As noted last night here, it's hard to write for once, it being such a pale
shadow of those crystalline skies both at Devastated Area Thursday night
and Bumpass Friday. This was with Felix the 11" Celestron f/4.5 Dobs, using
a 22 Panoptic, a 16mm UO Koenig, and a 6mm Radian, with a Televue 2x Barlow
and Lumicon OIII.
The wishlist for the trip came straight from Ray Cash's webpage of
observations of the 100 brightest Arps, at
http://members.aol.com/anonglxy/arpnotes.htm out of which I picked the
brightest in turn, also picking out at least pairs of galaxies in each view
(why not be greedy, this was Lassen). The hop for Thursday night moved down
thru Canes Venatici, starting with 4495-90, seen at Lake San Antonio. 4485
was bright here, moving at its dramatic right angle off 4490, pretty.
4618-25(Arp 23) looked splotchy, 4625 looking disordered in the 22 at 57x,
both with randomized edges in the 16mm at 79x. Stopped to see M94, only
seen once before, a splashy face-on. Paul Sterngold and I teamed up that
night, swapping views, with Steve Sergeant next door on his new JMI. Paul
and I had known each other best thru our kids playing together several
times, now spent hours not only observing but hanging out around the
campground, we had fun.
Also settled a grudge with NGC 4240, which had been elusive at the Peak.
Found out why from Devastated, where it was lumpy, squarish and diffuse,
right where we had been looking before. This night Sterngold counted 28
stars in the Finnish Bootie, where at the same time I came up with 22 (6.4
and 6.2, respectively). Seeing went from 4/5 to 3/5 and back.
Let it be said here once more that the best view of the whole trip was
naked eye, the Milky Way overhead Friday night from Bumpass at 2:30 am,
plain magnificent. That night I got 26 stars in the same triangle in
Bootes, just about 6.4. Seeing was excellent, 5/5. Started by discovering a
galaxy, 3949, a pretty slim spiral near chi UMa, found by recklessly
overshooting M106. 4231-2, a 14th magnitude pair fondly remembered from the
Machholz night at Coe, not there the night before, were available to
averted vision ca 40% of the time. Then ambled on south to 4627-31(Arp
281). 4627 is a fancy edge-on, big and slim, known in these promiscuous
parts as the Slug Galaxy, shows in Burnham's as thicker on one end. Didn't
find 4627, but did see 4656, an irregular nearby.
Then headed north to 6946(Arp 29), described with awe above, then over to
2300 (Arp 114), with neighbor 2276, near Polaris in Cepheus. 2276 showed a
bright core, 2300 a bright foreground star, all mottled with lanes. The
whole area there showed a background mottling, dark lanes threading
throughout.
Went back for the nth time to the Big Arp Set, Stephan's Quintet, off 7331
in Pegasus. Turned out to be a limiting mag test for Felix, which was what
I was aiming for by now. Steve Gottlieb thoughtfully helped, and we both
could make out 2, then 3 galaxies dimly in the field, at 78x, then around
140x. This was under a really fine sky, with an expert observer standing
in. So it looks as if 14.0 is around what Felix will do. See how far I can
push into the 14's over time.
Comedy next night after a fine public star party, when I was visiting the
Big Single Arp, M82 (Arp 337) and looking north to suss out the next
neighbors. About 4 deg out hit a face-on dim spiral, which was quickly
dubbed the Do-I-Give-a-F#&* Galaxy. Three nights was past limit still.
Prolly was 2985.
Food was super, company was funny and all around superb. Made new friends,
developed friendly acquaintances, and cultivated some already lifelong
friendships. Even made some good music. Liam was great, and the TACos were
nice to him. It was grand.
JD
Jamie Dillon <mavericks@No-Spam> <http://www.winepress.com/jd1.htm>
"Outside the cottage, it was pitch dark, and in the Eastern sky, one big star
was shining brilliantly, dimly lighting the earth, the forests, the bushes,
beaten and unbeaten paths to guide the wayfarers on their way."
(journal note from Dehra Dun, 5 Apr 1950, during Meher Baba's New Life)