From: Collin Smith [mailto:CollinofAlabama@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 3:34 PM
Subject: Observation Report, March 9th, 2007

Although I had planned to get there at 8:30 on Friday the 9th, I hadn’t received word from anyone that they wanted to go. In fact, Don Fritz called me to say he was too tired from having kayaked all afternoon. So I was taking it easy when Travis Brown called me to ask if I was coming out. Uh, sure!
I arrived at SkyViews around 9:30. Fortunately, Gwen Hansford-Armstrong was leading students in their lab work for Astronomy class, so Travis wasn’t all alone. Of course, he wasn’t alone because he had three friends with him, Kevin and Millie and their son Steven. They were delightful people, if woefully unprepared for the cold and, therefore, suffering. So I wasted no time and set up the 6” F/6 in the blink-of-an-eye dobsonian manner, and with the 25mm Antares Elite Plossl, we opened the session with the now low in the west Double Cluster at the Perseus-Cassiopeia border. Although they were low, you could still make them out naked eye, and it’s always nice for people to see a cluster resolved that only looks like sky haze to the eye. Of course, the NGCs 884 & 869 are no ordinary clusters, but pleasant surprises are part of the deal with astronomy.
I showed them the 1054 Supernova remnant of M1, the Crab Nebula, also low in the west. While in the neighborhood, we checked out M35/NGC 2158. I gave them the obligatory M42, Great Orion Nebula, and also the colorful Winter Albireo, h3945 in Canis Major. Then, I moved over to Saturn, and, of course, had to install the BO/TMB 9mm Planetary eyepiece. Millie, who’d been in the car waiting, had to get out to see this. And she wasn’t unhappy, despite the cold.
From there, I put the Televue 20mm Plossl into the focuser and we sought out M51, the Whirlpool galaxy. After this, I showed them the great post-galactic collision of M81 & M82. This was all they could take and we all said good night.
Gwen had already said goodnight, so I was alone with the stars! I guess I’m a stellar groupie. Back to h3945, which I used to find a number of Canis Major clusters. First and certainly the most interesting this evening was NGC 2362. That one looks like a cluster within a cluster! Check it out here… http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/n2362.html
See, pretty cool, huh? I then looked at the faint-ish clusters NGC 2354 & 2280. I followed this up with M41. Now this cluster struck me as a man, anatomically correct with a triangular object hanging from his left hand and some nebulous stuff in his right. But of course, this is all through a Newtonian, so the whole thing is upside down and reversed. Carline’s Cluster, NGC 2360, wasn’t as great as I’d remembered. I finished my Canis Major expedition with NGC 2345.
Then I installed my 1.25” Orion UHC filter and went after NGC 2264. Didn’t notice any nebulosity. There’s a lot of sky glow in the southern skies at the Gott, so perhaps that got me, ha! Ironically, I DID notice a nebulous glow on the Rosette, NGC 2244. I tried, in vain, for the California Nebula, NGC 1499, in Perseus, though this might have been due to its fairly low position in the sky by the time I attacked it. I also noticed no nebulosity on IC 405, the Flaming Star, in Auriga.
Tired of the UHC filter, I removed it and put in my 2” SuperView 30mm eyepiece to hunt for NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis, a galaxy just off the edge of the nose of Ursa Major, Muscida. Finally, I found it and put the Televue 20mm Plossl back in. Great image!
I decided to make the Auriga cluster sweep, now hanging in the west, and started with M37. I agree with Tom Trusock of Cloudy Nights that this has got to be my favorite open cluster. It is simply spectacular! Next, it was off to spidery starfish of M36. From here, on to the half open form of M38, and opening to beautiful, ghostly, twice again as far away haze of NGC 1907.
I returned to M42 and even installed the 9mm BO/TMB, but the now low to the horizon, wavering image gave up no more than the four basic Trapezium stars.
I was cold, it was midnight, and it had been a long week, my first in my new position in Mathematics. It was time to head home, but another great night under God’s good heavens.
Clear skies,
CDS

-----Original Message-----
From: Collin Smith [mailto:collinofalabama@cox.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 9:06 PM
Subject: Meet at the Gott

Folks,
Looks like we will not have a monthly Club meeting with our standard hosts out of town. However, this Friday, March the 9th, I will be out at the Gott around 8:30 PM for an observing session. Please join me at the Gott to begin the Last Quarter weekend.
The forecast calls for clear skies and low winds, all while cool and not too cold – much better than the cold endured at Tech Terrace Park for the Full Moon.
Hope to see you there,
CDS