[AZ-Observing] February 2010 Report from Hovater Norte
- From: L Knauth <Knauth@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:39:38 -0700
humidity might lead to good seeing Friday night. Boy, was that a good guess!
No deep blue before sunset, but twilight faded and left the Zodiacal Light as a
blazing conical pillar rising up to the Pleiades. Using Polaris as an align
star for the Argo Navis on the 25? Obsession, I did a double-take at what at
absolute spear-point of light the companion was this night, an omen of wonders
to come. What incredibly beautiful blue colors are present in this system,
especially when they emanate from piercing little points!
To my surprise, the near-perfect seeing held until I cratered about 1 am
following innumerable trips up and down the ladder. Along the way, I
sacrificed my night vision to focus in on the white dwarf companion of Sirius
with a 5mm Clave. There it was, a gorgeous mathematical point of light well
outside the nested, piercing rays of Sirius and just next to a diffraction
spike. I haven?t seen the companion since the early 1960?s when the leaden,
humid air of Houston gave me a false impression of how common steady
atmospheres are.
After gawking at some of the usual deep-sky splendors under fantastic
seeing and a sky dark to 21.7 on the SQM-L, I decided to chase deep sky objects
on my life-list that said ?check under better seeing?. Good advice because
many of these can erupt into detail of great interest. Take NGC 2537. This
oddest of odd galaxies without a documented nucleus on this night broke into
discrete lumps just like the photo in Wray?s Color Atlas of Galaxies. Unlike
this or any photo I find on the web tonight, the brightest lump on the side
away from the bright field star has a spear-tip stellar core, just like the
stellar nuclei we often see in many galaxies (but rarely apparent in photos
where they appear as blobs). But what is the nucleus doing on one side of this
crazy galaxy? Could this be a nucleus pulled to one side? Things wondrous
strange have gone on here. Let there be a Hubble photo of this one that does it
justice!
Then there was NGC 2366, an asymmetric lump with a stellar nucleus (?) near
one edge, all next to a fan-shaped wisp. Very bright for such a small object.
What is going on in this system? Then there is NGC 2608 with its double
nucleus. There it is with one of the two nuclei incredibly stellar. Is this a
star superimposed? Naw, it seems to be squat in the center of a lump. Gotta
be real, and I see tonight on the Web that those paid to investigate guess that
the double nucleus represents two colliding galaxies. Interesting, if true.
Then, closer to home, reflection nebula NGC 1999 sits there looking exactly
like the Hubble photo. The dark inner area looks like a heart to my old eyes,
but maybe that?s because Valentines day is closing in. And so it went on this
night of rare, incredibly steady seeing in the deep Arizona desert. My van
windows were fogged up just before sunrise, something as unusual as good seeing
out there.
Bill Van Orden and Murdoch Hart showed up Saturday night, and we had a
good time observing and telling lies under a good, dry sky (21.7). The more
typical seeing kept the mm greater than 12 on the 25 inch. For an hour after
twilight there were flashes of light below the northwest horizon. Distant
thunderstorms over mountains in Nevada, Las Vegas light shows reflecting off
high cirrus, or crazy militia wannabes playing with heavy ordinance? Hope it
was thunderstorms.
After Friday night, I now have a pretty good idea of what is possible
in visual amateur astronomy if you go to the expense and effort and are in the
right place at the right time. Can?t wait to try again.
Videmus Stellae!!
Paul Knauth
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