The Santa Cruz Astronomy Club arranged a dark sky night and invited anyone to join along. Since Willow Springs is still out of commission I came down. Transparency was average to poor, especially toward the end of the night, when SQML dipped to 19.35. It never got above 21.00. It was not truly dark until 10pm, and there was a lot of milling about of the people there. I didn't have a focussed observing plan, and in fact I struggled to find things on the chart, which was pretty frustrating. But I did get to meet Rich N., and see Mark W. and Jamie D. again. The SCAC guys are all really nice. It was a fun night.
I did have a couple of targets in mind, specifically Sh 2-72 which Steve posted about on TAC two years ago, and a newly discovered lensing quasar in Andromeda. Aside from all the telescopic viewing, I did "relax" a little with the little Vixen binoculars, taking in the dark nebulae. I ended around 2:30am and slept from 3-6am, when it was time to go.
STF2316 Mltiple
Star System 18h28m07.1s +00°12'40" Ser 5.3 -18° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Close but easily split, ~2", 2
delta mag, both yellow white. [P.A. 320
SEP 3.7 MAG 5.38,7.62]
AC 1 Multiple
Star System 00h21m49.8s +33°04'20" And 7.9 46° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm, 205x
Not split -- a surprise! Orange
star, slightly out of round. [P.A. 288.8 SEP 1.84 MAG 7.27,8.26]
ES 4 = HIP 7067 Multiple
Star System 01h32m08.1s +43°42'21" And 9.1 62° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 8mm,
333x Split with 333x, ~1.5" 2 delta
mag. [P.A. 101 SEP 2.8 MAG 8.13,9.12]
STF 2609 Multiple
Star System 19h59m13.9s +38°09'25" Cyg 6.3 22° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 8mm,
333x Re-observation. Seeing not as good as last time, but it is
cleanly split without any rods. I saw
rods in my 2.1x42 Vixens due to out of focus left eye -- so I wonder if that's
what happened -- though other stars not rod-shaped...
AC 11 Multiple Star System 18h25m52.5s -01°33'55" Ser 7.2 -19° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Did not see; I thought it was
either a wide pair or a PN.
UGC 1068 = MCG 8-3-27 Galaxy 01h30m50.2s +45°41'01" And 13.9 61° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 8mm,
333x Fairly faint, pretty large 3"1
N-S. Brighter core with averted
vision. Diffuse halo edges.
NGC 620 Galaxy 01h38m02.7s +42°24'25" And 14.1 63° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Moderately small, very diffuse,
moderately bright. Seen direct vision,
brighter with averted. Bean shaped. No core, diffuse edge.
PC 19 = PN G032.1+07.0 Planetary
Nebula 18h25m38.2s +02°30'19" Ser 12.2 -17° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Not found. Suspected a couple slow blinking stars but
not certain. (too large and bright to be stellar)
M 2-44 Planetary
Nebula 18h38m32.9s -03°04'47" Ser 15.0 -18° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Small disk, pretty faint, blinks
with OIII -- seen with filter only. Did
not see ring structure. I used the SA100
grating and saw a lot of streaks in the field, and a tentative dot without
spectra -- but I'm not certain it was the object, seemed to be offset from
original position.
K 4-5 Planetary
Nebula 18h46m33.9s -06°17'19" Sct 15.7 -18° S
6/10; T 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Needed averted vision to see, then could hold with direct vision. OIII only, in a rich field. No central star seen with filter, but suspect
it without the filter -- but without the nebulosity. The shell is very faint, diffuse, generally
round, with a thicker / brighter "C" on the west half. The east half looks bitten off.
K 3-75 Planetary
Nebula 20h16m01.1s +40°38'08" Cyg 17.1 26° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 8mm,
333x Using OIII I see two possible
objects: One is the fourth star in an
arc going SW to E, it is brighter and blinks.
It might also be a very faint, averted vision object which blinks in and
out of view, to the SE of this last star.
Since the magnitude of this object is 17.1 it may be the latter.
Sh 2-68 = PN G030.6+06.2 Planetary
Nebula 18h25m52.8s +00°52'27" Ser 13.1 -18° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Suspected a small round greyscale
change to the background darkness using OIII and averted vision -- but very
tentative and I'm not confident to claim it.
K 4-51 Planetary
Nebula 20h13m04.3s +40°48'40" Cyg 15.6 26° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 8mm,
333x Very small, stellar, faint, blinks
with OIII. No question.
NGC 6749 Globular
Cluster 19h06m09.0s +01°55'56" Aql 12.4 -9° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x Fairly large but very faint
irregularly round glow, with slightly more concentration in the middle, just
distinguished from rest of field
SH 2-71 = PN G035.9-01.1 Planetary
Nebula 19h02m54.2s +02°10'57" Aql 12.2 -9° S:
6/10 T: 3/5 Tele Vue Ethos 13mm,
205x w/ OIII, pretty large 3:2 N-S,
fairly bright, with ragged edges; presumed central star noticed with averted
vision then held direct.
Sh 2-72 Diffuse Nebula 19h04m41.8s +02°20'48" Aql
-9° S: 6/10 T: 3/5 Tele
Vue Nagler Type 4 22mm, 121x & Tele Vue Nagler Type 5 31mm, 86x Using HBeta filter at 101x 3.1 exit pupil, I
could discern very faint mottling in the field and scanning about the adjacent
areas, with a line of distinct crenellations along the eastern edge of the glow
-- the edges of the nebula set off against the darker sky background. Averted needed to brighten the view but it
could be seen direct vision. At 87x 4.4
ep, the mottling was maintained within the larger 1° field. UHC had a similar but somewhat weaker
effect. Surprisingly not too difficult,
considering transparency and seeing were about average. Thanks to Mark Wagner for the confirming
view; he called it "subtle"
GN 18.32.5, GN 18.32.5 = PNG 27.0 +1.5, 18 35 11.6 -04 29 06.
Simbad calls it a reflection nebula but it is plotted as a PN. Using 333x, the nebula sprouts to the SW of a
relatively bright star, but is only seen with averted vision and OIII. It is a diffuse, extremely faint small cloud
which brightens near the star and fades to a round diffuse edge. Searching the internet, I find one other observation from a German observer using a 27-inch; his sketch shows the object
much brighter than what I saw.
Sherwood 1, PN, = Sherwood 1, PN, = Sd 1 = K 3-77. Plotted in Interstellarum at the edge of LDN
889, which is is part of the Gamma Cygni nebula complex. I had to star hop from Gamma around this
blank space in the sky to get to Sherwood 1, as it was labeled. At 333x and only with OIII, a small, very
excessively faint round shell with diffuse edges swan into view, held 50% with
averted vision. Very low surface
brightness and no central star. Very
close star just to the SSE. After
getting home and searching for the object online, I found the discovery paper
by William A. Sherwood who, as a graduate student in 1969, was blinking photographic
plates at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh.
I precessed the 1950 discovery coordinates and searched the result in
Aladin, which confirmed the observation for me as my sketch matched the star
field. Distance: 18000 ly. 17.2 mag, 7.0” size. Today I received Kent Wallace’s excellent Visual Observations of Planetary Nebulae
book, and I find his observation in a similarly sized telescope revealed a
faint stellar object, though I was 100x higher in magnification. I observed this during the “peak” seeing and
transparency period during our time at Pinnacles, so I believe that helped.
J014709+463037 = Andromeda's Parachute This object was noted on Deep Sky Forum earlier in the week, a gravitationally lensed quasar with an incredible red shift z=2.377. I printed some AAVSO charts and gave it a try. But, now it was 2am and the good seeing window had closed, and the sky began to haze. I spent almost a half hour in the field searching. Unfortunately my charts were confusing, and I could not very well match the star fields with the eyepiece view, though I was very certain my star hop was correct. In any case, there are better charts available at DSF, so I hope to try again at CalStar.
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