[AZ-Observing] Memorial Weekend Observing

Having the 18" set up for the first of five nights outside of the little 
town of Gila, New Mexico is a real cause of celebration.  After a lot of 
clouds last week last night was about perfect, great transparency right 
down to the horizon, seeing OK but not great and getting a little worse 
as the night progressed.  I also have the 11" NSGPS with wedge along to 
alternate visual with some photography, but last night was strictly 
visual with Violet, spending the night with my mistress after my wife 
went to bed around 10pm.

So here I am after getting up at noon, getting some caffine and food 
into my system, typing selected observing notes in to share with 
everyone.  I hope this spurs some of you to get out and enjoy a moonless 
Memorial Day weekend...

IC1029 Nice edge-on galaxy, fairly bright, distinct core, elongated 5:1 
northwest-southeast, no other structure noted, no dust lane, mag. 10 
star 15' east, NGC5673 visible 9' west

NGC5673 Odd that an NGC galaxy is much dimmer than the IC object just 9' 
away in the same field, dim, subtle core visible with averted vision, 
elongated 4:1 northwest-southeast, IC1029 visible 9' east.
Answer to be found on the NGC/IC project page, William Hershel found and 
recorded NGC5673, John Hershel found and recorded IC1029 believing it to 
be NGC5673, it was confused in later cataloging to end up as we have it 
now, with the fainter object in the NGC and the brighter IC1029.  This 
says something about the narrower fields of view in those early 
telescopes, where my f/4.5 with a modern eyepiece easily shows both in 
the field.

NGC5139 (Omega Centauri) Enormous swarm of stars, fills the 25' field of 
the 12mm Nagler, very bright, very large, fully resolved to the blazing 
core, hard to believe such and object exists as it seems so unreal, 
conditions decent to the horizon tonight allowing appreciation of this 
southern object.

NGC5128 (Centaurus A) Large, bright, a circular halo with a dark wide 
dust lane running east-west across the center, no structure or core in 
halo, hints of dark structures in the dust lane with averted vision.

IC4329 Small, bright core large with no distinct nucleus, no structure 
noted in halo, elongated 2:1 east-west, the area is a swarm of small 
galaxies, IC4329A visible 3' east, IC4327 is just 7' northwest, NGC5302 
is 13' south, panning through the area just finds more and more small 
galaxies

Palomar 5  While the cluster is faint but clear in the DSS photo it is 
somewhat less so in the eyepiece, starfield matched up and no clear 
object, faint suggestions in averted vision but I can not be certain

M5/NGC5904 Absolutely beautiful!! Large! Bright! fully resoved to the 
core, fills the field at 175x, the core is solidly filled with stars 
with no blackness showing between stars, a perfect 'blaze' in the old 
terminology, many chains of brighter stars in the margins lead out from 
the core

Palomar 6 Large, faint, make that very faint! an averted vision object, 
rocking the scope helps, found with coordinates and matching the DSS to 
the starfield, a faint unresolved patch of haziness

Palomar 8 More easily located and identified than many Palomar clusters, 
a good sized hazy patch in thick Milky Way starfield, almost begins to 
resolve with 262x, not evenly round, but somewhat clumpy in appearance

M28/NGC6626 A decent globular so often overshadowed by nearby M22 (much 
like M92 in M13\'s shadow), good sized, bright, resolved, concentrated 
well at core

V Aql  Bright coppery star in a thick Milky Way starfield

73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (C fragment) Just rising in the dawn, bright 
but not quite naked eye, easy binocular object, in Violet it shows about 
1 degree of tail and a bright coma

Now to remember I have four more nights ahead and the weather forecast 
is for clear!! Tonight I set up for photography using a new toy.  It 
seems my wife has cut through my dithering and bought one of the last 
Canon 20Da's available!!  I got it last night on our 14th wedding 
anniversary, I guess I will stay married a little longer to this 
wonderful woman!!

Andrew

Andrew Cooper
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.siowl.com



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