While waiting for it to be fully dark we watched the sky for an International Space Station pass. Most of us were looking up, but Bob happened to see it rising from the western horizon. We watched as it rose and were excited to see it transit the earthshine part of the moon. The others began to track it with their binoculars, wondering if they could see any structure. I decided to try tracking it with the 10-inch, and I was able to fairly easily. It was bright, but appeared boxy. It was very cool to see it barrelling through fields of stars -- it was headed for zenith and the Cassiopeia Milky Way region. As it passed zenith it began to slowly dim, and eventually I saw it as an orange tube. I kept on it as it grew fainter, still able to track it easily with the Springsonian. It became too dim in the others' binoculars, but I could still track it for about another minute as it became fainter than most of the stars. Eventually it disappeared, and my telescope was pointed about 15° from level.
First up was Blazar CTA 102, which erupted a few days ago from its usual 17th magnitude and was now somewhere from 12.5 to 13.0. It is a staggering 8 billion light years away -- almost twice the age of our sun, and more than half the age of the universe itself. All five of us had printed finder charts from S&T and were searching for it to the west of the Great Square in Pegasus. I could point the scope to nearby 31 Peg with the reflex sight, but I could not get my 50mm finder in alignment with the scope, so I needed to star hop through my eyepiece, which I found challenging. I spent a good 20 minutes missing the correct field when Jamie called out he found the blazar in his 13-inch. I had a look, and once familiar with the field went back to my scope and was able to find the right reference stars to get to the target area using 35x. I could not quite see it so switched to 84x and was able to make out the faint point at the tip of a small triangle of stars, matching the finder chart. It was faint, but still direct vision. I tried to soak in the feeling of having such ancient photons entering my eye, stimulating my brain. I will need to come back to this -- will try for it at home.
I didn't have any specific plan for observing, so I made few notes. We spent a lot of time chatting with each other and sharing views. SQML was 21.18, a little low, and while it was around 40°F, there was no dew, and I had dressed for the weather. I knew I wanted to exploit the scope's wide FOV and to try large scale objects.
I saw Blanco 1, which I had seen on my charts for a long time. It was a disappointing, large loose cluster of a dozen or more stars in a triangle pattern. Meh. I started out with this object thinking I would go to the Sculptor Dwarf and then the Fornax Dwarf, but the light dome from the Los Banos Reservoir lights washed out the horizon to 15°. There were light domes all around, sadly. So I abandoned the lower elevations and went high.
George suggested I try the Helix nebula. He shared the view in his 13-inch, and showed me a good way to find it with a reflex sight: make a right triangle with Fomalhaut and Skat (Delta Aquarius). I found it straight off. It looked nice with a UHC -- though I probably should have tried an OIII, since it is a planetary nebula -- annular, with a large darker round interior.
My next thought was to try IC 342, a notoriously difficult face-on spiral in Camelopardalis. I wanted to start from Kembel's Cascade, an asterism in lower Camelopardalis near Cassiopeia. After some checking of my charts I did succeed in finding the straight line of stars making the asterism, and the small open cluster NGC 1502 at the end of it. Some nice colorful stars in the field. I then carefully star hopped through the eyepiece up the few degrees north to IC 342. I immediately saw an oval glow behind a rather dense field of stars -- if wasn't sure of my star hop I would have assumed this was an open cluster. But it was the galaxy's relatively bright small core and nucleus. The arms were not apparent; there was a very subtle change in grayscale but nothing certain. Someone proposed on an online forum to try yellow filters on objects hidden behind galactic dust, so I carefully screwed on my Wratten #15 to the end of the tube extender I had at the end of my Paracorr. I felt some of the arms were slightly more visible, but it may have been wishful vision. It was like looking at a soluble fish. I had Jamie take a look but he had not seen it before so could not confirm with certainty. I want to try this one again with the 20-inch to see if I can discern any arms.
I did some lazy sweeping around the Milky Way. The North America Nebula filled more than the field, and was billowy and cloud-like. I could see a large chunk of nebulosity hooking away from Mexico to the east. The Pelican Nebula (IC 5067 & 5070) was large and almost bright. And I could see the three condensations beneath the Pelican (IC 5068). The Gamma Cygni area was turbulent with nebulae and dark nebulae, too much to describe accurately. Same with the Mu Cepheus area (IC 1396 etc.). And the Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405) -- which was quite astonishing. IC 405 appeared as a wide comma, with IC 410 on the other side of the bright elongated star cluster Mel 31. M38 looked great, and I could see the small faint cluster NGC 1907 at its rim, not unlike the small cluster at the edge of M35.
The drawback of observing on a weeknight is I was too tired to write detailed descriptions, so I did only casual sightseeing instead. And with more than a couple people to observe with, I felt the need to be more outgoing and social, taking away time and concentration. Not having a list or project to work on dissipated my effort. But, it was very special to just try some comet sweeping, and coming across clusters, asterisms, vacancies and crowds of stars in the sky. It was very beautiful and a detailed description is both inadequate and unnecessary.
I shared a view of the California Nebula (NGC 1499) with the others, with an H-beta filter. In this scope it appears large, bright, with many tendrils -- I daresay photographic. It does not quite fit in the field -- panning east or west reveals the thinly tapering ends. By far this is the object which appears best in the scope so far.
Around 11pm I happened to take a rest and looked up. I noticed a bright white flash and assumed it was a plane. I watched it for a minute. It flashed again but this time it was dimmer, more yellow. And it seemed to be moving more slowly than a plane would. Then again the bright flash -- I was sure it was a satellite. So I asked Jamie and Peter to take a look, then Bob came over too. We were all wowed by the bright flashes, which came in irregular intervals. We believed it to be a tumbling satellite or space debris; it was moving below the "W" of Cassiopeia roughly west to east. I tried to find out what it was next day at the Heaven's Above website, but don't find any matches.
I shared views of M45 with George, who was very impressed to see all of it fit in the view (which he hadn't seen in anything but a refractor, he said -- and now with so much more light gathered). M31 too, with M32 and M110 in view. I could not see the dark lanes as well in my scope as his 13-inch. Finally M42, seen in its entirety. George lent me his NPB filter, which showed a little less nebulosity than my UHC but had more natural star colors, instead of the UHC's sickening neon green.
Near midnight some thin clouds moved in from the north. Everyone wanted to pack up. I took a quick look at the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) which was very distinct, even with Alnitak in view. We tried the Horsehead (B33/IC 434), which we could see as a dark thumbprint -- but not very well. I tried for the Witch Head Nebula but only suspected some grayscale changes -- needs a darker and more transparent sky. Finally, George wanted to see M81/M82, so we pointed the scope up there. It was just seen at the edge of some clouds. I could see NGC 3077 hiding out next to a nearby star. Very nice view of the trio.
I'm very happy with the scope. I will need to use my Stellarvue 50mm finder, since the Orion finder rings could not adjust far enough to align with the scope. This will help my star hopping to be more effective. And I will try to make the filter slide to fit this tube -- it will be much more convenient.
I should mention, too, that a couple times during the early part of the night I heard what sounded like an elk, with its strange flute-like call. Kind of surprising, but very nice. No coyotes this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment