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Galaxies, Planetary Nebulae, and Fox HuntersThe gathering: I had been feeling photon deprived. So, when I received Jeff’s e-mail about his plans to go out Monday night, I relished in the fact that I did not have to work on Tuesday. I packed up the car and “toodled” off to Wendy’s, our designated meeting place for trips to the Greasy Ridge site. Once there I met Randy Badgett and Jeff Ball. Jeff’s phone rang and received the good news that Don Kemper would be joining us at the site. I gave him directions as best we could and we set off. We arrived as the sun was skimming the ridge line. As we turned onto Rhapsburg (gravel) Road, I noticed a turn off that I’d never noticed before. It’s amazing how you can drive past something several times and not notice it. As I was ahead of Jeff and Randy I thought I’d check it out. It went to a small graveyard, which was cleared and was on a little knoll. I flagged Jeff down and asked him to visit the knoll and get his opinion on its suitability as a site. We decided to set up there and Jeff called Don to let him know of our change in plans for an observing site. Fortunately the cell phone coverage is good on the knoll (digital signal) so he was able to get a hold of him. We positioned our cars and began to race the sun to get set up. As it was we (Jeff and I) finished our setup after darkness had fallen. I believe that Don got there before I had finished setting up (I think that I was still aligning the finders) and he started to build the cave. The report: OVAS Members Present: Randy, Jeff, Don, me Scopes:
5” AP – Jeff Bino’s:
50mm – Jeff weather:
temps fell from 50’s to 27 at dawn Observing aids:
Sky Altas 2000 (aka SA2K) Skunks: none Coyotes: one Fox Hunters: two Photographers: Jeff (he took film exposures with “hypered” film through the AP and digital pic’s through the 20”) EP info for the 20”:
6mm Radian 423x with 0.14 deg FOV (thanks Jeff) = 6R Abbreviations:
G – galaxy Dobservations: The weather was cool and it cooled off fast after the sun went down. I slowly added layers of clothes. I’ve joined the “Carhartt club” with new overalls and coat from the working man’s store. The new insulated (1000 gram thinsulate) boots from the same place also helped to keep me feet toasty. Warm feet are key if you want to survive an all night observing secession. It was very clear. I did not do a limiting magnitude estimate but I’d say 5(+). The sky was steady and hopes for high power viewing were raised. Initially I had an Obsession related problem. Aligning the finders is a challenge with this scope as it is hard to depress it low enough to align on ground objects, and even if I can do that I usually can’t find anything far enough away that I can bring it into focus. It is no problem if I can find a planet or the moon or something recognizable – with retrospect I should have pointed at Mars or Vega, but no I chose Altair. I don’t look at Altair much and I had no idea what to expect. Hindered by my 0.7 degree field of view I pointed at what I thought was Altair. Well, it looked like Altair in the 10”. But no, in the 20”, this was just some “field star” imitating Altair. (Bad star, baaad star) I “align” the finders (Telrad and 80mm Orion Short Tube refractor). I can’t find anything. I’m wondering what is going on. Am I “loosing my touch”? I decide, ok I’ll point to the zenith, climb to the top of the ladder and aim at Vega. I position with the Telrad and look in the Obsessions EP – no Vega. What is going on? I center using the Short Tube. Now, Vega is in the EP. I look thru the Telrad, it’s off by 5 degrees. Hmmm. I resume aligning procedures. I began by locating M31, 32 and 110. M32 was visible naked eye. It was a fine extended sight in the Short tube 80 finder using the 32mm plossl at about 12.5x. It was very bright and quite extended in the 20”with the Nagler 22 at 115x. If M31 was placed at the edge of the EP field M32 joined it on the other side of the EP. M32 is small, round, bright. M110 is further away, fainter, and more diffuse. Jeff commented that NGC 604 is a nebula in the galaxy M33 that is like our own galaxy’s Orion nebula. It is a stellar Nursery in another galaxy. I’d never looked for it so it was the first official target of the night. Now we’re looking for nebulae in other galaxies, cool. The core of M33 was located and NGC 604 lies in the same 22mm Nagler EP field. After centering the core of M33 in the EP, there was a star at 12:00 and another at 1:00, NGC 604 was next to the star at 1:00. It was seen as a fuzzy patch with a central condensation. With the N12 and an OIII filter it seemed elongated along a line perpendicular to the galaxy. M57, PN (the Ring Nebula) was very bright and thick in the 12N with the OIII. The ring is elliptical and had some texture to it. M27, PN (the dumbbell nebula – my wife thinks that it is named after me) appeared as two bright rounded lobes with an eccentric elliptical ring about those in the 12N + OIII. It had a nice dumbbell or hourglass shape (though appeared small but bright) in the ST80 at 12.5x. NGC 7662 – the “blue snowball” nebula - a PN was Don’s challenge object in Andromeda. It fell to the 12N + OIII combo. It was an arc of brightness, which was dimmer near the top with central darkening. In the 22N + OIII it was clearly “nonstellar”. It had a dim fuzzy edge surrounding a central brighter area, which had a question of a dark center. NGC 1582 is a rich, bright OC in Perseus. Observed with the 22N. You want to talk Eerie? We’re set up in a graveyard, well next to one. It’s dark. And every time Don repositions his scope, the mount makes this ghostly wailing groan. If I’d been there by myself and heard that sound, I’d have “freaked”. Randy found comet Linear C/2000 WM1, first with his bino’s and then with the 8”. We “trapesed” on over for a look. I had dyslexia and though I could find it with Randy’s bino’s. I could not do so in my scope. Jeff had to come over and do it for me. It was faint in the Short Tube; fainter then in the 80mm binos. I think that is because the bino’s put 80mm of light to each eye rather then just one. And they probably have better contrast. With the 22N it had a tail that stretched over a wide area but mostly to the 7:00 position of the EP. Towards 2-3:00 there was clear “cut off” with a rounded contour – obviously the front of the comet. Jeff suggested that we look for NGC 7331 a bright (m9.5) edge on galaxy. It is the foundation of the Deer Lick Group in Pegasus. It and 2 very faint companions were seen with the 22N. In the 12N we saw 3. I believe that these are: NGC 7337, 7335, and 7340. To do this required averted vision and imagination. As we were in Pegasus and I’d made some finder charts for the Hickson Galaxy clusters with Sky Tools Soft ware I began my search for these elusive phantoms with the near by Stephen’s quintet (aka Hickson galaxy cluster #92), which is just a 22N EP field away from The Deer lick group. I thought that I saw 3 in the 22N and 4 in the 12N. They were all very faint – barely there. Just at the limits of detection. They are 7320 (m13.3), 7318 A&B (these interacting galaxies were not separated they are m14.3 and m14.0), 7319 (m14.2) and 7317 (m14.7). They were seen as a faint close grouping at 115x. We need to look at this again when at Spruce Knob. I had NSOG out and noticed that NGC 7332 (m11.1) and NGC 7339 (m12.2) were about 5 degrees away (near 47 Lambda Pegasus) and formed an nice pair of edge on galaxies. After Stephen’s quintet I wanted to look at something that I could “see”. Both fit well within the EP field of the 22N. Bright stars at the top and bottom of the field detracted from the view, so the 12N was used to “frame” them better. NGC 7332 is much brighter with bright central condensation. NGC 7339 was more diffusely dim without much in the way of central condensation. I was in the middle of working on Hickson (galaxy cluster) 99 when I heard grumbling in the back ground. It seems that the search for NGC 891 in Andromeda was not going well. I was loath to give up the hunt with Pegasus near the zenith, but they seemed to be having problems finding this the 8” and 10” scopes. This object was chosen, as it was #2 on Don’s list of frequently overlooked objects. I hadn’t wanted to move the ladder and swing the scope 180 but I thought that I should give a look. Randy showed me where (in the sky) it was supposed to be. I checked Don’s finder chart but preferred the depiction in SA2K. Wow, in the 12N NGC 891 was very large stretching from one end of the EP to the other. It was big and diffuse. Its brightness was spread over a large area. Much Dimmer (per unit volume) then I would have thought (easy to over look, no wonder it’s #2) It has a prominent dust lane which bisects the “edge on” galaxy a little to one side of center. Long and slender, it is a very impressive sight (once you find it). With the 18SW the object was framed nicely and appeared much brighter. The dust lane was easily seen. In the 22N it is seen floating in space and appears smaller but not much brighter then in the 18 (I preferred the view in 18). This looks like the picture in NSOG but the central nuclear bulge did not appear as bright in real time as in the picture. Nice object selection Don! This was later seen in the 10” and I think the 8”. I wasted time searching for and not finding NGC 7469 a G in Pegasus. Hmm should have opened Uranometria ... (Historical aside from the SEDS page: “John Bevis (1695-1771) discovered the Crab Nebula M1. He created a star atlas, which he called Uranographia Britannica, which was completed in 1750, but due to the bankrupt of the publisher, only one or two printings were produced, and the complimentary catalog was never published.” Don has a newer updated version of Uranometria. token link: http://www.lhl.lib.mo.us/pubserv/hos/stars/bay.htm) You know, I had planned on looking at M1 (the Crab nebula) but forgot too. Jeff had said (or so I thought) something about a galaxy cluster in Pegasus. Thumbing thru the pages of NSOG I found something that I thought filled the bill. Remaining in Pegasus, I ventured to the realm of the Pegasus I galaxy Cluster. As a guide I had the EP drawing of George Kepple found in the NSOG. NGC 7619 (m11.1) and NGC 7627 are close together and fit in the FOV of the 12N. Both were faint and round. NGC 7631 is in line with these about an EP field away. At m13.1 it was very dim though “nonstellar”. NGC 7623 (m12.8) forms the apex of a triangle with 7619 and 7627 lying below these in the EP. It was dim and elongated. NGC7617 was seen as a nonstellar faint spot near 7619. I was feeling like I needed to look at a brighter object so I went to the list that I’d made of brighter objects in Andromeda with the NGC/IC project observing list generator (see the link on page 2 of the OVAS page). NGC 7686 is a m5.6 OC of 15’ size. It is a bright loose OC in the 22N. (I have to cut my poles so that I can use the 31N in something other then the 10” dob). NGC 7640 is a m11.3 G of 10x2’ size. It was a dim diffuse glow which was bounded by a (not quite) parallelogram (rhomboid?) of 4 stars. Viewed with 22N. (In retrospect this was bright, but after looking at Hickson’s “bright” is a relative thing). Jeff asked me what I was up to and I told him. He asked me if I’d looked at the Perseus galaxy cluster yet. Perseus? I thought that you’d said Pegasus (see above notes). Oops … Crossing over into near by Perseus, I happened on NGC 1023 a bright (m9.3) G near 16 Pegasus so it was not too hard to find. In the 22N it had a bright core, was linear and had faint extensions. Our new observing site is fairly nice. It’s high and out of the dew. Yet it is at an intersection and there was more traffic then at other spots at Geasy Ridge and is not ideal from this respect. There was one house light visible and several towers with red lights were seen on the horizon in 2 directions. But the most unique feature of all was the fox hunters. I had always thought that fox hunters wore red jackets with black caps, rode horses over fences and followed around packs of barking hounds … but what do I know. We were at the EP, I’d been dark adapted and looking for faint galaxies. Many cars had come and gone and I’d just covered my eyes. But this car turned up the entry into the cemetery. Jeff shut down his exposure. I stood on the ladder, wondering what these folks were up to. With the headlights, Hickson observing was out. Don was closest to them and made “first contact”. At first we were hesitant (and I think Jeff was a little saddened by the need to stop his exposure), but Don started interacting with them by showing them Jupiter and Saturn. Who doesn’t want to see Saturn? Randy had been looking at the Orion nebula. I had been avoiding bright objects and trying to preserve my night vision for the Hickson’s, but this was out, so I put the 20” on the nebula. I invited the folks over and they had a look. The Nebula was seen with the 22N and 12N. Structure and dark lanes were quite visible. The extent of this thing is amazing. Since my night vision was gone I turned next to Jupiter which was observed with the 9N and a 6R. Stunning detail was seen in the planet’s bands during moments of good seeing (at 280 and 420x!) The great Red Spot was visible and all of us took a look. We then turned to Saturn with the same EP. We saw one band on the planet and the rings and their division was well seen. Other texture was hinted at in the rings and on the planet’s surface. Detail was also seen in the inner ring system. Well Jeff had restarted an exposure and Auriga was near by so I felt that I had to show our guests an open cluster. We looked at M37 (m5.6) a bright rich OC. These were nice guys. They had been out fox hunting and seen us and assumed that we were doing the same and that is why they’d stopped. They both lived in the area and one said “I never thought I’d see people with telescopes in the middle of an old strip mine”. I assured him that these old strip mines were ideal for astronomy because they are: far from city lights, have no “local light”, and have good views to the horizon. Jeff wanted to keep shooting and they were polite enough to stay, so I insisted that they see a globular cluster. M79 in Lepus (m7.9) was the only one that I could think of, so off we went. I found it with the 22N and we viewed with the 12N. It has a nice bright central concentration. This fades to resolved stars at the edges with loose outlying stars at its margins. The view in the EP is much better then the picture in NSOG. Not bad for an object estimated to be 41,000 light years distant. Well now they had to be shown a galaxy. Then they would have seen planets, a bright reflection/emission nebula, OC, GC and a galaxy. So it was off to M31 and 32 in Andromeda. They seemed impressed. They enjoyed their stay but upon hearing the call of the lone Coyote. “It sounds like its down by the loop.” They decided to resume the hunt. They drove off without lights until they got to the bend in order to spare Jeff’s exposure. Nice folks. Randy was looking for M81 and M82. He found NGC 3077 first. This is good as it is a dimmer and harder object to find. Soon he honed in on M81 and M82 so I thought I’d have a look too. With the 12N only one G at a time fits in the EP so I changed over to the 22N. M81 (m6.9) is a featureless but bright spiral G. M82 (m8.4) is nice and bright; dust lanes give structure to the G’s core. NGC 3077 is fainter and elongated (m9.8). Don was working on the Owl (a big diffuse m9.9 PN) in Ursa Major so I decided to visit it as well (with the 22N). It was round and big. it was improved by the OIII filter. Saw the eyes with the filter. Jeff suggested the Rosette nebula in Monoceros and as I had the OIII filter out, off I went. To locate it I searched for the star cluster at the center of the nebula. NGC 2244 is a bright (m4.8) loose OC in the dim constellation of Monoceros. It is surrounded by the Rosette nebula , aka NGC 2237-39, which is one of the most overlooked large emission nebula (well that’s what it says in NSOG). It is dim but was well seen with some hints of structure (bright areas and dark patches) with the 22N + OIII. At one point there is a very sharply defined boundary between the bright nebulosity and the dark space surrounding the central portion of the open cluster NGC2244. I called this “the wall”. The nebula is 4x the size of the full moon in terms of angular size and thus is a very large object. 4900 light years away, it is 90 light years across with a central hole of about 30 light years diameter centered about the cluster. I assume that this is one of those clusters that is blowing off the dust and gas clouds that it formed out of with the pressure of its light and combined stellar winds. Wow, what a concept! This could be what the Orion nebula will look like in 500 million years. I spent some time surfing around this large nebula. This emits more H alpha light then OIII light so it should glow in a Collin’s Electro Eyepiece. (Ann if you are reading this … what, Christmas 2005?) Well the OIII filter was in so I switched from galaxies to Planetary nebula. On to Gemini, I spent some time looking for the medusa Nebula, PK205+14.1, without success. Should have opened Uranometria … NGC 2392 (m9.2),the Eskimo Nebula, you all know it from the spectacular Hubble photos. The outer shell is hazy but large. With averted vision a much brighter inner shell is seen. I could start to see a “criss cross” pattern in the inner shell just like in the Hubble Photo (I almost wet my pants. I need a 30”). Jeff was done with what ever he was doing and wanted to take a few snap shots. He hooked up a “rig” (adapter) to a 14mm Radian EP and attached his Nikon Coolpix model 9XX to it. He shot Saturn at 1/8 sec and Jupiter at 1/30 sec for a while and then came down off the ladder. I had not brought the hand controller that lets you fine tune the tracking platform for the 20. That made his job of aiming the scope more difficult then it had to be. He had to move it by hand. Sorry Jeff. I sat down in my chair at my chart table and became comatose. Jeff said how about M46 it is an OC that contains a PN. Two for one! Off to Pupis. In the Short tube M47 is a some what rich OC of bright stars. M46 is a rich OC of many more dimmer stars. In the 20” M47 appears more sparse because of the magnification but those stars are quite bright. M46 (m6.1), with the 22N+OIII, is a rich cluster with a prominent PN superimposed upon it. The PN, m11.0 NGC 2438 is well seen and appears quite bright. The cluster’s stars are so bright, the stars do not suffer from the OIII filter. Without the OIII the PN is dimmer but still easy to see in the 22N. With the 12N+OIII the PN is distinctly annular, like the ring. It appears about as bright as the “blue snow ball nebula” viewed earlier. Near by NGC 2423 (m6.7) is a moderately rich though smaller OC. A trail of bright stars leads from it to M47. NGC 2240 – a PN, this was hard to find, no near by mag 8 or brighter stars so SA2K was of little help, If only we had Uranometria. (It was after this that I learned that Don had his.) This m9.4 PN has a bright core and is elongated side to side (like the “bug” nebula). The 2 extensions to the sides are dim. I decided to return to Perseus. I always get lost there as I have a hard time getting oriented there. I’d been pointing that way trying to find the “Little Dumbbell nebula” when the fox hunters arrived, so that’s where I returned. It had a dumbbell shape and I thought the hint of an outer ring (thought not a complete one). I tried to convince Jeff of this. Having seen the picture in NSOG, I now feel vindicated about what I saw as it looked like the picture. Since I was close by I went to M34 – a large somewhat sparse but bright (m5.2) OC. NGC 1058 is a very faint (m11.2) G; it appears as an elliptical glow bounded by a triangle of stars. The final “real object” of the night was Hubble’s variable nebula NGC 2261. I had seen several photo’s obtained at different times and combined as a “GIF” and played as a movie; this showed that the nebula did change with time. It looks like a comet. It is triangular narrowing to a point. At the base of the triangle it fades away fairly quickly. It was much brighter then I’d expected. This is about 3x1.5 light years in size. Very bright. Very pretty. Jeff was done with photography and was actually observing. I made a “crack” about his go to mount. This started a race slewing at about 200x (12N). First Jupiter, then Saturn. The AP threw up nice contrasty views. Detail was good in both scopes.In the AP the view was similar to what I’d seen with the 10” the other day but less affected by seeing (?smaller aperture/ better conditions tonight ?). Next was M81 &82. He’d changed to 50x without telling me. I had to slew from M81 to M82 to NGC 3077. What, now he’s off to M65? Change to 22N. Move ladder. Pick up battery and aim at Leo. Now were is M65 - bright ok? he just about beat me. M66 – bright, ok. NGC 3628 – where is that? Check star chart. move ladder. move scope. What He’s on a new object? Well 3628 is large but not so bright. NGC 2903 – where’s that? etc. it was dim. It is becoming twilight and the “dim fuzzys” are fading. I can’t keep up with that go to mount. It doesn’t have to move the ladder and … It’s time to take the scope down and go home. Though I started before everyone else, I finished taking the scope apart last and ended up with everyone else helping me get my stuff back into the car. Thanks guys! Huffing and Puffing I get the ladder secured on the roof and It’s time to go home and hit the showers. On the way out I saw the moon and Venus rising over the mountains. Pretty. 12 hours of Observing? Wow. Marathon. Glad that I get to sleep in today. I must thank Jeff. As readers of this must know, in addition to being an astrophotographer, he is our club’s Jedi master of observing target object selection. If I ever seem to not be doing anything he’ll prompt me with a target. It almost always turns out to be something spectacular. Thanks Jeff. Thanks also to Don who also picked a winner of and object and to Randy for the use of his binoculars, his locating the comet and above all his help putting the scope together and taking it apart. I can build the 20” by myself, but it is a lot easier to assemble and disassemble with help. It is great to have friends and observing companions. I do wonder about those fox hunters. Do people get a distorted view of astronomy if their only exposure is to a 20” reflector at a dark sky site? The Tally?
Planets: 2 54 objects total Not bad. Not bad at all. Good times, good company, good sky, good weather, good site – what more could you want?
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