Weeks of rain and cloudy weather put the kibosh on
serious observing time. The only clear
window this new moon was Thursday night, so I checked if any of the Dinosaur
Point regulars would be able to go out.
Jamie and Peter answered the call.
It was a work night for me, so I would need to leave by 1am. I was pretty frazzled by work so I brought
Clara’s telescope in order to sit and lazily scan the sky.
I arrived at sunset.
Jamie and Peter were there setting up.
The sky was cloudy with some holes.
I chased some of those, mostly in Canis Major and Puppis. But mostly we stood around, talked, and
waited. Finally by 9pm the sky was clear
enough to get to it.
I shared a view of the California Nebula, which seemed
dimmer than a couple months prior when I saw it from the same site. Then the Orion Nebula, and the Flame. I had no observing plan or target list. I was able to find the Rosette Nebula, which
was less nest-like than I remember. M46
& M47 nearly fit the same FOV, along with another open cluster, NGC 2423. I tried the Witch Head bud did not have a
clear impression of it. Jamie pointed me
to NGCs 2324 & 2301, two small OCs in Monoceros. Both were small faint sprays of just resolved
starts. More magnification would have
pulled them farther apart to count, but the picturesque view of these knots in
the Winter Milky Way stream was pleasing too.
It was fun to put the telescope at the horizon, and look
at upside down oak trees silhouetted by a starry background. I comet swept in the Puppis & Monoceros
region, coming across many splashy large and small open clusters, and the
crinkly forms of dark nebulae. I sought
out NGC 2467, thinking it was Thor’s Helmet (which it isn’t, that’s NGC
2359). With UHC filter making it brighter, I saw a fairly large round cloud
with more obround nebulosity to the north and east. The popular name is Skull and Crossbones
Nebula. I also sought out M48, a large
open cluster in Hydra, which I have only seen through my 50mm finderscope from
my back yard. Here it was very
impressive, a mostly triangular shape of bright stars with a field of fainter
stars mixed in; there is a distinctive arc of bright stars running through the
middle, NE-SW. I had never had such a
nice view of it – this scope puts out nice bright images of large fields, and
brings such objects to life better than binoculars. M44, the Beehive Cluster, was visible by eye
and was really “buzzing” with stars in the scope.
Later in the night, when Leo was higher, I viewed the
triplet. I then went up to Hickson 55 in
the lion’s neck, and could see three of the four, quite small in my field. I then swept to the south, and picking up
galaxies along the way, until I came to the M105 area, and could see five
galaxies scattered about. I even tried
Leo I, dwarf galaxy near Alpha Leonis, and do think I had a sighting of the
small, amorphous glow – but without a proper finder can’t confirm it. I went up to NGC 2903, small but bright and
showing small scale detail. I tried sweeping
for comet 45P, which I knew was in that area but I had forgotten my
finder. I did not see it. Peter found it later on in his 16-inch – and it
was quite small, very faint diffuse and round; likely I would have missed it
just sweeping with the 10-inch.
I actually sat in the observing chair and dozed off a
little – it has been that tiring a time for me.
But I was back at it later. Jamie
and I tried to find the Coma Cluster – I wanted to see how many galaxies could
fit in the field. We both misjudged the
chart scale and missed the hop star, until 10 minutes later I figured out the
problem and then found it. The galaxies
were too small to really make an impression.
To end the night I had a look at Jupiter. The moons were in a very odd configuration,
all out of alignment. Jupiter itself was
a weird grey color, washed out, lacking the reds and orange colors I usually
see from home. I don’t know if it was
the poor transparency or the low magnification – it was very strange.
M48:
M105 area:
NGC 2467:
NGC 2467:
