Asher Blum and I spent a productive three-plus hours observing at Del Valle
on Tuesday night. Conditions were good, with fair seeing. Crisp views of
Saturn with Cassini and a cloud band, and four belts visible on Jupiter in
moments of steadiness. Five Trap stars. Transparency was not so good,
with visible haze at sunset, and a limiting magnitude of about 4.0 - 4.5.
It seemed to improve a bit around 10, then worsened again around midnight.
Asher explored downtown Virgo with his 8" Orion XT on an eq mount, while I
used a very similar scope (Hardin 8" Dob) in search of H400 objects. At
first I was shut out of any galaxy dimmer than 11, but as it got fully dark
and the moisture settled I was able to go a bit deeper. Still, not a lot
of eye candy here, with many of my notations reading: "4038 -- vague",
"4027 -- averted only", "3982 -- barely there". I ended up with 19 new
objects, mostly UMa galaxies, and PNs 2440 and 4361. Some of my nicer
views were the PNs at about 150x, 3729 with 3718 in same field, and the
elongated 3877 in a field with a triangle of stars including Xi UMa. I
also stumbled across a very pretty non-Herschel OC, 2362, making a halo
around a 4th mag star in CMa.
Asher gave me my first look through a 20mm Radian, which may have converted
me to the Nagler mystique. Very impressive contrast, especially compared
to my el cheapo eyepieces. He rounded up many of the usual suspects --
lovely views of M81/82, M51, M65/66/3628, M84/86/4438, M88.
Arriving before sunset is treat at Del Valle. I hiked up the hill to look
down on white-tailed kites hoverhunting. We also had a rare daylight
naked-eye view of the Bovine Cluster, last seen by Richard Ozer, Asher, and
myself on Saturday 4/2. About 20 head of cattle came browsing by and
stopped to gawk at us. Asher suggested, so as not to spook them, that we
get in our cars, which they then surrounded, nuzzled, and tasted before
moving off. My most detailed view involved large nostrils with siginifcant
dark lanes, and saliva on my windshield.
Carter Scholz
Received on Wed Apr 6 11:33:24 2005