Part 2
My family were on the island of Hawaii, aka "The Big Island" between Xmas
and New Year's. We observed at the Visitor Center at Mauna Kea, toured the
UKIRT telescope at the summit, talked with a leading IR astronomer about his
current research and also got some sea level southern observing in, as
detailed below. This is Part 2 of my report.
I forgot to mention in my last report that one of the highlights of going to
the summit was seeing the various big telescopes opening up. The Subaru is a
big squarish metallic high tech looking building and it opened early. The
two Kecks were nearby. The whole summit area is pretty compact and well
worth a visit at any time.
Down at the VIS some of the outstanding sites through the public 14 and 16
inch scopes were the distinctly S shaped core of M33; two parallel dark
lanes in M31 (I had only previously seen one from N. Cal.); and structure in
M1. M31 was a naked eye target, of course and I swear I saw M33 naked eye,
as I had previously at Glacier Point in 2001. The VIS public program goes
from 6 to 10, starting with an indoor video show, which is a good time to
commandeer one of the scopes. Its a bit cold and it was windy but they keep
the building open so you can warm up and even get hot chocolate. I had a
cold and we had a long drive home so we didn't stay late. VIS to downtown
Kailua-Kona at night was 90 minutes, but I drive kinda fast.
We were staying on the Kona side of the island at a condo, which turned out
to be a good choice for observing. You may have noticed that the owners of
hotels, motels, and even tourist cabins located in dark areas like to
illuminate the entirety of their properties with bright overhead lights,
while park and national forest planners try to place all campsites
underneath tall trees. Not so with our condo, near Keauhou
Bay. The landscaping was mostly shrubbery and only the walkways and
driveways had small permanent lights. There was a little patch of flat black
lava rock just outside our unit that was surrounded by bougainvillea and
frangipani bushes so it was shaded from most outside light and had good
horizons. So I had my spot, just 15 steps from our condo. No visible light
dome except a little to the north from downtown Kailua, 5 miles away. But
who wants to look north in Hawaii? Not I. The rest of the sky was jet black,
but not always transparent. Clouds usually rolled in during the late
afternoon from the local mountain to the east and dissipated between 10 and
midnight.
I was observing with an Intes 150 mm Mak-Cass on an Orion Skyview Deluxe
mount, sans drive. Most observing was with 26 mm and 13.8 mm EPs. I
concentrated on the southern sky in Lepus, Columba, Puppis, Eridanus, Canis
Major and Vela. A lot of my observing was at the "Sirius Hour" when that
star was culminating, although I began to think of it as the "Canopus Hour".
If you look on SkyAtlas or Deep Map you will see very few objects in the
area of Canopus. So I spent a lot of time on objects I could see or have
seen from northern Cal. but which are much higher when you are at latitude
19 North. There was a beautiful naked eye Milky Way panorama going from
Monoceros south and east throughh Canis Major, Puppis, Pyxis, Vela and
Carina that appeared by 2:00 a.m.
On 12-27-02, with some haze at the horizons, I recorded the following
(especially worthy objects are denoted with a *):
NGC 1097, galaxy in Fornax, a convex looking galaxy above Beta Fornacis.
Easy to see in the six inch scope, despite haze that made Bet For barely
visible to the unaided eye.
NGC 1300, galaxy in Eri, could not confirm seeing it, only suspected it in
an area replete w/ lumpy darkness. This guy is big, if I saw it, with a low
surface brightness.
NGC 1332 galaxy in Eri, looked small round and relate\ively bright.
M79, GC in Lep, looked fuzzy and unimpressive.
*NGC 1851, GC in Col, a much better object than M79. It showed some
resolution especially at the fringes.
On 12-30-02, under much clearer conditions, I recorded:
NGC 1808, gal in Col, easy to track down and spot. It looked rectangular.
NGC 1792, gal in Col, near 1808, which was dimmer and also sort of boxy.
*NGC 2477, the lovely open cluster in Puppis, which I had seen before from
Montebello. It was very rich and pretty in the 26 mm EP and also looked good
in a new Orion premium zoom eyepiece. I also saw it in the 35 mm
finderscope.
NGC 2451, a bright scattered open cluster with a very bright lucida.
*NGC 2439, open cluster in Puppis, which was very asymmetrical, and had
both bright and dim stars. This was a perfect object for the zoom eyepiece,
because I could zero in on the magnification that best brought out the
object's features.
Collinder 140, open cluster just over the border in Canis Major in a
populous Milky Way region. This only looked like a cluster with a 40 mm EP -
any more power and it blends into the background star field. I guess that's
why its a Collinder, not an M or NGC.
NGC 2453, open cluster in Puppis. There are a pair of objects here - NGC
2452 is a planetary nebula. What I saw was a distinct blobby object, which I
assumed was the planetary, so I was surprised when an Ultrablock filter
didn't enhance it. When I checked the NSOG later I realized that the
planetary is tiny and the cluster has many very faint stars -- so what I saw
was the cluster.
NGC 2489, nice subtle open cluster in Pup, best around 75x.
*NGC 2467, nebula and open cluster in Puppis. The nebula is easier to see
than the cluster, but I made out both. Ultrablock only slightly enhanced
neb, so I decided it must be both a reflection and emission nebula. The star
lighting it up was very obvious.
*M93, open cluster in Pup. Another good object for the zoom. It has an
elongated curved core and a larger area that is also part of the cluster.
The zoom showed that lumpy areas were probably unresolved cluster members. I
want to check this out with my big scope soon.
NGC 2482, open cluster in Pup, fairly rich, only faint stars. Easier to
see at higher powers.
Gamma Velorum, a wide double star that scintillated like mad. Color
contrast was noticeable but hard to pin down as they changed over time and
with different settings of the focuser. The B star is bluer.
*NGC 3132, planetary in Vela, known as the Eight-Burst. I saw this well
from Coe one night. It looked from Hawaii a bit like the Eskimo, with hints
of more structure with averted vision. It bore magnification well and looked
best at more than 200x.
On 1-1-03 I recorded:
Rosette Nebula in Mon. Best seen with 40 mm EP and Ultrablock.
NGC 2264, Xmas tree cluster in Mon. Saw the cluster and some nebulosity,
did not see Cone Nebula.
*M46, nice as always. It was fun to pan between M46 and M47 with the 40 mm
EP.
IC 2391, open cluster in Vela. Very bright stars, very far south.
NGC 2669, open cluster in Vela, near IC 2391, small, only a few bright
stars.
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