headed to the Gott Friday night
From: Collin Smith
Sent: Wed 1/28/09 7:50 PM
Folks,
Been a whole lotta speckalatin'. When's that boy gonna head north and see some
stars? Welp, them that's speckalatin' can jus quit. Yep, headed north to the
Gott this here Friday night. They got bales and bales of optical hay up there,
and I'm aimin' to harvest me some. You wantin' to, too, come on along. If you
ain't, well, shucks, stay at home 'n watch TV, whadda I care! You'll be there
all warm with your silly TV and we'll be outside in the cold looking through
freezin' telescopes, but ha! See if we care! We'll be a lookin' at them there
millions of light year thingees, and you'll just have TV radiation.
Well sir, if them there millions of light year thingees sounds more to your
tastes, well I recommend plenty of longjohns and other warm clothin', cause "I'm
cold" sissies just gonna have to cry then have their tears freeze on their
faces. Bundle up! But if yur prepared and up for the winter and haven't turned
into a San-Diego-all-the-time wimp, well, we gotta different course o' action
planned.
The moon sets at 10:45, but I ain't looked at the moon thru no teleescope in
several weeks, and was a hopin' to see sompin' like this ...
http://www.backyard-astro.com/solar/moon/050114/moon.html
So, I's plannin' to arrive 'round 8:15 or so, for it gets too late to see 'er,
but not so late that I can't maybe enjoy a bit o' the sky without her neither.
Hopes y'all can joywn me,
CDS
As I drove north to the Gott on January’s last Friday night, I worried that NO ONE would be there. Was I getting ready to head into the cold oblivion alone? Observing can be its own reward, but I have always appreciated the camaraderie-aspect of this hobby, and though I need no more than one friend to enliven the endeavor, would there be anyone there? Don Fritz, my most reliable observing buddy was leaving, with his wife, for Houston to see the grandkids. Can’t argue with that, after all, the four day old moon was quite bright and wouldn’t set until several hours after arriving. And Jerry Hatfield just wasn’t interested, being the DSO aficionado that he is and the moon being as bright as she is, and the week as long as it is.
On the other hand, Dr. Ram Iyer of the Math Department expressed a bit of interest. He wasn’t completely re-assuring, but he did seem to be up for trying. As I got to the Gott, however, my fears were immediately put to rest. Gwen Armstrong’s astronomy class was meeting with somewhere between 12 and 20 cars parked all over the Observatory grounds, students walking about and doing various astronomy tasks. Solitude would not be lonely.
I arrived about 8:30, and began setting up. I spoke with Ram and he was on the way and just behind me. I noticed Gwen talking to two people who looked more mature than all the surrounding students. I walked over and sure enough, Dr. Ed Allen and Dr. Linda Allen, both of the Math Department, were there. Dr. Allen had always threatened to come, but now he was finally here and with his pleasant wife as well. This night was anything but solitary. Showtime, folks!
I got the Allens to come over and I continued setting up my scope. Before I was finished, Dr. Per Andersen of Computer Science showed up and began setting up on the concrete pad just to the west of the first one I had put my 6” custom dobsonian on. Per pulled out his Voyager Alt-Az mount with his new 8” aluminum tube extension. The mount with extension was quite nice. At first, he put on the 8” Celestron SCT, a bit of a beast for that mount, but why not begin beastly?
We started, of course, with Luna herself. The terminator was nice and dramatic -- it was nice to hear Mrs. Allen almost gasp at the incredible detail in the eyepiece. I think I only had the TV Pan 19 in the focuser, but the four day moon and her terminator are a genuine optical treat! And everyone enjoyed his or her turn at the eyepiece.
We also looked at Venus, a nice small just under half ‘moon’ herself. Venus, I explained, would be getting lower but brighter as her shape grows more curvy and becomes a lovely crescent in future weeks. But even now she’s losing volume, even as she increases in size and illumination, all the while drawing nearer in her faster track about the sun.
From Venus, we passed on to the Double Cluster. The 6” dob with the Pan 24 eyepiece produced a respectable 1.8 degree field, giving a nice general, though somewhat magnified resolution to the puffy naked eye star clouds. They were visible even naked eye that evening at the Gott, provided one put his/her hand over the moon and looked between Perseus’ helmet and the second, less acute bend of the sideways W Queen Cassiopeia is on a late January evening.
Next, we moved on to the Andromeda Galaxy. With the moon shining so brightly, Per noted how little detail we could see, and the complete absence of the apparent ‘top’ dust lane normally plain to see, now hidden from view completely. Still, even with the moon’s brightness, both satellite galaxies the small, bright M32 and larger, dimmer M110 were available and everyone was able to catch them with sufficient time at the eyepiece. Another showcase optical component of the heavens. Aye, the heavens were indeed telling the glory of God. I explained that the galaxy is 2.3 million light years off, blue-shifted and therefore heading toward us for a phenomenally distant-in-the-future collision with the Milky Way. Wonder if our solar system will even be around by then?
The Allens were getting noticeably colder, so it was on to M42/43 for the Orion nebula cluster. Again, another showcase piece of handiwork, a stellar nursery with so many beautiful baby stars! Neither a Beverly Hills nor even a Bollywood Maternity Ward have contained so many. And the filaments and clouds of dust and gas that blanket these beautiful newborns – one is transfigured an humble Shepherd at the birth of Divinity itself, such the optical majesty.
And speaking of mangers, the Beehive glowed strongly at us in the East, far from Luna and her brightness, so I put the glow in the sights of the Telrad and we beheld another revelation. The Allens had brought their binoculars, and they had been able to catch the Double Cluster, Andromeda and now M44, the Beehive, all this evening. Again I explained that Ptolemy had described the cluster, and it had also been known to represent the Christ-child in the Manger, Praesepe (Latin), and is sometimes called this as well.
We were checking out the Pleiades, M45, when daughter Anna Allen and her friend Becca showed up to join us in our heavenly endeavor. What a pleasant surprise. We noted that the Pleiades barely fit into field of view, just contained even within the rather wide field of the Pan 24 eyepiece.
Perhaps this extra-huge target prompted Per, but he changed out the optical tube of the very heavy, small field of view SCT for the lighter, superwide field of the Orion 120ST refractor. Man, that scope with that Voyager mount and the tube extension turned out to be the optical powerhouse on the 30th. Per put the Double Cluster in the eyepiece once again for Anna and Becca, as we returned to some of our previous targets the girls had missed. I think he had the TV 32mm Plossl, or some other widefield, but whatever it was, they were framed so perfectly and nicely in a huge 2.7 degree field, it was a completely different vista, and one well worth the effort. Quite surprising what a 600 mm focal length can do with the Double Cluster compared to a 912 mm one, at least from the stand back and soak it all in perspective.
One thing that I very much enjoyed was my new laser pointer. On the advice of people on CloudyNights, I purchased the 5mw green laser pointer from Meridian Technologies for $80. Hopefully I’ve got a good one, since my Orion I donated to the Math Department for lectures and such, being completely ineffectual for Astronomy. But boy, did that Meridian work Friday night! I was able to clearly point out constellations, clusters, Andromeda, etc. It worked so well, in fact, that Ram, ever eyeing me at the dob, grasped pretty well its general motion and function. I asked him if he’d like to try and find Andromeda again, and when I pointed to it with the laser, Ram quickly put it right in the eyepiece. I showed him how the Telrad worked and he got even better at placing targets in the scope. From that point forward, most everything we saw up until the time he left, Ram either put right in the eyepiece, or got me so close a quick scan of the area captured the target.
With the laser pointer, I showed everyone Orion, his shield and club, and Taurus the bull, captured in celestial combat. I showed them Orion’s companion Canis Major, Leo rising in the east along with Saturn, and Cassiopeia and Perseus’ helmet, the western setting Great Square of Pegasus, the rising Big Dipper. From the Pointer Stars, I showed Polaris and explained how EVERYTHING in the celestial sphere, even the sun, circles that point.
I pointed out where we might find h3945, the ‘Winter Albireo’ and Ram got us very close. I’m not the most exact with my pointer, but with a bit of fiddling the beautiful, colorful double star produced more ooh’s and aah’s.
At this point, the Allens packed it in. We said goodnight to them and continued on. Anna and Becca, though clearly feeling the effects of the cold, were ready to hang out for a bit more, so we pressed on.
M81/82 were high enough by this time to tackle. Per pointed out these were Bodes Nebulae, and of course, I verified later on the Internet he was right. What a sight these two always are! Simply spectacular and spectacular again.
Somehow we ended up at Almach, Gamma Andromedae, for another glimpse at an attractive, colorful double.
By now, Anna and Becca had had enough. They were pretty cold and it was time to head for the warmth of the car heater and house. Again, we said goodbye and kept at it.
Being in Andromeda, Ram pointed the dob dead-on to Beta Andromedae, Mirach. We beheld the aptly titled Mirach’s Ghost, NGC 404, a lenticular galaxy just 7 arc-minutes from the bright star. Read about it here …
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Mirachs_Ghost.html
I set the laser pointer just above the foot of Castor, and Ram aimed the dob. Sure enough, it was dead-on, and we got the thrill of seeing the beautiful cluster and ghostly NGC2158 behind it. One beautiful celestial pairing, for sure. I put the dob on M37, and the very nice cluster-ruled-by-Orange Giant made a fitting ending of the evening for Ram, who by now had also had enough. Though my co-worker and I had encouraged Ram to go buy some winter weather wear, he had still underestimated the quantities necessary to stay warm. Also, Ram had a Cricket match to catch at 10 PM, and it was nigh 10 PM right then.
The students had thinned out quite a bit by then, too. Per, being from Toronto, was more prepared for the evening, and we embarked on our own journey of exploration, aided in our endeavor by a sinking moon that soon set. M1 was our first target, and it was a pleasant puff in both the dob and refractor. We didn’t get the mottling too much, really. There were some hints at it in mine, but it’s shown up better before on a darker night at Emma, though nothing like what I’ve seen through Don or Jerry’s 10”-ers.
Here, Per and I decided to try out our filters, Per his O-III and me my UHC, on NGC 2244, the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros. To me, I see a bow tie on its side, surrounded by a faint halo. Really quite nice in both scopes. This success led me to try and find the California Nebula in Perseus with my hBeta filter. What a waste! I aimed and aimed aimlessly to no avail. Oh well.
After that, Saturn was indeed high enough to take a look at. It’s SOO cool right now, looking like a beige bowler hat mirror reflected. We got Titan and another moon in the deal, too. We only used low power since it was so low, but the view was rewarding just the same.
We pretty much stuck to low power viewing all night. Perhaps this was just because Per had the 120ST, a scope noted for spectacular low power views, and less so high powered ones, and although that factored in, I think that we both had alt-az mounted scopes and general celestial turbulence came into play as well. Once, Per and I were observing when everyone had left, and a warm blanket of air fell upon us. It was quite strange, but indicated the atmospheric conditions we had. Just the same, the overall conditions, if not ideal for high power viewing, were more than anyone could ask for in late January at 3250 feet above sea level. Really quite pleasant. The wind was forecasted at 4mph, and was indeed almost non-existent that evening.
At that point, my Telrad got too cold. I suppose the batteries just gave up the ghost. So Per and I pressed on with his 120ST. We nabbed galaxy NGC 2903 in Leo, then the globular M79 in Lepus. From Lepus we turned north to NGC 2024, the Flame Tree near Alnitak. Per noted how much clearer the view was when one moved Alnitak just out of the field.
Per had the great idea of checking out R Leporis, better known as Hind’s Crimson Star. Not sure I’ve ever looked at it before, but it was spectacularly red. He sent me this brief Wikipedia entry later …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_Leporis
It is really quite lovely, and did I mention it’s very red?
We finished up at Ursa Major, bagging the planetary Owl Nebula, M97, and nearby galaxy M108. Our final treat was M51/NGC5195, the Whirlpool galaxy. Even though it was a bit difficult to make out in the 120mm scope, the spiral arms were indeed there after some careful study, the glare of the moon well below the horizon by this time.
Per and I were more tired than cold, though we were that, too. A good 3 and a half hours under the glorious heavens gave us a real treat. Funny that what I had worried would be a solitary affair turned out to be my best outing in 2009. Now this is what amateur astronomy is all about.