[Chaos-l] observing last night

[E. Allen Davis]

I started typing this after I got home last night but got sleepy and didn't send it. 



I met Jim Palermo and Jason at Medoc before dark.  Set up the 20 and looked forward to some nice skies...and we did have some nice viewing before the moon came up.  



With Jim around, you know your gonna see something you haven't thought of before and last night was no exception.  After looking at M15 in the darkening western sky, and taking a look at Jupiter, which was a bit unsteady while low, i went to the fire to warm up and put on heavier clothes.  there was a bit of breeze and it was COLD. 



back to the observing,....we slewed over to NGC7789 otherwise known as Caroline's Rose...and it was truly spectacular...on of the better views....it was in the darkest clearest part of the sky.  always an amazing object especially in a larger aperture.  you could keep on imagining layers of stars just like layers of petals.  Jim had also found the new comet 2012 K5 and we were able to log that....pretty bright nucleus....it was still a bit low when he found it. 



then Jim said...."have you seen the Crystal Ball nebula"  ....well i hadn't...so i punched in NGC1514 into the Argo and it slewed.  With the 17MM and no filter i detected a haze around a star in the field...almost like the haze you see when the eyepiece is starting to dew over...but slipping in the O3 it was confirmed...a definite planetary...with detail visible almost a shell within a shel with bright central star.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1514   this pic is quite accurate as to some of the structure we could discern. 



then Jim asked about the planetary near Mu Orionis........Abell 12..the mooon was already up...and I manuall put the scope on the star which was just visible naked eye.  Yes....a ghostly circle near the star and a slight haze around the star...with the moon starting to overpower the view.  But it was there. 



Jupiter at about 75degrees up was showing a lot of detail at about 125x....beyond that ;power it was fuzzing out as the seeing was not great.  But the trip was worth it....and as always, many thanks to Jim for always opening up a treasure trove of possibilities....even on a night of short dark duration. 



Thanks Jason for the much needed fire.......it was cold.........we were gone around 900pm..  As I drove home...I thought......what a great use of the last two or three hours....quality not quantity is always the rule to follow. 



And good friends....  



Looking forward to seeing all of you in 2013..thankfuls for the memories this year!!! and looking to create more good memories as time marches on!!!! 





clear skies to us all...........Allen 


E. Allen Davis 
 starstorm151 at embarqmail.com 

 "M'Illumino              "I am enlightened 
 D'Immenso"              by the immensity." 

   -Ungaretti               -Ungaretti 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/chaos-l/attachments/20121231/e1066779/attachment.html>