[AZ-Observing] Vekol on 4-5 Jan 2003
- From: Rick Scott <rmscott@xxxxxxx>
- To: AZ Observing <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 13:00:12 -0700
My wife Susan and I were observing at Vekol the night of 4 Jan 2003 with
EVAC. High thin cirrus clouds covered most of the sky except toward the
east which thickened after about 10pm. Most people started leaving
around then, but the sky cleared up after midnight. The transparency
cleared up so much that I decided to try and see if I could find
Himalia, the only other moon of Jupiter that can be seen in an amateur
class telescope.
I used the planetarium program "Redshift" to get the current coordinates
of the moon and then used "The Sky" with the USNO database to find the
moon with respect to the fainter stars visible in the field. At the time
(12:15am) Himalia was at almost maximum elongation from Jupiter and at
magnitude 14.98. It was close to the star GSC 1402:1506 which is mag
12.96 based on the GSC or 13.36 based on the USNO. Himalia was visible
only with averted vision but it could be held steadily. A nearby star
(GSC 1402:1066) at mag 14.13 (GSC) or 14.43 (USNO) could be seen
steadily with direct vision and another USNO star (RA 9h 21m 0.55s, Dec
16d 25m 7.86s J2000.0) at mag 16.14 could be seen occasionally with
averted vision. This observation attests to the clear conditions that
arrived after midnight.
Earlier in the evening someone (name unknown) had a scope set up with an
Orion Ultrablock filter stacked with a Minus Violet filter for the best
view I saw of Saturn and M1. The shape of M1 was very clearly delineated
from the background with Saturn situated along one edge of the nebula. A
most impressive sight. I tried it with Mira, my 9.8" f4.6 Lurie-Houghton
scope, around 7:30pm and was able to see a glow around Saturn from the
nebula, but no comparison to the view through the scope with the stacked
filters.
Rick Scott
http://members.cox.net/rmscott
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