[AZ-Observing] Boyce Thompson
- From: AJ Crayon <acrayon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: AZ Observing <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 14:07:10 -0700
Since officially joining EVAC I decided to make Boyce Thompson Arboretum
State Park star party my first with EVAC, after all there were
incentives. A bar-b-que hosted by BTA, a star party for them that
lasted until 10:00pm, after which we had the site until moon rise.
After sunset Howard Israel gave a pep talk about what everyone would
seen, they listened and came to the telescopes armed with excellent
questions about Jupiter, Saturn and a number of star clusters.
Obviously Howard did his normal great job.
The arboretums' lights went off promptly at 10:00am and we had the site
to ourselves.
I started, and stayed with Boötes, even after it was well past the
central meridian, mostly with galaxies and a few of the observations and
other activities follow.
NGC5248 is a very nice galaxy at 140X is slightly elongated, has an
elongated brighter middle. With averted vision and moments of good
seeing the spiral arms to its east and west were visible.
NGC5480 and friend NGC 5481 were both seen, also at 140X. Actually
NGC5480, the brighter of the two, is in Ursa Major and the companion
NGC5481 is in Boötes. The former has a brighter middle and the latter
is smaller and fainter with a little brighter middle.
Next came a surprise with NGC5466 and my expectations of seeing another
galaxy! At first I thought I was seeing an HII region, then two, then
three then a plethora of them. After boosting the power up to 140X, the
maximum for the evening before stellar images became blurred, this faint
globular cluster was quite a treat! In addition to the faint glow,
there were dozens of faint stars resolved along with a number of dark
lanes. A very nice surprise, check this one out next time.
I had a good bit of time spent with other members, most of whose names I
don't or hardy remember; but I'll take a stab anyway because it was such
fun.
Set up next to me was Jeff, with an 8" DOB, we shared views of Jupiter
and M13. He is also interested in a driven 8" f6. Hummm, I have one
for sale!! Jeff and I will talk . . . .
Another gentleman with an 18" Obsession and I traded view of M13 -
again.
Later, after midnight we got into a discussion of viewing faint stars
around the Ring nebula. I got out a picture of the Ring with
calibration stars posted by \Brian, I think, and determined that in a
friend's (name not remembered) 8" SCT we could see the 14.7 mag star to
the north west with some difficulty. In my 14.5" DOB the nearby 15.3
mag star was easily seen - with a hood.
Moon rise came over the mountain to the east about 3:00am so Peter
Argenziano and I, the only ones left, started to pack up and head for
home. His trip was considerably shorter than my 73 miles. The eastern
sky had already started to brighten by the time I got home.
All in all it was a fun night, despite the fact I still have a lot of
names to place with faces.
AJ Crayon
EVAC
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