Rich Neuschaefer wrote:
> From the GOES10 images it looks like the sky may clear
> this evening.
And indeed it did. (Thanks, Rich!)
Late Wednesday afternoon, standing in a San Jose parking lot with a
freshly loaded thermos of Starbucks' soy-something-or-other, the sky
definitely looked clearer to the south than it did to the north, so I
made a spur-of-the-moment decision and headed south to Fremont Peak. My
18" Starmaster had been sitting in my car since visiting Fog City (aka
Henry Coe) with many of you gentle people last Saturday.
Sky conditions were pretty decent at the Peak last night, with seeing a
solid "four" on that ubiquitous one-to-five scale, and often even
better. Transparency was pretty decent, too, even though a couple bands
of high clouds passed overhead during the evening, moving NW to SE. No
fog down below the Peak, which really surprised me. I'd left my Radio
Shack temperature/humidity thingy at the house, but temps seemed
relatively mild through the evening, and no moisture developed on the
18" 'scope.
I spent most of the evening in Cancer, Leo and at the edges of Canes
Venatici and Virgo, chasing down selected H2500 items. Most of these
items were, in my opinion, just non-descript galaxies, and I was
relatively successful in locating most of them. Well, at least I think
so. I'd left my PC at the house, too (Ye gods!!), so I ended up working
from an abbreviated H2500 print-out (less the H400-I & II items) for
these constellations, along with my handy-dandy H-B Astroatlas. With no
PC available, I avoided crowded galaxy areas, knowing I'd likely
misidentify a galaxy. My H2500 sheet just listed the NGC designation
and RA/DEC coordinates for the items, so I was further handicapped by
not knowing the magnitude, surface brightness or size of the galaxies I
was after. For the first time in a lonnnng time I actually had to put
pencil to paper, noting star fields and relative galaxy locations, just
to make certain I properly post-identify what it was I actually saw last
night. Guess I'll be playing with this stuff this coming weekend.
I ran into problems locating several items, a couple in Leo and one in
CVn. Although I'm quite certain I was in the correct positions, I
couldn't locate NGC 3498 and 3616 in Leo, nor could I properly identify
4401 in Virgo. Here were the problems:
3498: Assuming the coordinates I have are fine, I was able to locate
both 3489 and 3485 nearby. 3498 should have formed a nice triangle with
these two. A surface brightness problem?
3616: Should have been just outside of the field with Theta Leonis, and
in the same field with NGC 3596. Again, if the coordinates are correct,
maybe another SB problem?
4401: This is entirely different from the others. Coordinates put it
right in the middle of the area occupied by NGC 4395, a huge haze with
two or three HII regions. I identified 4395 with no problem, which was
best viewed with relatively low magnification. Is 4401 just one of the
HII regions, much like NGC 604 in M33? Is there a separate galaxy in
that mess?
Obviously I've got some homework to do with the items noted above.
Again, another task for the upcoming weekend.
About 1:30am I took another turn at locating the Double Quasar in Ursa
Major, QSO 0957+561AB. I still had the image sheet I'd printed from
http://www.angelfire.com/id/jsredshift/dblqso.htm, and it was very easy
to find big/bright NGC 3079, as well as to identify nearby 3073. As I
did back on Jan. 6th, I quickly found the asterism pointing to this QSO,
and this time I identified the QSO itself, and could actually hold it
about 50-percent of the time with averted vision. No matter the
magnification, I couldn't split the QSO into two components, but the
elongation was clearly unmistakable. I've got to try this thing from
the Sierras! How easy is it to split this thing? Can it be done with
an 18" 'scope?
Early in the evening I took a look at both Jupiter and Saturn, both of
which were just beautiful. A lot of action in Jupiter's equatorial zone
and belts, with the GRS transiting around 10:00pm. Somewhere around
midnight - I didn't note the time - I returned to Jupiter, and caught a
moon and shadow transit. The moon, and its nearly-touching preceding
shadow, seemed to move pretty quickly, so I'll venture a guess it was
either Io or Europa. I caught the event just as it started, with the
moon just off Jupiter's limb, and the shadow already on the planet.
Very cool to watch!
Anyway, I had a fun time last night. (But I sure missed my PC!)
...Bob...
Bob Czerwinski