[AZ-Observing] McNeil's Nebula in 10-inch
- From: BillFerris@xxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 02:40:39 EST
The following is an excerpt from my full report:
http://members.aol.com/billferris/mcneil1.html
"I made the observation from Anderson Mesa, Lowell Observatory's dark sky
site about 12 miles southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona. My quest began at 7:00 pm
(16 February, 02:00 UT) when I located M78 against the darkening twilight. I
replaced the 8.8-mm Meade UWA eyepiece with a Meade 13.8-mm SWA paired with a
Tele Vue 3X Barlow. This combination produces 247X over a 15' diameter true
field
in my 10-inch, f/4.5 Starfinder equatorial Newtonian. I used Tom Polakis'
finder chart for McNeil's Nebula to get my bearings.
From M78, I moved about 10' west to 10.01 magnitude HD 290863. Then, I slewed
about one eyepiece field south to look for the Herbig-Haro nebula, HH 24-26
4. At this time, I slid one of my wife's polar fleece neck warmers over my face
as a shield against stray light. Full dark adaptation would be needed for
this quest. By 7:45pm, HH 24-26 4 had emerged from the darkness, visible as a
fuzzy "star" with direct vision and as a slightly enlongated nebulosity with
averted vision. The elongation was north and east of the brighter core over a
distance of, perhaps, 15". It's the "fuzzy star" just west of center in my
drawing.
Two GSC stars, 4768:0175 (~12.7 magnitude) and 4768:0185 (~13.5 magnitude),
were seen southeast of the Herbig-Haro object. These appear just inside the
southern field boundary of my sketch. About 15-minutes passed before I made
positive identifications of two more stars. One was GSC 4678:0681, a roughly
14.7
magnitude ember 9'.8 west of HH 24-26 4. The other was GSC 4768:0720. This
~14.9 mag. star is shown just inside the western edge of the field in my
rendering.
Over the course of the next 15 minutes, I occasionally detected a faint glow
just inside the northern edge of the eyepiece field. This faint haze
consistently appeared elongated generally north-south over an area of 60"x30".
At
first, this was visible just with averted vision. But by 8:30 pm, I was seeing
this
delicate glow with direct vision, as well. And with averted vision, a faint
stellaring appeared not quite 2' to the east. The nebula, shown inside the
northern limit of my sketch, was Jay McNeil's very own. The star was 14.9
magnitude GSC 4768:0171.
I continued observing McNeil's Nebula for another 15-minutes until the winter
chill had numbed my hands. When I finally leaned back and peered skyward, the
Milky Way was visible as a broad, salty band of starlight. I swung the
telescope to Saturn, which was cruising near the zenith. The seeing was quite
steady
at 247X and noticeably aquiver at 388X, typical of what I characterize as
good-very good (7 of 10) seeing. Under similar conditions, I suspect McN-1
would
be visible in a high quality 8- refractor. If the seeing were perfect, a
6-inch may be up to the task."
Regards,
Bill in Flagstaff
===========
Bill Ferris
"Cosmic Voyage: The Online Resource for Amateur Astronomers"
URL: http://www.cosmic-voyage.net
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.
Other related posts:
- » [AZ-Observing] McNeil's Nebula in 10-inch
