[Chaos-l] Chaos impromptu starparty

[Michael Hrivnak]

It was indeed a very good evening.  There were 6 people with 7 scopes, and 
most stayed for 6 hours.  Scopes ranged from an 80mm short tube refractor to 
a 15" truss Dob.

Observations included lots of galaxies, double stars, comparisons of open 
clusters from a refractor to a dob, saturn, the moon, a tour through 
Messier's list, and lots of other interesting things.

The Currins were very friendly and generous.  It's a great place to observe, 
and the sky was very cooperative.  I look forward to the next trip up there!

Michael

On Monday 10 March 2008 3:10:54 pm Mark South wrote:
> Hi,
> We ended up have an impromptu starparty at the CHAOS darksky site!
> The following is my report:
>
> Arrived:  ~ 1900 and started observing around 2000
> Observers:  Mark South, Michael Hrivnak, Steve Meister, Sims Roy, John
> Miller and Stephen (not sure last name).
> Conditions:  Transp 4/5, Seeing (6/7), very little dew, cold ~ 32F,
> clear beautiful starry night!
> Scope: Discovery f/5 15"
>
> Observations:
>
> 2000-- Saturn in Michael's refractor.
>
> 20:40 -  M81 & M 82, 15", 63x & 211x on M82.  Plenty of mottling in
> the irregular galaxy M82.
>
> 21:27 - M46 & NGC 2438, OC with a PN, Puppis, 150x and 211x,
> 		This PN was fairly bright superimposed over the OC M46.  (The PN is
> 3000 ly away and the OC is ~5000 ly).  The disk was round,
> transparent, and fairly small.  Averted vision brought out the
> brightness of this beautiful object.  There appeared to be a central
> star in the nebula.  The edges were diffuse and dark patches were
> clearly visible in the disk's center.
>
> 22:00 M51-- Gal, CV, 146x.  Hints of spiral structure visible.
>
> 22:25  NGC 4449 Caldwell 21, Gal, Irregular, CVn, 60x, 211x
> 		At low power 60x, this galaxy was shaped like a oblong trapezoid.
> 211x revealed a "wisp" northward.
>
> 2300 NGC 4244, Caldwell 26, Gal, Edge-on spiral, CVn, 146x
> 		A thin, long spiral galaxy seen edge on.  I was not able to detect
> any mottling or even a darklane.
>
> 2330 Virgo Cluster, galaxies, Virgo, 60x
> 		Starting at epsilon-Vir, I was able to hop with my low-power
> eyepiece down the Markarian chain starting with M60, then M59.  Moving
> westward, I could see M58 and nudging northward, I could see the
> elliptical M89 and spiral M90.   At this point, I just moved westward
> into the area of M84 and M89 and I was simply overwhelmed by the # of
> galaxies visible in the eyepiece-- including NGC 4388,4425, 4438,
> 4435, 4402, and 4387.    Looking at this cluster really reminds you
> how glorious, beautiful and large the cosmos is.
>
> ~2400  we observed M104 the Sombrero, and the beautiful GC M3.
>
> We packed out around 0100.  We had a great time of socializing and
> observing!   The Currin's came out to observe with some friends.  I
> showed them the double cluster (60x) and Orion Nebula at 211x (in your
> face view).   This was a great night especially after being run out of
> Jordan Lake last month.
>
> South
>
>
>
> *********************
> Mark South
> md_south at mac.com
> http://web.mac.com/md_south


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