I had a very nice time observing at Plettstone this past weekend. For those
of you who intend to use Steve Gottlieb's "Eye Candy" list, I can tell you
that you will not be disappointed! What a fantastic list of DSO's. This is
also a great change of pace list if you've been hunting very faint stuff all
night and want to take a break and really see something. Thanks Steve.
Over the two nights I observed I had a look at all of the eye candy listed
in Canes Venatici, Coma Berenices, Corvus, Draco, Hercules, Leo, Ursa Major
and Virgo. A total of 63 mostly spectacular views! I saw more than 63
objects however. Most of the listed object had multiple companions some with
5 or 6 objects in the field of view in the 20mm EP.
Each night I started with the Moon and Planets, trying to past the time
until I could do some serious observing. But the deep sky was calling and
since the seeing was not really good enough for good shallow sky observing
and even with the moon bright enough to read a book I dive into the list.
Equipment:
The Big Dog, my 16" Truss Dob equipped with Parracor, 35mm Panoptic, 20mm
Nagler, 14mm Meade UWA, 8mm Meade UWA, Argo Navis and ServoCat goto and
track system. "Old School" my 4" Genesis SDF using Denk Binoviewers and TV
click stop zooms. Most deep sky observation made with 20mm Nagler and the
14mm UWA
A few highlights:
I started in Virgo with Galaxy NGC 4526 nicknamed the "Lost Galaxy"
aka PGC 41772, MCG 1-32-100, UGC 7718
RA: 12h34m03.2s, Dec: +07°41'58" (2000) in Virgo
Magnitude: 10.60
Size: 7.1'x 2.6'
I don't know how anyone could lose this thing, it's huge, a beautiful edge
on galaxy set almost evenly between two 7th mag. Stars. It was so pretty I
made it point to go back to it after the moon set. I'm glad I did! It was
even lovelier in the dark. Plus I saw something I missed with my earlier
visit. NGC 4526 has 3 faint companions, two of which I could see NGC 4518
mag 14.8 Galaxy and PGC 41726 Mag: 15.1, PGC 41666 15.6 mag. is in the field
but I could not detect it.
NGC 4762 Galaxy
aka PGC 43733, MCG 2-33-33, UGC 8016
RA: 12h52m55.9s, Dec: +11°13'57" (2000) in Virgo
NGC 4762 mag.10.2 edge-on Galaxy and NGC 4754 mag.11.5 face-on Galaxy are
set in a very nice star field, both Galaxies are bright and showed lots of
detail and being that they are on different planes also enhances the view, a
must see!
NGC 5907 Galaxy
aka PGC 54470, MCG 9-25-40, UGC 9801
RA: 15h15m53.6s, Dec: +56°19'43" (2000) in Draco
Size: 11.7'x 1.4'
While in Draco, Plettstone went into transparent mode. I was studying the
dark lane in NGC 5907 a bright edge-on with the 14mm UWA when I suddenly saw
a small puff of fluff PGC 54419 mag.16.0 it was there with direct vision.
The Big Dog was howling now!
I had seen some of these objects in my 8" SCT and in my former 12.5" scope
but it was nothing like this. Most of this eye candy is very bright. I'd
guess most of them could be seen with a 4" scope under ideal conditions, but
aperture rules on this kind of stuff.
I look forward to finishing most of this list before Shingletown. I might
put together tour in the Argo Navis a best of the best tour as it were for
the Shingletown public star party.
Man, it's observing season and I can't wait to get out again! Go away Moon,
go away!
A big thanks, to Michelle and Paul for making such a nice weekend possible.
Rashad
Received on Mon Apr 26 21:35:28 2004