[Chaos-l] Observing Report- Medoc Mountain State Park: 20 FEB 2009

[Mark South]

Thanks for the report and all your efforts to get us a good spot at  
medoc

Spoke with greg yesterday and he raved about medoc as a site

South

Sent from my cell

On Feb 25, 2009, at 10:23 PM, Robert Nielsen <robertnielsen at nc.rr.com>  
wrote:

> Well, it's too bad that no one else other than Allen and I (and  
> Allen's friend Don) could make it last Friday night to Medoc  
> Mountain State Park ... because it was a great night!  The skies  
> were the best I had ever seen there ... but you have to remember  
> I've only observed at Medoc for a couple of months.   Allen was  
> pretty sure he had seen darker skies ... but not many.   So the  
> skies were good (at least a limiting magnitude of 5 ... all stars in  
> Ursa Minor visible, even down close to the horizon), and the night  
> turned out to be a night filled with lessons to be learned on an  
> observing trip:
>
> Lesson 1: Trust the Clear Sky Clock
>
> I don't know if you remember what the Clear Sky Clock for Medoc  
> Mountain looked last Friday ... but it was basically clear the  
> entire day except for a cloudy patch at 9-10 PM.   Amazingly, there  
> WAS a patch of clouds that blew over right about then!   I still  
> don't know how the Canadian Meteorological Service figures that  
> out ...
>
> Lesson 2: Some Unforeseen Bug Will Appear In The Equipment
>
> Well, I guess this isn't true for those of you that have basic  
> Dobsonians and paper star charts and all you need to do is point and  
> observe, but the cold weather was causing electrical types of  
> problems to crop up for both Allen and me.   Allen encountered his  
> "external power low" on his Argo Navis ... but it seemed to keep  
> working or he changed some internal AA batteries and got it working  
> again in short order.  I, on the other hand, kept having my computer  
> "hang".   Well, I guess technically it "froze" ... literally.   The  
> operating temperature for my laptop (from the manual) doesn't go  
> below 40 degrees ... and when it gets that cold the computer stops  
> working.   The last time I was at Medoc (low temp around 30) I used  
> a chemical hand warmer under the hard drive ... and it kept  
> working.   This time (low temp around 25) that wasn't working.   So  
> I did things the old-fashioned way and star-hopped and found a  
> couple of the brighter targets I was looking for, but unfortunately  
> Canis Major was setting below the trees ... and one of the things I  
> wanted to see was "Thor's Helmet" (NGC2359).   I was getting bummed  
> out ... couldn't find it ... but luckily Allen came to my rescue.    
> He went to his "trailer of astronomical goodies" and came back with  
> a dew heater strip for an eyepiece box.   I attached it to my dew  
> heater system, and once it warmed up, and kept the temp around my  
> hard drive high enough my computer worked perfectly for the rest of  
> the night.   Moral of the story? Well, you don't need the full  
> laptop pad heater to keep your laptop running at 25 degrees F.    
> Just use the smaller eyepiece case strip.   It costs less and only  
> uses 0.8 Ah (instead of 3 Ah for the laptop pad).  It's also nice to  
> have someone around who might have some extra equipment.
>
> Lesson 3: You'll Learn Something New If You Get Out And Observe!
>
> Well, at least I usually do.   This time, it was NGC2905.   Allen  
> was using his Argo Navis to find galaxies and happened to find  
> NGC2905.  I wandered over to see what he was looking at right then  
> and he showed me.   Well, I had been looking at NGC2903 (one of my  
> primary observing targets for that night ... a very nice galaxy off  
> the nose of Leo ... brighter than some Messier galaxies) and when I  
> looked through his eyepiece, what he was looking at looked EXACTLY  
> like NGC2903!  So he punched in NGC2903 to see what it looked  
> like ... and the scope barely moved, if it moved at all.  He looked  
> at it and agreed.  Then we switched back to NGC2905 ... and again,  
> no motion (or not much) and essentially the same view.   I looked on  
> my laptop, and couldn't really tell anything.  So we chalked it up  
> to gremlins or bad data on the Argo Navis.  When I got home, I  
> looked it up on the web, and found out that NGC2905 is actually an  
> HII star-forming region inside of NGC2903!   So essentially they ARE  
> in the same part of the sky.   To see NGC2905 (just like NGC604  
> inside of the Triangulum Galaxy) you need to use a filter.   Well,  
> next time ...
>
> So on to the observing ...
>
> I had setup most of my equipment (the pier and the mount) in the  
> daylight, and then had accompanied Don (one of Allen's friends) down  
> to the picnic pavilion to start the fire and setup my coffee maker  
> (yes, I brought my Keurig coffee maker and the three of us drank  
> almost a gallon of coffee by the time the night was over).   Allen  
> showed up and setup his scope, and after finishing my dinner we  
> headed out to observe.  I polar-aligned my mount, with the help of  
> Don put the OTA on the mount, and then took a look at the Orion  
> Nebula, just to see how the night was.  Amazing!   All six Trapezium  
> stars were visible, and the steadiness of the star images made me  
> think this was going to be a good night!    I also took a quick look  
> at the Flame Nebula off the side of Alnitak, and then turned my  
> scope towards Andromeda.   I wanted to check out Gamma Andromedae,  
> since I felt in the mood to see a pretty double star ... and wanted  
> to compare it to Algeiba (Gamma Leonis) since I had read that  
> Algeiba is one of the "finest double stars in the sky" (Burnham).   
> Well, to me, Gamma Andromedae is nicer, due to the color  
> difference.  It is also easier to split (Algeiba is a pretty close  
> double).   After these couple of observations, I wanted to start my  
> laptop and begin observing some galaxies.   Well, this is when the  
> problems started, and after a while of frustration, I headed back to  
> the fire for some coffee and snacks.  Everyone else came as well  
> (trust me, you don't need much of an excuse to go back to the fire  
> in 25 degree weather!)
>
> When we headed back over to the scopes, the sky was hazier ... which  
> I didn't realize meant a cloud bank (the one I mentioned the Clear  
> Sky Clock predicted) was on the way.   Still, there were some sucker  
> holes, and Saturn was blazing right through the thin clouds so we  
> all decided to take a look at it.   It was magnificent ... all  
> through the night.    Admittedly, it looks a little strange, with  
> the two "sticks" coming out of the side of the planet where the  
> rings are edge on ... but like Michael Hrivnak mentioned in his  
> observing blog from earlier in the week, you could see some bands on  
> the planet (both in the northern and southern hemisphere), and every  
> now and then when the clouds parted, you could see the thin black  
> line that was the ever-so-thin shadow of the rings on the planet.    
> It really took well to higher magnification, and I went all the way  
> to 225X and the image was rock solid.  At almost 400X there was some  
> wobble, but there were steady glimpses as well.   I could see three  
> moons ... and later in the night when I looked at Saturn again two  
> of the smaller moons were right next to each other.
>
> Given the amount of clouds at that point (but knowing things would  
> clear ... thanks to the Clear Sky Clock) we headed back to the  
> pavilion to warm up at the fire and have some coffee.  After the  
> break, we headed back out and I asked Allen for a chance to see  
> Thor's Helmet through his 20" Obsession.   Without a filter, it was  
> basically invisible (actually, by moving the scope, you could see  
> some of the nebula, but I would never have found it in my scope) ...  
> but once you added the O-III filter, it was amazing in Allen's  
> scope.   The round, bubble part looked three-dimensional (owing to  
> the brighter area at the bottom).  The "wings" at the top were  
> strong, and wispy.   It really is a great object, and took up most  
> of the center of Allen's 13mm eyepiece.   In dark skies with a large  
> scope, it is realy a pleasure.  Not sure what my 12-inch would have  
> done ... but there's always the next time.
>
> By this point, Don had given up, and Allen and I started our  
> observing or primarily globular clusters (Allen) and galaxies  
> (me) ... although we would sprinkle in a good bit of the other  
> category.    As I said before, I wanted to check out NGC2903 off the  
> front of Leo.   It looks nice, and by moving the scope a little, you  
> could see the "barred" nature of the galaxy.  But I was actually  
> expecting more detail, more of a view of the arms.  I did get that  
> from M51.   On this night, I saw more of the arms of M51 than I had  
> ever seen.   Perhaps it was the cold and I was hallucinating, but I  
> could honestly see the individual arms as distinct gray lanes and  
> what looked like structure in the smaller galaxy of the pair.   M101  
> also showed some structure ... and was quite large, especially in  
> Allen's 13mm Ethos.   It had more of an M33 look ... with a  
> sprinkling of stars (or H-II regions).  I finished up Leo by looking  
> at the Leo Triplet (M65, M66, and NGC3628) and the pair of galaxies  
> M95 and M96 ... both sets of galaxies that can be seen in the same  
> field of view (under low power).  NGC was much, much fainter than  
> M65 and M66, and I wanted to see the bars in M95 and M96, but  
> couldn't really.   I probably should have spent more time teasing  
> out the details of these galaxy groups, but I was looking forward to  
> hitting Coma Berenices, Virgo, and Canes Venatici.
> In Virgo, I started with the equilateral triangle of galaxies I saw  
> in a previous observing session - including M84 and M86 (both  
> elliptical galaxies with little detail) ... which I later found out  
> was the start of Markarian's Chain (of galaxies).  I spent about 20  
> minutes looking at the whole chain, spending a lot of time on M88,  
> the spiral galaxy in the group.  There are a lot of small "faint  
> fuzzies" in the area as well, and I enjoyed just wandering around  
> with my scope.   I then took a look at M98 ... and then M104  
> (Sombrero Galaxy).  Wow!   Again, this was about the best I had ever  
> seen this galaxy.  It looked just like pictures I had seen on  
> books.  A very strong and distinct dust lane, and the bulge at the  
> top very clear in direct vision.  Interestingly, there was very  
> little of the bulge visible under the dust lane ... but I spent 10  
> minutes looking at it, switching eyepieces and picking up as much  
> detail as I could.   The next object in Virgo that I wanted to see  
> was Comet Lulin, and in my scope it was a fuzzy blob with a brighter  
> core and definite extension in one direction (the dust tail).  I  
> dropped the magnification down and didn't see much more.   Allen  
> pulled out his image-stabilized binoculars, and it was more  
> difficult to find than I expected.   Not much of a tail visible in  
> the binoculars, but you could tell the object stretched to the two  
> sides ... which bears out in images I have seen online.
>
> Next was Coma Berenices ... and I started out with NGC4565, the  
> notable edge-on galaxy that John Miller asked me to check out.   It  
> is a really great sight, and is different from a lot of other edge- 
> on galaxies because it has a very distinct "bump" at the nucleus.  I  
> wanted to compare this galaxy with NGC891 in Andromeda, another  
> great edge-on ... but unfortunately my technical problems limited my  
> time before Andromeda set.  While I was looking at NGC4565, Allen  
> was looking at M53, which is small but a very nice globlular cluster  
> in Coma.  The other two galaxies I wanted to check out in Coma were  
> M100 (a large, grand design face-on galaxy) and something called  
> Hickson 61 ... or "the box".   The latter was very interesting  
> object.   It is a group of four galaxies, three of which look like  
> edge-on galaxies, and they form a "box" with each galaxy on the  
> side.  It was a little faint, but definitely visible.   Something to  
> check out if you have dark skies.
>
> In Canes Venatici, there were three galaxies I wanted to see, and of  
> course, M3.   More on the globular cluster later ... but I started  
> with NGC4490 and NGC4484, which is a pair of interacting galaxies.   
> Sure enough, you could easily see the curvature of the larger galaxy  
> toward the smaller one, and the deflected, morphed shape of the  
> smaller galaxy.   There was not a lot of detail in each of the  
> galaxies, but the shape of each smudge was very clear.  The pair  
> looked like the simulations I have seen on the web where one galaxy  
> passes through another.  Next was NGC4449, which looked interesting  
> in the "Night Sky Observer's Guide" ... since it was sprinkled with  
> stars and had an irregular ... almost square shape.   The NSOG said  
> it was similar to the Large Magellenic Cloud, and it looked similar  
> to pictures I have seen (I saw the LMC in Costa Rica once, without a  
> telescope ... and it was similar).   Finally, I looked at  
> NGC4631 ... known as the "Herring" or "Whale" galaxy ... and it was  
> large .. kinda shaped like NGC253 in Sculptor, but lacking the  
> foreground stars.  I thought it looked more like a herring than a  
> whale.
>
> As I said, Allen had been looking at globular clusters for a while,  
> and when I looked at M3, I was just stunned.   It has always been  
> one of my favorites, ever since I saw it in dark skies on the Blue  
> Ridge Parkway, and this night it was magnificent.   It seemed to be  
> framed better in my 16mm Nagler, and the sky was allowing higher  
> magnification, so I focused in and out, seeing the detail emerge in  
> the arms, and then in the core.   I decided to look at a couple of  
> other good globulars, and looked at M13 ... again, magnificent (but  
> it should be) ... M92, very nice ... and then M5.  For some reason I  
> don't think I had ever looked at M5 before (in Serpens Caput).  It  
> is a very interesting globular - asymmetrical.   There are trails of  
> stars emerging from the cluster more on one side than the other.    
> Allen said he thought it looked like a bug with legs ... I could  
> definitely see that.  I probably spent 20 minutes comparing these  
> globular clusters with each other ... trying to remember the  
> characteristics that John Miller had described to me (compactness,  
> density, etc).   It was heaven ... since I like globulars so much!
>
> Does it sound like a lot of observing happened in a batch there ...  
> well, it did!   Allen and I took a break about 4 AM ... and realized  
> that we had observed from midnight to 4 AM with not much of a  
> break.  It was just too much fun!   Well, as we walked back to the  
> pavilion to warm up, I saw Cygnus almost completely up in the east,  
> and Scorpius in the south.   I thought to myself, I think this is  
> the *second arm* of the Mily Way that I had seen that night.    
> Earlier in the evening, there was the arm with Orion and Perseus.   
> Now it was the arm with Cygnus and Sagittarius.   Pretty amazing.
>
> Well, we warmed up, but when we went back out after that break, I  
> think Allen thought it was just too cold to keep going.   I quickly  
> put an O-III filter on the 22mm eyepiece, and tried to see the Veil  
> Nebula.   I could see the part around 52 Cygni ... but it was pretty  
> low in the sky and not very good.   I quickly checked out M57 (Ring  
> Nebula) and it was very nice ... but the central star was not  
> visible.   Quickly looked at the double-double (Epsilon Lyrae) and  
> it was more interesting and better framed in the finder scope than  
> the main scope.   Allen was almost done packing up ... so I looked  
> at M13 and M3 one more time, then had Allen help me get the OTA off  
> my mount (which I really can't do myself) and thanked Allen for the  
> wonderful night.  Allen left, and I stuck around, ate some breakfast  
> back at the fire, and then packed up in the daylight ... scraping  
> frost off all the equipment, including the laptop ... which was  
> still working.
>
> So sorry for the long observing report ... but A LOT happened last  
> Friday.   As I've said before, Medoc Mountain State Park is a great  
> place to observe.   It has amenities (restroom, fireplace) and with  
> the addition of the coffee maker, the breaks are pretty  
> comfortable.  It was a little cold, but that helps the clarity of  
> the images.   And it will get warmer.  But next month, I think we  
> are headed toward Pettigrew State Park ... with even darker skies.   
> Come join us at the end of March if you can!
>
> Robert Nielsen
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chaos-l mailing list
> Chaos-l at rtpnet.org
> http://rtpnet.org/mailman/listinfo/chaos-l