[sac-board] Re: Herschel II Proposal

---- Jack Jones <telescoper@xxxxxxx> wrote: 
> It may be better and simpler to just ignore the H II as we do the Beyond 
> The NGC list (H II and any other lists that come along, like Arp, 
> Hickson, etc etc) and cut off the 1000 list with the Herschel 400 as we 
> have it now.

Now that I read Jack's point above, that seems like it might be the best club 
policy.  A while back, I thought I'd begin the Herschel II list, and spent a 
couple nights observing a couple dozen objects from that list.  With all due 
respect to the very accomplished Portland club members, I concluded that it's 
not a very good observing list.  This statement from the Rose City Astronomers' 
Web site gives an idea why:

"The 400 objects in this program consist of 323 galaxies, 41 open clusters, 21 
nebulae, 9 planetary nebula, 3 cluster-nebula, and 3 globular clusters. "
That's 81% galaxies and 10% open clusters, and 9% "other stuff."  In contrast, 
when I created my own lists for my Celestial Portraits series in Astronomy 
magazine, the 798 objects broke down as follows: 38% galaxies, 19% open 
clusters, 11% planetary nebulae, 10% globular clusters, 22% other stuff.

I learned early on that the Herschel II has far too many galaxies, and lacks a 
lot of much more interesting objects.  Further, the most southerly object on 
the Herschel II list is at -30 degrees dec.  That sure seems like a waste of 
interesting territory in the stinger of Scorpius and southern Puppis.

Perhaps SAC members should not be discouraged from taking on the Herschel II, 
but maybe it's best not to bother with it as a formal club program.  Joe still 
deserves an observing award for going through it, of course.

Tom

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