If I had been asked Sat morning to make the determination on whether I was
going to Coe that night I would have to say that I was standing down. The
weather reports and CSC indicated clouds, and high winds. As the day
progressed however the forecasts improved. By 4pm the forecasts actually
looked pretty good so I decided to chance it. I'm glad I did, it turned out
to be a nice night. Not the best, but considering the recent months of being
skunked it was a great night.
I arrived at 7:00pm to find Mark Wagner, and Richard Navarrete just setting
up. There was little wind, but there was a fairly thick haze visible that
was made even more visible by the setting sun. Shortly after sunset but
before I started observing everything got covered in dew. Didn't really
affect anything but my telrad since everything else was still covered. By
the time I started observing the dew wasn't a problem and was completely
gone by midnight.
My project for the night was the H400. I have 38 left most of which are in
Gem, CMa, and Mon which I haven't been able to get this winter due to
weather. The window of opportunity is rapidly closing for some of these
objects so I wanted to go after those objects that I won't be able to
observe next month. Unfortunately most of these are low in the west and just
in the haze that was visible, I got a few, but some where just too low in
the muck to even try.
In Mark Wagner's report he mentioned that I thought I might have found a SN
in one of the H400 galaxies. It was NGC2974 in Sex. There was what appeared
to be a bright star on the west edge of the galaxy and that star didn't show
up on either SkyMap Pro or The Sky. After getting home and checking it out
on the internet it turns out that there is a mag 10 star on the west limb.
But it was fun to speculate and made me look at the galaxy a little closer
than I might have otherwise.
Someone asked about wind at Coe. It was relatively light most of the evening
but there was a brief period around 10:30 or 11:00 where there were some
strong gusts. Didn't last more than about a half-hour.
By about 12:30pm I had gotten all of the H400s that weren't in the sky glow
from San Jose or in the haze low in the west. 24 left to go and looks like
some may have to wait until next season.
Packed up at 1am and was home before 2. An enjoyable night out.
-- Craig
----------------------------------------------------------------
All observations were with my home built 18" f4.5 Dob.
NGC3166 Nagler 9mm
Bright stellar core, haze extends out in E-W direction. No real structure
visible. Much fainter than NGC3169 which lies to the E and is in the same
FOV
NGC3169 Nagler 9mm
Bright stellar core, haze is elongated approx 2:1 in the W-E direction. The
core appears almost as bright as the mag 11.2 star in the haze at the E
edge. Galaxy NGC3166 lies just to the W in the same FOV
NGC2355 Nagler 9mm
Quite dim OC. 2 stars visible using direct vision. Another 7-9 appear with
averted vision. Mag 9.5 star on E edge. Need to check this because Skymap
Pro lists this as both NGC2355 and NGC2356
NGC2395 Nagler 9mm
Fairly large dim OC. 4-5 bright stars visible with another 6-10 faint
background stars. Fairly unimpressive.
NGC2421 Nagler16 mm
A loose OC with a group of stars that look like a greater than sign pointing
towards the SE. Each leg of the this L-shaped asterism is composed of 5
stars. There a 3 brighter stars within the > sign that appear to be an
equilateral triangle
NGC2440 Nagler 9mm
Small and fairly bright. Roughly symmetrical although appears to have a
slight bulge towards the S
NGC2360 Nagler22 mm
Very large and relatively bright OC. Almost too nice looking to be a H400.
Approx 20+ stars of roughly similar mag.
NGC2395 Nagler16 mm
Fairly loose OC. 14-15 stars of the same relative brightness. Appear to be
perhaps 4-5 more much dimmer that might be part of the same OC. A pair of
mag 10 stars off the SE edge
NGC2548 Panoptic 35mm
Big and bright! Was confused as and thought this couldn't be an H400 but
then discovered it's also M48. 30+ bright stars in a diffuse OC. Appears to
be close to 1/2 deg across
NGC2506 Nagler16 mm
Quite dim OC. 7-8 faint stars, another dozen or so visible using averted
vision
NGC2539 Nagler16 mm
20+ stars of uniform brightness in a fairly dense OC. Just to the NW of mag
4.8 star 19 Pup
NGC2974 Nagler 9mm
Faint galaxy, elongated in the EW direction not quitw 2:1. Very bright
apparent star in the WSW edge. Approx mag 9.5. Does not appear in Skymap Pro
or The Sky. Possible supernova?
NGC3115 Nagler 9mm
The best H400 object I've looked at in months. The Spindle galaxy. Very
bright central core, The galaxy is edge on and extends out 3:1 in the SE-NW
direction.
NGC2859 Nagler 9mm
Relatively small galaxy with a bright stellar core. Haze appears to be
roughly symmetrical with perhaps a slight bulge in the NS direction. No
details apparent.
NGC2782 Nagler 9mm
Very faint galaxy. Stellar core with haze roughly symmetrical around core.
Spiral structure visible using averted vision. 2 mag 12 stars just to the
south.
Received on Mon Apr 11 10:02:43 2005