scouting trip

This past weekend I travelled with my family up to Vallecito, CA to support my brother-in-law's Boy Scout troop with astronomy.  The scouts camped out but we stayed in a cabin.  We tried to keep the kids occupied with a visit to Moaning Caverns and playing with the horse named Star at the camp.  I set up my 20-inch and others set up smaller scopes and we had some pretty good views.  The site was not very dark, 21.0 SQML, with a light dome to the west.  It grew cold and dewy. 

I started showing a few obvious targets, like M11, M15, M31, M57.  Many scouts took a look (there were ~30 of them) but most lacked interest to look at more than a couple objects.  I pulled up Neptune and then Uranus, which many were interested to see, including some of the adult leaders.  One of the leaders was interested to see what a large scope could do, so I shared views of the NGC 507 group, Hickson 16, and some other things.  Finally late at night, after midnight, three scouts stayed with me at the scope, and they were very interested. I showed them the Veil, M1, and SN 2017gmr in NGC 988 -- a mini tour of exploding stars.

I stayed up for another hour or so, getting some of my own viewing in, mainly around M45:

NGC 1497: Small, fairly faint, bright core, diffuse halo, 3:2 NE-SW.  Under an arc of three stars.  S0, 13.1v


IC 357: Mostly even surface brightness, faint, moderately small, 2:1.  In a backward "L" of stars.  13.2v


NGC 1156: Large & mottled halo, springs like a comet tail from a star.  Very faint, need averted vision to brighten.  3-2 NNE-SSW. 


NGC 1226: Small bright core and diffuse halo, 3:2 E-W, fairly faint. 


NGC 1167: Fairly faint, moderately large, bright core, diffuse halo, oval ENE-WSW.  Part of AGC 407, but I did not try to tease any out of this group.  S0, 12.4v


UGC 2494: Appears as a small, faint, thin streak coming from a star.  Can see it direct vision, averted needed to brighten.


IC 1874: Faint thin streak next to two stars, averted vision needed. 


UGC 2456: Bright core and diffuse halo, elongated 3:1, fairly faint and small. 

IC 278: Uncertain.  I see what could be a core (small, faint, non stellar) but no halo.


NGC 1207 + CGC 524-54: small elongation 3:2 NNW-SSE, faint, bright core.  There is a star to the NW rim of the halo, and then a very small, very faint non-stellar haze nearby to the W which is the CGC


IC 1900 / 1902: Averted vision only, very faint, two small smudges, both elongated slightly, but difficult to described further.  These are two members of the KTG 10 group; did not notice IC 1901.