[sac-board] Re: Herschel II Proposal
- From: "AJ Crayon" <acrayon@xxxxxxx>
- To: <sac-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:11:31 -0700
There are several e-mails on this topic and I'd like to address the topics
and positions with this one message.
In regards to joining the AL; no one seems to feel this is a good idea, nor
does there seem to be enough interest to investigate joining. So we drop
this topic.
As far as observing programs are concerned we should keep them the way they
are without any tinkering. This means the H400, 1000 New and 110 Beyond the
NGC stay as they are. We should also support anyone completing the HII list
with some sort of an award.
The above sounds quite reasonable to me and I have no problems with taking
those positions.
The question that remains open is what kind of award should we present to
anyone crazy enough :)) to complete the HII program. As Deep Sky Chairman
I'm willing to accept and review the observations for correctness and
authenticity. That's still lots of fun. Yet what does the award consist
and should there be a budget?
I'd also like to thank everyone for responding, you've been a great help.
AJ Crayon
Phoenix, AZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Polakis" <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>
To: <sac-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 7:36 AM
Subject: [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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