spiral, 205x Large, fairly bright, stellar nucleus with spiral structure apparent with AV. There is a foreground star involved in the Western arm [this is actually NGC 3181, an HII region of 3184] and another one in the northern portion [this is a star]. About 3.5’ visible E-W and 4.0’ N-S. NGC 3521, Leo, Spiral Gx 205x Large object easy in DV. Fully 5’x2’ elongated NNW-SSE. Bright elongated core seems to float in a swirling cloud – remarkable three dimensional effect. Halo is mottled and cloudy, strongly suggesting spiral structures. Diffuse edges extend far out especially to NE.
NGC 4666 w/ supernova ASASSN-14Ip: This was my third observation of this SN, first on 12/26/14, and second on 1/24/15. At 205x, the supernova was only held 50% with direct vision but obvious just to the north and east of the nucleus, close enough one might confuse the two. In December I estimated (and reports confirmed) 11-12th magnitude; January I estimated 13th. As the SN was still about as bright as the southward pointing star in the close trio of stars to the SW of NGC 4666, it is likely the 13th still or a little dimmer. The last published report I find online is 13.1 magnitude, having fallen from the peak of 11.7 the end of December. Catch this one before it’s too dim!
Omega Centauri, GC When I first saw this last year, it took an arduous star hop from Corvus, since I was unfamiliar with this constellation. I was about to repeat this until Sizhuang showed me the naked eye star patterns to follow, and where to scan with the finder – and I quickly acquired the target. At 121x it is large, filling the 0.7* FOV, with many ragged loops and chains of stars, with many, many stars resolved and many, many more a glittering dust behind. I needed to sit on the ground to view this from the eyepiece.
NGC 5128 / Centaurus A, 205x The famous radio / starburst galaxy. At this magnification it nearly filled the 0.5* FOV, a dim glow elongated ~3:1 NE-SE with a very obvious and wide dust lane running NW-SE, which with AV showed ragged edges. A faint star was at the SW edge of the dust lane. This was 5* higher than Omega Centauri, so I only had to kneel to see this one!
I enjoyed getting to know Sizhuang during the wait; he shared stories of his and his friends’ observing adventures in China. The next time I think the “hassle factor” to get out and observe is too high, I’ll think of Sizhuang and his friends, carrying refractors in their backpacks and a 10” reflector and dobsonian mount by hand for hours on subways, busses, and overpriced rural taxis up washed-out narrow mountain roads just to get to a NELM 6.0 sky. Such dedication, and fun!
Galaxy season has started in earnest and they dominated my observations, all with a 20” f5.25, highlights as follows:
NGC 3344, Leo, 205x: Bright, easily found DV, AV helped pop out hints of spiral structure, especially an arm starting south of the stellar nucleus and hooking west, and an opposite member starting north and hooking east. 3’x4’ visible, longer E-E. Three close faint foreground stars to east, two of which are superimposed on the halo.
NGC 3395 & 3396. LMi, interacting galaxies, 205x NGC 3395 is fairly bright, with mottled halo texture. Orientated NNE-SSW, 1.5’ x 0.7’ visible, with a distinct backwards “S” shape, the southern arm reaching out towards 3396. NGC 3396 is a little dimmer than its companion, elongated 3:1, 1’ long major axis visible, WNW-ESE.
NGC 3190, 3193, & 3185, Leo. 205x I went seeking 3190 & 3193, but discovered 3185 in the same FOV. 3190 was the brightest of a line of three galaxies. It was a long edge on, 4:1 NW-SE with a stellar nucleus, about 2’x0.5” visible, with a darkening in the halo to the SW. 3193 was to the NE, bright & easily seen, roundish and small, with a stellar nucleus. 3185 was to the SW, the dimmest of the three, bright nucleus with a diffuse halo, orientated NW-SE. Had I been more diligent, I might’ve also seen NGC 3187 to the NW of 3190, which I see on Aladin this morning and is a striking spiral. I will need to try this one again.
NGC 3184, UMa, face on spiral, 205x Large, fairly bright, stellar nucleus with spiral structure apparent with AV. There is a foreground star involved in the Western arm [this is actually NGC 3181, an HII region of 3184] and another one in the northern portion [this is a star]. About 3.5’ visible E-W and 4.0’ N-S. NGC 3521, Leo, Spiral Gx 205x Large object easy in DV. Fully 5’x2’ elongated NNW-SSE. Bright elongated core seems to float in a swirling cloud – remarkable three dimensional effect. Halo is mottled and cloudy, strongly suggesting spiral structures. Diffuse edges extend far out especially to NE.
NGC 4666 w/ supernova ASASSN-14Ip: This was my third observation of this SN, first on 12/26/14, and second on 1/24/15. At 205x, the supernova was only held 50% with direct vision but obvious just to the north and east of the nucleus, close enough one might confuse the two. In December I estimated (and reports confirmed) 11-12th magnitude; January I estimated 13th. As the SN was still about as bright as the southward pointing star in the close trio of stars to the SW of NGC 4666, it is likely the 13th still or a little dimmer. The last published report I find online is 13.1 magnitude, having fallen from the peak of 11.7 the end of December. Catch this one before it’s too dim!
Omega Centauri, GC When I first saw this last year, it took an arduous star hop from Corvus, since I was unfamiliar with this constellation. I was about to repeat this until Sizhuang showed me the naked eye star patterns to follow, and where to scan with the finder – and I quickly acquired the target. At 121x it is large, filling the 0.7* FOV, with many ragged loops and chains of stars, with many, many stars resolved and many, many more a glittering dust behind. I needed to sit on the ground to view this from the eyepiece.
NGC 5128 / Centaurus A, 205x The famous radio / starburst galaxy. At this magnification it nearly filled the 0.5* FOV, a dim glow elongated ~3:1 NE-SE with a very obvious and wide dust lane running NW-SE, which with AV showed ragged edges. A faint star was at the SW edge of the dust lane. This was 5* higher than Omega Centauri, so I only had to kneel to see this one!
OR: Sirius B 1/29/15
One of the first books I read last year when I began to observe seriously (pun intended), was Burnham’s Celestial Handbook. In it he describes Sirius and the history of the discovery of its companion, B, also known as “The Pup.” Between 1834 and 1844 F.W. Bessel found irregularities in Sirius’ motion through space, and calculated it must have a binary companion with a period of 50 years. But Sirius’ brightness overwhelms the view of its companion. Alvan G. Clark was the first to make a visual observation, with his 18.5” refractor – then the largest in the world – in January 1862. Burnham then describes his own rapt experiences observing magnitude 8.75 Sirius B using various instruments (“very definite at 12 inches, difficult at 9 inches, and detectible at 6 inches only because its exact position was known” p. 395). Burnham then goes off on one of his wonderful tangents to discuss the nature of Sirius B, which is a white dwarf, with “a mass nearly equal to that of the Sun” packed into a star only the size of the earth, whose “luminosity, however, is less than 1/400 that of the Sun” (p. 397). Given that I was becoming very fond of observing double stars, I added Sirius B to my “bucket list” of objects to observe.
This observation may not be the monumental achievement it once was. Sirius B is now on its way toward maximum separation. It is currently 10.32 arc seconds, with position angle 078.5. Maximum separation is in 2023 at 11.28 arc seconds, PA 062.7. Nevertheless, it still generates excitement. Within the last couple of months, several local amateur astronomers have posted on internet forums that they had a clear split, one with a 16” and another with an 11” aperture reflector. The Double Star Observing section on the Cloudy Nights Forums website has a pinned thread called “Da Pup is Busted,” where many have posted their recent successful sightings, including photographs and field sketches showing its position relative to nearby stars. Surely there are many more people who’ve made sightings but didn’t report them online. The most remarkable observation I’ve come across is that of Jay Reynolds Freeman, who split Sirius with a 6” f/8 refractor at Montebello Open Space Preserve in 2002, when the separation was a mere 5 arc seconds. The common requirement was very steady seeing conditions and generally high (250x or more) magnification. Aperture seems less of a determining factor, but the reports do follow Burnham’s aperture-to-visibility scale as above. Steady seeing helps reduce the size of the roiling mess that Sirius presents in the eyepiece, providing the opportunity to see the comparatively faint B star just in or outside of A’s diffraction pattern. Reading these reports gave me encouragement me that I might be able make the observation, but more importantly how I might.
I set my scope (12.5” f/7 reflector, 14.4% secondary central obstruction) in my Fremont, CA back yard – elevation 53’ – upon returning home from work, at set a fan behind the primary to help it cool and track temperature. After dark I began observing various double stars and noticed I could push magnification rather high, 277x or more, and I was beginning to see nice Airy Disks. I paused at 7:30pm to attend to my evening chores, returning to the scope at 9:00pm. I noticed that Sirius was hardly twinkling – a sign that the seeing had become superb – and thought to make a go of it.
I collimated my scope once more and put in a 9mm orthoscopic eyepiece (246x) which I had fitted with an occulting bar – a piece of black photographer’s tape across the lens inside the barrel – which I planned to use to block Sirius A’s light and which I carry around in by eyepiece bag for just such an occasion. Since Sirius B’s PA is now 078, a little north of due east of Sirius, I let Sirius drift west through the field with the occulting bar set to the west. I tried several times, but no luck! I didn’t see anything but the roiling mess. I then used a 2x barlow with the same eyepiece (492x), and still did not see it. I thought maybe this wasn’t the night. After all, there was a 73% waxing gibbous moon; SQM-L to the target was 17.52, and 18.22 at zenith. Transparency was probably average, and my scope was dripping dew.
Then I thought to use an intermediate magnification, and inserted a 5mm Nagler into the eyepiece into the focuser, 443x, without an occulting bar. Sirius’s diffraction was reduced versus the 9mm. I once again scanned the area east of the star. After three passes I noticed it: a faint yellow-orange disk, to the edge of Sirius A’s diffraction and just below my spider’s diffraction spike. I let Sirius pass beyond the field stop, and for an instant there was Sirius B, clearly separated, before it too passed beyond the field stop. I did it! I kept looking at it for another 15 minutes, hardly able to contain my joy.
One of the tips I had read in other observing reports is, if one is using a reflector, to rotate the tube assembly so the spider diffraction spike is not due east, as it would interfere with the observation. I have no means to rotate my tube, so I decided to re-observe in a couple hours, when the diurnal motion of the sky would have rotated the field for me. I observed a few more doubles in the meantime. Sigma Orionis was a special treat. I came back to Sirius at 10:30pm, and sure enough B was halfway between my two spider diffraction spikes, plain as day. I kept observing it for another hour; I wanted to hold on to the magical feeling.
And so here I am this morning, not reading my work emails but typing up this report, elated. It was great. I hope to do it again.
This observation may not be the monumental achievement it once was. Sirius B is now on its way toward maximum separation. It is currently 10.32 arc seconds, with position angle 078.5. Maximum separation is in 2023 at 11.28 arc seconds, PA 062.7. Nevertheless, it still generates excitement. Within the last couple of months, several local amateur astronomers have posted on internet forums that they had a clear split, one with a 16” and another with an 11” aperture reflector. The Double Star Observing section on the Cloudy Nights Forums website has a pinned thread called “Da Pup is Busted,” where many have posted their recent successful sightings, including photographs and field sketches showing its position relative to nearby stars. Surely there are many more people who’ve made sightings but didn’t report them online. The most remarkable observation I’ve come across is that of Jay Reynolds Freeman, who split Sirius with a 6” f/8 refractor at Montebello Open Space Preserve in 2002, when the separation was a mere 5 arc seconds. The common requirement was very steady seeing conditions and generally high (250x or more) magnification. Aperture seems less of a determining factor, but the reports do follow Burnham’s aperture-to-visibility scale as above. Steady seeing helps reduce the size of the roiling mess that Sirius presents in the eyepiece, providing the opportunity to see the comparatively faint B star just in or outside of A’s diffraction pattern. Reading these reports gave me encouragement me that I might be able make the observation, but more importantly how I might.
I set my scope (12.5” f/7 reflector, 14.4% secondary central obstruction) in my Fremont, CA back yard – elevation 53’ – upon returning home from work, at set a fan behind the primary to help it cool and track temperature. After dark I began observing various double stars and noticed I could push magnification rather high, 277x or more, and I was beginning to see nice Airy Disks. I paused at 7:30pm to attend to my evening chores, returning to the scope at 9:00pm. I noticed that Sirius was hardly twinkling – a sign that the seeing had become superb – and thought to make a go of it.
I collimated my scope once more and put in a 9mm orthoscopic eyepiece (246x) which I had fitted with an occulting bar – a piece of black photographer’s tape across the lens inside the barrel – which I planned to use to block Sirius A’s light and which I carry around in by eyepiece bag for just such an occasion. Since Sirius B’s PA is now 078, a little north of due east of Sirius, I let Sirius drift west through the field with the occulting bar set to the west. I tried several times, but no luck! I didn’t see anything but the roiling mess. I then used a 2x barlow with the same eyepiece (492x), and still did not see it. I thought maybe this wasn’t the night. After all, there was a 73% waxing gibbous moon; SQM-L to the target was 17.52, and 18.22 at zenith. Transparency was probably average, and my scope was dripping dew.
Then I thought to use an intermediate magnification, and inserted a 5mm Nagler into the eyepiece into the focuser, 443x, without an occulting bar. Sirius’s diffraction was reduced versus the 9mm. I once again scanned the area east of the star. After three passes I noticed it: a faint yellow-orange disk, to the edge of Sirius A’s diffraction and just below my spider’s diffraction spike. I let Sirius pass beyond the field stop, and for an instant there was Sirius B, clearly separated, before it too passed beyond the field stop. I did it! I kept looking at it for another 15 minutes, hardly able to contain my joy.
One of the tips I had read in other observing reports is, if one is using a reflector, to rotate the tube assembly so the spider diffraction spike is not due east, as it would interfere with the observation. I have no means to rotate my tube, so I decided to re-observe in a couple hours, when the diurnal motion of the sky would have rotated the field for me. I observed a few more doubles in the meantime. Sigma Orionis was a special treat. I came back to Sirius at 10:30pm, and sure enough B was halfway between my two spider diffraction spikes, plain as day. I kept observing it for another hour; I wanted to hold on to the magical feeling.
And so here I am this morning, not reading my work emails but typing up this report, elated. It was great. I hope to do it again.
OR, Fremont Peak 1/24/15
This was my first visit to the FPOA observatory area, having joined a couple weeks ago. I figure to get the most out of a 20” scope, I need some more dark and elevation, and Fremont Peak is not too far away for me. I set up at the southeast corner pad, next to the conveniently placed picnic table and park bench. Peter N. and Dave C. set up near the maintenance area, and I enjoyed getting acquainted with them. Ron D. came later to use the Challenger telescope, and he gave me a view of the Orion Nebula. I picked out the H star in the Trapezium; G seemed to be lurking there somewhere but I was not certain of a sighting. The nebula was dramatic, bright, more substantial and colorful than I had seen before. It was wonderful. I partially returned the favor to Ron by sharing a view of NGC 2683 from my scope.
Weather was clear and dry. Temperature started out mild, but fell into the 40s around midnight. Oddly it was 60 degrees on the Peak at dawn, while San Juan Bautista was 34 degrees. A southerly wind picked up after midnight, weathervaneing my scope. So I changed my targets to the north, to keep my own and my scope’s backs to the wind, so the scope would be stable and I would be warmer. Transparency was very good and seeing was good. SQM-L ranged from 20.40 – 20.77 after the moon was down.
I worked many objects in the -20 to -30 degrees declination range, and found even when I waited for them to be higher in the sky, due to focuser position I needed to be on my knees to observe them, as if worshiping them. As Peter remarked, it’s a wonder how Herschel was able to discover them from his higher latitude.
At about 12:20 am, while facing west and hunched over taking notes on NGC 2974, a bright light coming from over my left shoulder cast a shadow of my pen onto my notebook. It could not be a car light coming from that direction, so I glanced over and saw the last flash of a fireball which had broken up into two, maybe three, pieces, with a faint smoke trail behind. I didn’t have the presence of mind to mark the exact location or direction; it was vaguely coming from Corvus heading toward Hydra. Nevertheless I reported my observation to http://cams.seti.org/. We’ll see if it will be confirmed.
All my targets showed up beautifully. I also re-observed supernova ASASSN-141p in NGC 4666, and tried again for 2014dt in M61. Following are my notes on the more impressive objects I observed. What fun that my first-ever view of most of these objects is through a 20” f/5.25 scope!
NGC 2371 & 2372, PN, Gem. 333x, 1.5mm exit pupil, 0.3* TFOV. Two lobes in a peanut shape SW-NE which had caused Herschel to log this as two objects. Both were clear but the one on the SW, NGC 2371, was brighter. It seemed to have a faint round outer halo around the lobes, and a fairly faint central star in the middle. I preferred the unfiltered view but the UHC helped bring out a little more detail, better than the OIII which to my taste darkened the view too much.
NGC 2392, Eskimo Nebula, PN, Gem. 333x, 1.5mm exit pupil, 0.3* TFOV. UHC. Easily found, bright and overall round shape at lower magnification. Central star and inner ring DV unfiltered; with OIII the central star disappeared and lost detail. 333x with UHC was the best view for structure, showing the bright outline of the “chin” pointing N and “jaw” of the face and the mottled parka fringe.
NGC 2683, Gx, Lyn. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Beautiful long 4:1 edge on spiral, orientated SW-NE, easy DV with hints of dark lane across the southern span of the core, which long and not too bright. AV helped draw out the diffuse halo. Foreground star just involved in the halo to the SW.
NGC 3242, Ghost of Jupiter, PN, Hya. 333x, 1.5mm exit pupil, 0.3* TFOV. UHC. Wow! Lovely double structure with DV, turquoise color. Bright slightly oval inner ring orientated NW-SE, and a diffuse outer halo; central star hinted with AV. Outer halo slightly oval NNW-SSE. UHC lost the CS but helped bring out brighter inner ring and show threads running between the inner ring and halo.
NGC 3115, Gx, Sex. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Large 4:1 easily found [edge on spindle] orientated SW-NE. Compact core. The western tip of the halo seems to twist southward. A dark lane slashes across the core.
NGC 2964, Gx, Leo. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Only NGC 2964 is plotted in my Pocket Sky Atlas, but I was surprised to find three galaxies in the FOV! Time to get deeper charts, I guess. NGC 2964 is bright with a stellar core, 2:1 [actual 4:3], elongated W-E. NGC 2968 was next closest to the NE [5.8’ distant], a smaller, fainter glow with a brightened core, diffuse halo, 3:2 NGC 2970 was also NE [11’ distant], 3:1, faintest of the three but still easy DV.
NGC 2903, Gx, Leo. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Huge, bright enough to see in the finderscope. 3:2 elongated NW-SE. Mottling throughout with scattered bright knots. A bright arm stretches out from the N to NW side [this is NGC 2905].
Supernova ASASSN-14Ip in NGC 4666. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV. SQM-L 20.72 The supernova is still there, easy in DV, but my impression is it has dimmed quite a lot since I observed it at Henry Coe on 12/26/14, when it was about a month old. It is about as bright as the south pointing star of the close trio of stars 5’ to the SW of NGC 4666, about 13th magnitude. In December I estimated 11-12 magnitude. I can’t seem to find current magnitude estimates online. Also in FOV, which I did not see from Henry Coe in December, was NGC 4668, which was fairly dim but visible DV, AV helped a lot.
Supernova 2014dt in M61. Tried again and made sure to look in the eastern part of the halo, but I could not convince myself I could see it. Its magnitude was near the limit of my scope last month, so it may have dimmed even further.
As my final object of the session, I tried Copeland’s Septet. It was easy to find and I could observe a faint triangular knot of mistiness. But by this point I was too tired to make a concerted effort to observe. I’ll have to save this for another night.
Weather was clear and dry. Temperature started out mild, but fell into the 40s around midnight. Oddly it was 60 degrees on the Peak at dawn, while San Juan Bautista was 34 degrees. A southerly wind picked up after midnight, weathervaneing my scope. So I changed my targets to the north, to keep my own and my scope’s backs to the wind, so the scope would be stable and I would be warmer. Transparency was very good and seeing was good. SQM-L ranged from 20.40 – 20.77 after the moon was down.
I worked many objects in the -20 to -30 degrees declination range, and found even when I waited for them to be higher in the sky, due to focuser position I needed to be on my knees to observe them, as if worshiping them. As Peter remarked, it’s a wonder how Herschel was able to discover them from his higher latitude.
At about 12:20 am, while facing west and hunched over taking notes on NGC 2974, a bright light coming from over my left shoulder cast a shadow of my pen onto my notebook. It could not be a car light coming from that direction, so I glanced over and saw the last flash of a fireball which had broken up into two, maybe three, pieces, with a faint smoke trail behind. I didn’t have the presence of mind to mark the exact location or direction; it was vaguely coming from Corvus heading toward Hydra. Nevertheless I reported my observation to http://cams.seti.org/. We’ll see if it will be confirmed.
All my targets showed up beautifully. I also re-observed supernova ASASSN-141p in NGC 4666, and tried again for 2014dt in M61. Following are my notes on the more impressive objects I observed. What fun that my first-ever view of most of these objects is through a 20” f/5.25 scope!
NGC 2371 & 2372, PN, Gem. 333x, 1.5mm exit pupil, 0.3* TFOV. Two lobes in a peanut shape SW-NE which had caused Herschel to log this as two objects. Both were clear but the one on the SW, NGC 2371, was brighter. It seemed to have a faint round outer halo around the lobes, and a fairly faint central star in the middle. I preferred the unfiltered view but the UHC helped bring out a little more detail, better than the OIII which to my taste darkened the view too much.
NGC 2392, Eskimo Nebula, PN, Gem. 333x, 1.5mm exit pupil, 0.3* TFOV. UHC. Easily found, bright and overall round shape at lower magnification. Central star and inner ring DV unfiltered; with OIII the central star disappeared and lost detail. 333x with UHC was the best view for structure, showing the bright outline of the “chin” pointing N and “jaw” of the face and the mottled parka fringe.
NGC 2683, Gx, Lyn. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Beautiful long 4:1 edge on spiral, orientated SW-NE, easy DV with hints of dark lane across the southern span of the core, which long and not too bright. AV helped draw out the diffuse halo. Foreground star just involved in the halo to the SW.
NGC 3242, Ghost of Jupiter, PN, Hya. 333x, 1.5mm exit pupil, 0.3* TFOV. UHC. Wow! Lovely double structure with DV, turquoise color. Bright slightly oval inner ring orientated NW-SE, and a diffuse outer halo; central star hinted with AV. Outer halo slightly oval NNW-SSE. UHC lost the CS but helped bring out brighter inner ring and show threads running between the inner ring and halo.
NGC 3115, Gx, Sex. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Large 4:1 easily found [edge on spindle] orientated SW-NE. Compact core. The western tip of the halo seems to twist southward. A dark lane slashes across the core.
NGC 2964, Gx, Leo. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Only NGC 2964 is plotted in my Pocket Sky Atlas, but I was surprised to find three galaxies in the FOV! Time to get deeper charts, I guess. NGC 2964 is bright with a stellar core, 2:1 [actual 4:3], elongated W-E. NGC 2968 was next closest to the NE [5.8’ distant], a smaller, fainter glow with a brightened core, diffuse halo, 3:2 NGC 2970 was also NE [11’ distant], 3:1, faintest of the three but still easy DV.
NGC 2903, Gx, Leo. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV Huge, bright enough to see in the finderscope. 3:2 elongated NW-SE. Mottling throughout with scattered bright knots. A bright arm stretches out from the N to NW side [this is NGC 2905].
Supernova ASASSN-14Ip in NGC 4666. 205x, 2.5mm exit pupil, 0.5* TFOV. SQM-L 20.72 The supernova is still there, easy in DV, but my impression is it has dimmed quite a lot since I observed it at Henry Coe on 12/26/14, when it was about a month old. It is about as bright as the south pointing star of the close trio of stars 5’ to the SW of NGC 4666, about 13th magnitude. In December I estimated 11-12 magnitude. I can’t seem to find current magnitude estimates online. Also in FOV, which I did not see from Henry Coe in December, was NGC 4668, which was fairly dim but visible DV, AV helped a lot.
Supernova 2014dt in M61. Tried again and made sure to look in the eastern part of the halo, but I could not convince myself I could see it. Its magnitude was near the limit of my scope last month, so it may have dimmed even further.
As my final object of the session, I tried Copeland’s Septet. It was easy to find and I could observe a faint triangular knot of mistiness. But by this point I was too tired to make a concerted effort to observe. I’ll have to save this for another night.
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