[AZ-Observing] Report from Hovatter Norte
- From: L Knauth <Knauth@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:27:10 -0700
I was glad to leave after 2 nights and a brutally hot intervening day at
Hovatter Norte. Had the whole desert north of I-10 to myself except for swarms
of bees and flies during the day. The sky was clear but bright for some
reason; the best meter reading was 21.3. A modest wind until midnight Thursday
kept me from shrouding up the 25? dob truss with a noticeable loss of contrast
in the images. I did get in a total of about 6 hours of really great observing
with the usual 3 most memorable things still rummaging around in my mind
tonight:
1) For a last look of the season at the Veil, I put in a 13mm ethos with O-III
filter and drove slowly along the lengths and wisps at this high power. Simply
incredible detail you don?t see in the garish color photos: gossamer strands
of various brightness and internal structure all interwoven in delicate twists
and ragged turns. Many of the glowing, shredded ribbons on the way other side
from the bright star have ragged sub-parallel wisps and intricate detail that
just leaves you gasping. Don?t let anyone tell you an O-III filter is
unnecessary at higher powers. It yields a truly mystical experience on this
particular object. 2) An irresistible quick look at the dumbbell with the
O-III filter left me pondering. Realizing I was seeing mainly ionized oxygen
atoms through this filter, I suddenly appreciated that I was breathing in
oxygen atoms that were once glowing like this after being ejected from the
innards of a star more than 4.5 billion years ago. Some time in the future,
those glowing green atoms I was looking at may be part of some rock, part of a
water molecule, or maybe even oxygen gas breathed in by a galactic metazoan yet
to be. Welcome to the galaxy, new oxygen atoms! Cosmic breathing there for a
time. 3) NGC 7086 is an attractive, moderately rich cluster that seems to be
adjacent to a dark nebula of about the same size (uncatalogued?). If you slew
the field in from the cluster side, you see the background stars in contrast to
the cluster and then watch them largely disappear on the other side. A low
power view shows the contrast beautifully. A sort of yin and yang ?double
cluster?. Wonder if there are others like this?
Videmus Stellae!
Paul Knauth
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