A wonderful time at Fremont Peak State Park last night. A half-dozen of
us set up our gear over on the observatory side of the park, enjoying
cloud-free skies (YES!!!), temperatures in the 50's, and very low
humidity. Even though we were wind-free, the seeing was a bit soft for
detailed planetary work; call it a 3 on a scale of 1-5. The skies were
certainly fine for galaxy hunting, however, with excellent transparency,
which is how I spent the majority of my night. Jamie Dillon estimated
the limiting magnitude to be in the neighborhood of mag. 6.3~6.5 all
night long. As far as I could tell, the Clear Sky Clock prediction was
right on the money.
Observing with my 18" Starmaster, my first view of the evening was
actually directed toward the Moon, the result of David Kingsley pointing
out a "cave" effect on the eastern side of crater Langrenus (assuming
I've post-identified the crater properly in my Rukl atlas). This is a
beautiful crater, with double floor-peaks and incredible wall
formations. Not long after this, David, with finder charts in hand, had
located comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT), positioned midway between Gamma Pegasi
(Algenib) and Delta Piscium. I borrowed David's charts, and brought the
comet up in my own 'scope. A beautiful sight. Jamie thought he
detected a bit of a tail off to the west as well.
We had collectively looked for Comet Kudo-Fujikawa (C/2002 X5) low to
the west in Hercules, thinking we might catch site of it in the
twilight, but were unable to find it before the ranger's residence and
other nearby structures blocked it's western position. I should have
made a subsequent early-morning attempt, but was just too tired to do
so.
Following last Saturday's transit action, Saturn and M1 were, once
again, easily visible as paired objects in the eyepiece. The Crab was
still pretty washed out by Saturn's glare, but there was no mistaking
its glow in the eyepiece.
While awaiting Moonset, I actually hunted several H2500 objects in
Cetus. Yes, I know it's really waaaay too late in the season for this
constellation, but I was missing a few galaxies and thought I'd make one
last attempt for several of 'em. With Cetus literally wrapping itself
around the Peak to the SW, this was mainly a lesson in futility. My
next visit to Cetus will likely have to wait 'til fall.
My intended H2500 target group for the night was in Cancer. While
waiting for Cancer to favorably position itself, I spent a fair amount
of time chasing down a number of asteroids, as well as looking over a
number of winter showcase items. The head ranger had come out from his
residence to chat with us, along with his wife, also a State park
employee, so we provided 'em with views of Saturn/M1, the NEAT comet,
M31/32/110, the M42 complex, etc.
While marching along on my H2500 hunt in Cancer, Jamie Dillon advised us
that he'd nailed the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy (MCG-6-7-1/PGC10074) in his 11"
Newt/Dob, so I gave this item a whirl in my 'scope as well. Using
_TheSky_ to identify/match the foreground star field and the approximate
"borders" of this galaxy, at 63x I could just detect the subtle change
in the galaxy's "glow," and I mean *very* subtle, but only toward its SE
edge ... assuming I have my directions correct. Jamie could see this
particular glow change as well. Save for this, I could detect no other
evidence of the galaxy whatsoever. NGC 1049, the globular cluster most
associated with this galaxy, was readily visible. At 133x, this glob
resembled a small 13th mag. galaxy with a small bright core.
Despite the mediocre seeing conditions, Jupiter and its moons put on
quite a show for us last night. Started off with Europa's occultation
of Io, which began about 11:30pm. Not long after, Europa's inky black
shadow appeared on Jupiter's limb, perfectly positioned in the center of
the equatorial zone between the north and south equatorial belts. Soon
to follow was Io's shadow, racing to catch up with Europa's. This
shadow activity was, to me, the best part of the planetary action last
night. With his tracking 14.5" Starmaster, David Kingsley provided us
with the best views of the event. As David pointed out, the shadow of
Io appeared larger and crisper than that of Europa, and when
seeing/magnification permitted, the contrast in the difference of the
colors of the two moons themselves could also be recognized. Quite a
sight! I didn't get anything out of Europa's 1:15am'ish partial eclipse
of Io during Io's Jupiter transit; the seeing didn't really provide the
crisp view necessary to detail the event. If Io had dimmed, well, I
sure couldn't tell. Still, quite a night for Jupiter, Io and Europa,
that's for sure!
Despite being temporarily blinded by Jupiter <grin>, I kept up my H2500
activities in Cancer until sometime after 4:00am, having spent almost
six-hours hunting Cancer's H2500 galaxies. Following up on some of the
exploits of our TAC-SAC brethren, I took a couple of breaks to try and
locate the Double Quasar in Ursa Major, QSO 0957+561AB. Using the
excellent image I'd printed from
http://www.angelfire.com/id/jsredshift/dblqso.htm, I quickly found the
"signpost" pointing to this QSO, but could not detect the QSO itself. I
knew exactly where it was, but not even my imagination could bring it to
light. I think I needed both better seeing and darker skies for this
object, so a trip back to the Sierra foothills is definitely in order.
With Jamie having departed just before us, Jeff Blanchard and I were the
last two to leave Fremont Peak, and I locked the observatory road gate
right at 5:30am. A great night! And yes, I was beat!
...Bob...
Bob Czerwinski