[AZ-Observing] GCSP Day Four from Jim O'Connor
- From: Andrew Cooper <acooper@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: TAAA Forum <taaaforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, AZ-Observing <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:34:08 -0700
Jim continues his reporting from GCSP...
Andrew
Night Four was the longest so far. It also had the most variety, with
new Oh Wow moments at the eyepiece. The temperatures was feeling about
10-15 degrees cooler; at sundown most observers donned some sort of
sweatshirt or jacket.
There seemed to be about a third or more fewer observers set up this
night. As last year, the crowd of observers seems to diminish in the
mid-week, accompanied by an associated reduction is visitors. We
actually had sprawl space at our end of the lot! The three of us at the
end (one lady, with one of the first edition Starmasters (STILL forgot
to learn her name and home town! Doh.), Deborah from near Palm Springs,
CA with a C8, and me) each have our own parking slot to expand into.
This actually helps with the crowd management. Then there are three
empty slots to the start of the usually dense population but less so
than previous nights. Once again I moved the truck up to the Yavapai
Observing Station in the morning and staked out my spot. I delayed
showing up until about 5:45, with most of the observers already set up,
and again spent the time leisurely putting things together as we
neighbors learn a bit more about each other. My wife was a long time
high school teacher of chemistry, math, physics, and earth science, and
Deborah has a deep interest in geology and volcanology, so they swapped
Hawaii Mauna Loa/Killauea volcano observations in the sidewald shade. We
are certainly a diverse lot!
The wind gusts were again an occasional nuisance, but the visitors and I
managed to work our way through it.
The seeing and transparency were again excellent. No appearance of the
smokey residue of the Sedona area wildfires that continue to burn.
I hit on Jupiter, along with everyone else, at least half an hour before
sunset. And there was Spot Formerly Known As Great Red, and Junior! For
the next two hours the visitors got an awsome treat. Altitude, seeing,
and again a spot-on collimation contrived to bring us a superlative view
of the Jovian belts and storms. The two bulges are crisp and distinct in
the twilight, cream centered bulges in the equatorial belts, and the
visitors in general are having little difficulty seeing the belts and
the spots. Again, the image in the 9mm Nagler was HUGE.
Meanwhile, others are shifting over to Saturn, Mars, and a still visible
Mercury. I can hear Deborah giving a fanatastic planetary lesson to the
visitors, and her visitors are amazed at the quarter phasing visible on
Mercury. My visitors are able to enjoy the Jupiter and its GRS view
standing flat footed at the eyepiece, with only the youngest needing to
climb a step or two up the ladder. After the GRS drifted off the lower
limb, I moved over to Saturn, low on the horizon. Nearly sprained my
neck getting down that low. Oohs and aahs again. Atmosphere is again
steady, and again Cassini looked like a crisp highway.
Around this time we had an event that has been repeated each night; an
early evening pass of the International Space Station. At around 9:05 or
so tonight, a half dozen laser pointers snapped over to the western sky.
Big and bright, the ISS has put on a five minute show every night. Lots
of excitement among the assembled multitude, then back to the regular
observing. But an hour later would be a really amazing treat. Around
10:35, a two magnitude +1 Iridum flares occured, separated by about 15
seconds, in the same orbital slot. The crowd really got a thrill from
the rapid brightening and decay. Since I worked on the Iridium program
until just after the first launches, we had some conversation about the
architecture.
For the rest of the time while we had visitors, it was much like last
night. Ring, Dumbbell, Hercules Cluster, the M4 globular cluster, and
Sombrero. Also some time on Albireo and Mizar, to break up the flow a
bit. All were hits. I wished that Sombrero wasn't diving behind the only
tree to the west!
I'm amazed listening to the variety of interactions between the two
other observers at our end and the visitors. They are SO good with the
public; very simple, straightforward explanations. We're all having a
lot of fun with this.
Surprisingly, the crowd starts to evaporate around 10:30. A gentleman
came up who said that 20 years or more ago he had a Coulter telescope, I
believe he said a 10", but he hadn't used it for maybe 15 years or more.
I also believe he said his name was John; he'll be back again on Day
Five so I'll correct it if I wrong. Since the crowd had really had
fallen off by now, I asked him if he had any favorites he wanted to see.
We jumped up to Hercules Cluster, which was spectacular and well worth
the three step climb up the ladder as it filled most of the 9mm, but the
frequent wind gusts really made it hard to maintain the position. So I
shifted over to M51, The Whirlpool. Although it also was quite a climb,
the wind quieted down as some local residents were doing a late visit of
the scopes. So about 8 of us shared the fantastic image. All could
notice the slightly flattend spiral arm on the side toward the
background companion galaxy. In the distant past, when the companion had
moved past the main spiral, the resulting outburst of stellar creation
in the area of interaction could be perceived (maybe with imagination!).
Then came about 2 hours of what I'd call a tour-de-force of large
aperture adventures. For about an hour, John resurected memories of
things he'd seen in his Coulter, so I'd hop over to them. This time I
bounced between 9mm and 22mm Panoptic, and with and without the UHC
filter. Every item was a show stopper. First, we threw the 22mm/UHC
combo at the Dumbbell. What a difference the filter made. It took what
to me looks like an apple core and pushed it to the foreground, leaving
a bubble-like ball in the background. Then we spent the next 45 minutes
in Sagittarius. First we went over to the Swan, using the
9mm/unfiltered. Impressive enough. Then I backed out to the 22mm/UHC,
and let John describe what he was seeing. He seems to be a natural
observer. I like to have other observers describe what they see; it
helps me pick up detail I might have missed. He used the same
phraseology I'd heard at the GCSP three years ago on M17; in the 22/UHC,
the Swan was shedding feathers to the rear and down. In fact, a full
eyepiece diameter to the rear and down. Then we went over to Triffid.
Stark "Y" shaped dust lane, and a shimmering quality to the burst of
nebulosity.
Then we hit The Lagoon. By this time the last three nights of sleep
deprivation had set in. I absolutely could not remember the M number! I
had to look on my observing target sheet to find M8. My turn to say Oh
Wow. In the 22mm/UHC, there seemed to be elements of The Tarantula, or
Rosette. The open cluster was crisp and highly contrastive against the
black background provided by the filter. But Oh, the nebula! Almost
overfilling the 0.65 degree FOV. It looked like thick, folded tissue,
with multiple, fat overlaying layers, like looking down on a softly
folded pillow case. But the biggest surprise was about 1/3 of the way up
the outer edge of the nebula. There was a bright glow in an armlike
layer superimposed on the background nebula.
We ended up on globular cluster M22. Almost as large as M13, we really
liked the lower stellar density and the ability to draw detail of the
individual stars. John headed back to his room, and said he was bringing
back his wife and daughter on Day Five.
Edit: I forgot to add that we bounced over to the southern component of
the Veil with the 22/UHC. Fat curtain of the Super Nova Remnant
stretching across the eyepiece. The five or six of us swept all over the
area as the fat streak jumped out, while nebulosity was everywhere. One
amazing thing after another!
Along with John, an older couple who work at the Canyon hung around and
enjoyed the views. Very well read, we had very interesting discussions
of the beginnings of astronomy and the social/political issues that
would arise when various theories were proposed and ran into the
religious and political status quo. Great conversation.
Well, the visitors were all gone, so now it was time to visit a few of
the 150+ items I had in my hip pocket to view. I went over to NGC4565 in
Coma Berenices, called by John Dobson Berenices' Hairclip. Although the
Sombrero seems fatter at the core, this edge on was an incredible view
as it extended across 80% of the 9mm. Tomorrow I'll have to bag it
earlier. It was fairly low (meaning no ladder necessary) in the west.
Although not as fat, the core was very bright, and there was quite a bit
of mottling along the thick dust lane bisecting the body end to end.
Four of us remaining at our end of the lot enjoyed the heck out of it.
With the western galaxies setting I went over to the east. First I
grabbed the Blue Snowball. Very big and bright, and slightly oval. Two
of the group with younger eyes could see the blue, even at the lower
elevation.
Next up was Stephan's Quintet. This one is a toughie for me, at least
back home in Tucson. I usually hop over to NGC7331, a magnitude 5 barred
spiral close to SQ to test the DSCs. Then I move over to the blob of
7317, 7318A, 7318B, 7319, and 7320. These range from magnitude 12.6 to
13.6. At the time I first started looking at them, I could see the vague
hint of the package at the low but rising elevation. I invited the other
three folks over to have a look. As we swapped turns over about 15
minutes or so, we could see the improvement that elevation was making.
More and more detail was becoming available. At the end, we could get
three of the set very clearly, with two others there but barely.
Finished up on the Blinking Planetary nebula, NGC6826. And it did not
disappoint! Seen straight on, the central star dominates the view and
the nebulosity disappears. With averted vision, however, the increased
sensitivity of the cones in the eye pulls the nebula out, almost as big
and bright as the Blue Snowball. Another Wow.
With that, it was pushing 2 AM and still had to pack it all up and head
out. When I win the lottery, if I do these events I'll bring along a
personal chirpractor. Six and a half hours of standing and climbing,
then all the take down and lifting the 90 pounds of dob into the truck
make it awfully hard to crawl out of bed.
OK, Day Five Looms...
--------------------
Jim
A Bad Night With A Telescope
Beats A Good Night Doing Anything Else
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