Equipment: 20" Obsession f5 reflector.
Atlas: Sky Atlas 2000
Guide: The night Sky Observers Guide
The plan: abandoned at the outset
The official LHSC web page
The Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh page
Jeff's Report with pictures from the LHSC
OVAS LHSC 2002 page
After I got off work, my son Justin and I drove to the site, arriving as darkness fell. We made camp and then set up the scope. This was complicated by the fact that it was dark and that the mirror had fallen out of its sling. But after a struggle, the scope was built, repaired, collimated and the finders were aligned.
I had aligned the finders on Antares (alpha Scorpius) so I started with M4 a large bright GC (mag 5.8) that lives just to the west. Even low in the sky this was a bright impressive object. I drifted up to M80, a highly explosive, yet much dimmer (mag 7.3) GC to the north. This is smaller but is a nice tight globular with a bright core. These objects (GC) look great in the big scope.
I'd spent time at home working on improving the contrast in the dob by flocking and adding a rear tube baffel. This effort was begining to pay off. I realized this when i pointed the scope towards the Zenith at M51 in ursa Major. This large, close spiral (m8.4) showed obvious spiral arms as well as brighter knots within the arms. This was observed with thw 31, 22, and 12mm Naglers. It was interesting to varry the power and reobserve m51 and its companion NGC5195 whose "bar" was obvious.
Next cam M101. Again The spiral structure of this mag 7.7 G was obvious. Adding Jeff Ball's Deep Sky filter added contrast and helped bring out some "knots" that I assume are H2 regions. I need a detailed guide to M101 and M51 for future observations. This was viewed with the N31 and 22. After looking at SA2K i noticed that there are near by NGC galaxies and NGC 5422, 5473, 5474, and 5485 fell to the big dob in rapid succession. 5422 is elongated m11.8, 5473 is round m11.4, 5474 is larger m10.8, 5485 is small m11.4. It was fun to "pan arround" and see thse smaller (and I assume companion) galaxies. These were interesting objects as I'd never seen them before.
Down in Sagittarius, M22 is a big bright m5.1 GC that is bursting with stars. Stars are resolved well out from the core.
Drifting up the Milky Way, M6 and M7 were viewed in succession; they are both bright (m4.4 and M3.3) OC's. A pretty sight. but then Just cruising the Summer Milky Way is pretty. there are so many stars.
M20, the trifid (Tribble?) nebula was well seen. Jeff and I went back to observe this later in the night when it was higher. Both lobes were seen. The dust lanes were obvious. no filter was used. I'll have to revisit it when the seeing is better to try to boost the magnification and see what happens to theose dark lanes.
M21 is a bright m5.9 OC. Afuzzy glow in the 80mm finder the stars were distinct and bright in the EP of the 20".
M8 the Lagoon and its associated cluster NGC6523 were both bright and well seen.
But it was M24 that really caught my attention. In 2001 a Space Odessey there is a line "its full of stars". Well, yes, it is. Amazing all of those stars packed tightly together.
Jeff convinced me to visit Dave of High Point Scientific at his 24" techtron dob. After viewing ,m51 and M101 through the 24" and having to cope with aperture envy, we blinded ourselves (at least in our left eyes) by using the collins electro eyepiece attached to a 50mm lense to "sweep" the Milky Way. It really makes the dark lanes of the Milky Way more visible. By now we were Night blind. We staggered back to camp to try to re dark adapt and to observe. Yes I ran into a pole on the way back. I could no longer see.
Jeff insisted that we visit B86 and the adjcent OC NGC 6520. NGC 6520 is a m7.6 OC above the spout of the Tea Pot in Sagittarius. Below it in the EP was a line of 3 stars, the brightest of which is yellow. between this line of stars and the OC lies the "Ink Blot" or B86 a dark nebula. This was the first dark nebula that I've ever seen. Not just the absence of stars, you could "see" it. Wow!. We looked at this a lot and showed it to Justin ( who hadd woken up to use the facilities), Don, and i think Larry and Dave. I looked at this for a long time.
Jeff mentioned that there was an OC in the M24 star cloud and proceeded to find it. B91 and 92 were near by and Jeff found those as well. We drifted back and forth between these 3 objects. Wow! now we were up to 3 dark nebula and the night was not yet over!
After spending time with those objects it was time to resume the tour of the Milky Way ... M17 the Swan Nebula is a favorite of mine in the 20". The view was not quite what i'd had at Seneca Rocks last summer but it was very nice. Much detail was visible. Dark lanes were seen in the "bird" part of the nebula. Like a photograph. M18 is a bright m6.9 OC that lives near the swan. Together they made a nice view in the Short Tube 80 finder.
I had been hugging the ground looking at the objects in the lower Milky Way as it was windy. I'd already "furlled" the tuber shroud because of the wind. it was now about 3AM and the wind had died down some. So I dared to point the Scope up at M27, the Dumbell nebula a m7.3 PN in Vulpecula. It was big and bright. more like a football then a Dumbell.
Moving to the head of Aquilla I encountered M20 a small tight m6.3 OC. I quickly left it for M11 a bright m5.8 OC that can take magnification as it is such a tight cluster. A beautiful object comprised of fairly similar brightness stars.
Wanting to see the Delphenius Globulars I moved to NGC 7006 a m10.6 GC this is small with a bright core. in contrast NGC 6934 the other GC is a m8.9 GC is much larger, has a more diffuse halo, but overall is much brighter. At this point the wind came up. It was about 4AM. The UTA with its finders and dew heaters came off and went into the car. I went into the tent. This had been my first night out with the 20" since the trip to Chiefland in February and though it had not started out well, it had ended well.
Day 2 ...
On Saturday I was less rushed in getting started as I was able to assemble the scope, collimate and align the finders before it was dark. Waiting for it to get dark offered a time to take pictures of camp and to tour the camp. I had a chance to view Larry H of AAAP's Stellacam EX set up as well as to see photos of the images that he has taken.
The first object of the night was M 104 the Sombrero galaxy, m8.3. Marla Tolley had it binoculars earlier and that prompted me to look at in the big scope with the Nagler 22. Even early in the evening it was impressive, bright with an obvious dust lane. A central brightening is seen above the dust lane. Then I thought that I'd look at other near by galaxies.
NGC 4781 lies about 3 degrees away more to the east then the north. This is a large, bright edge on or obliquely oriented spiral m11.1 G. In the same EP field is 4790, this is fainter, an oval blob, a m12.1 G.
Tiring of these views low to the horizon and relishing in the lack of wind (a big improvement over last night) as well as the warmer and dryer weather, The Scope rose to the "T" shaped asterism in that contains star #6 of Coma Berenices. This is about 5 degrees to the west of Beta Leo. M99 lies adjacent to the middle star of the vertical part of the "T". It appeared as a dim oval, a m9.9 G.
NGC 4262 is a m11.6 G. It lies on the opposite side of the "T", closer to the top of the "T". It is small. A diffuse round glow.
I had intended to move to M98 but went in the opposite way instead by mistake and landed on a "nice pair". NGC 4302 (m11.6) and 4298 (m11.3) are oriented so as to form a "V". Both appear to be elongated. "02" is nearly edge on. Both are obviously spiral.
Arriving at M98, it appeared as a nice elongated spiral, m10.8. It lies to the right of the T. NGC 4237 lies above the middle star in the "T". It appeared as a small oval glow, a m11.6 G. it seemed dim after M98. Off to the left of the "T" is M100 a large, diffuse glow. This is a m9.3 G, but its brightness is spread out over a larger area, dimming it. It has a brighter core and appears to be a spiral (face on). At the edge of the field, closer to the "T" is NGC 4312, a small (m11.7) edge on spiral G.
I wanted to see another "pair". Although Corvus was a little low, that was the next destination. Larry was looking for a PN there and the "antennae" was close by, About 3 degrees west of Gamma Corvus. NGC 4038 (m10.5) and 4039 (m10.3) is a "V" shaped pair of colliding galaxies. An amazing object when you think about what it is. A collision of Titanic proportions!
Nealr equidistant from gamma and delta Corvus lies the PN 4361 (m10.9), a large, bright, and slightly eccentric, though round PN. Having announced to Larry that I'd found it. I showed it to him. He said great and looked through the finder to see where it was. As it turns out, this is not what he was going after, he was looking for PK303+40.1 which lies to the east of Corvus. I could not find that one. (later I discovered that my 80mm finder scope had come out of alignment which may have been a factor in this). Well this was to close to the horizon for me, so it was back to the Virgo cluster.
M85 (m 9.2 G) appeared as a large oval glow. NGC 4394 lies in the same EP FOV and is a dimmer m 10.9 G. It appeared as a dimmer oval glow. NGC 4293 lies nearly a degree to the west and is a m 10.4 G. It has an elongated shape.
M88 lies to the South East of the "T". A m 9.5 G, it appeared elongated. It has a large bright nucleus, which seems larger to one side.
About this time my son Justin decided to turn in. he and the other boys had romped and were worn out.
After my son went to bed on Saturday, the 5 of us (Don, Jeff, Dave, Larry, and I) went on a camp tour beginning about 12;20- 12:30 AM. Larry and i pretty much stuck together. Dave and Jeff would break off periodically to monitor their exposures. We encounter Don midway through the walk and then he joined us. Highlights: ? and the 6" Fujinon binos, i wish that i could remember his name. he was so nice to share the views through his equipment with us - we looked at the Milky way, MW messiers, comet Ikea-Zang, and Einsteins "E" in Aquila - a dark nebula. Gary Fishscar offered up nice views of M51 with his off axis single mirror reflector. He is a nice guy with a beautiful home made scope that was 10 years in the making. Dave of Highpoint Scientific let us view through his 24" dob - when we came he was looking at the the Herculies galaxy cluster (dim, dim, dim). but then he pointed at Einstein's E in Aquilla to show us something the we could "see", Through a 30" dob we viewed M51. Near by there was a giant 10" refractor pointed at M22. We also Saw some NGC galaxies on a PC screen from raw CCD exposures via a 10" Meade SCT.
Returning from the tour of the camp, I found that my dew heater battery had died. But it was so dry that I was still able to observe. this was a big change from last nights dew.
We were excited by the new objects that we'd seen. Larry pointed his TV 102 and i the 20" at B143 and B142 wigh make up Einstein's E in Aquilla. In Larrys wide FOV scope you could see the whole thing at once. Even with the nagler 31, it was to big to fit in my scopes FOV. i hat to say it but i prefered the view in the 24" to the one in my puny scope.
Next on the list of things just seen was Comet Ikea-Zhang. This was bright with a short tail. Thanks to the man with the big binos we knew where to look. Larry also looked at this one in his scope.
LDN 633 is another dark nebula in Aquilla. This is very dark and oval in shape. It is large. Does LDN stand for "large dark nebula"?
Keeping with the Dark nebula theme the "Ink Blot" viewed last night was revisited. Very nice. Its margins were well defined. Especially on the side facing the line of 3 adjcent stars on the end opposite the bright yellow star at one end of that line of stars.
Pointing the scope up, I found M71 the m8.GC in Sagitta. It is a tight GC. Near by is the bright PN M27 which showed a bright hourglass shape surrounded by a football shaped extension.
Back in Aquilla i arrived at the m 12 PN NGC 6804. It was a diffuse, round glow, which looked better with the UHC filter and the 12 Nagler.
Exhaused, I broke down the scope and crawled into my tent.