[Chaos-l] Observing Friday

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.  The website said Friday was the Official Observing Session, so 
i waited at ECHHSBL until 7:10, then drove off to the Oxford site.  It 
was a pretty good night: completely cloudless, fairly transparent, with 
lots of birds calling.  I arrived about 8:15, and stayed until about 
11:00.  Unlike my recent tendency, i made an obsterving list of about 
50 objects to target while waiting at ECHHSBL  This always helps me 
both to focus and to try for new objects "off the beaten track" of 
tourist traps and easy objects.  I also actually took the time to 
record my observations., which i've slacked off on far too often.  It's 
really not that much extra work, and always helps me be a better 
observer.

I spent quite a bit of time on the globulars which are so plentiful 
this time of year, as well as the Sagitarius Milky Way.  Even though 
i'd gone through them this spring during my marathon attempt, they're 
more favorably situated this time of year, and this time i wasn't 1) in 
a hurry, 2) tired, and 3) freezing.  M19 and M12 are nicer objects than 
i usually remember.  M55 down in Sagitarius if very large, but has low 
surface brightness.  It was most interesting because of the way it's 
appearance kept changing as i observed.  It appeared to have a mottled 
surface with "channels" which came and went.

This was the first time i've tried to find NGC6818 (a planetary nebula) 
and NGC6822 (a galaxy), both in the north-western corner of Sagitarius 
away from the Milky Way (as the presence of a galaxy would indicate.  
These are both pretty small objects, and the joy is more in the finding 
than in the observing.  Still, it was interesting seeing the suble 
differences in color, shape, and texture. even though at low power they 
were barely more than starlike, you could still tell one was a galaxy 
(yellower, misty texture, slightly oblong) and the other was a 
planetary (bluer, waxier texture, almost perfectly circular).

The last 15 minutes or so i went back to just hitting tourist traps.  
Globular M92 in is generally overshadowed by M13, but if it didn't have 
such a spectacular neighbor it would get better press.  It's large, 
bright, and shows nice detail at higher power.  Don't forget to stop by 
next time you're near!

I ended the night with M31/32/110.  Although it never got very dark 
(when i did a star count around 10:00 it was only about 5.5 limiting 
magnitude), and there was a fair amount of dew, M31 was unusually 
clear.  For the first time in years i could see that 32 is within the 
visual boundary of the main galaxy.  And, this time i really could 
trace the arms out to several degrees.

All in all, a very nice night, though it would have been nice to have 
some human company as well as the owls.

J.