Sunday, February 26, 2017

dino-night

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:
Image result for messier 48

M105 area:
Image result for messier 105 wide

NGC 2467:
Image result for NGC 2467


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