(SNES) Observation Report, May 10, 2002

[Timetrav2@webtv.net (Andy and Barry)]

May 10, 2002
Location: Frosty Drew Observatory, Charlestown, Rhode Island
Time: 8 PM to 1:20 AM
Weather:  Warm evening in the low to mid 50's. The sky was 99% clear and
Moonless. There was a slight breeze but there seemed to be a lot of
moisture in the sky as it did not get very dark during the course of the
night. Very unstable moments at the eyepiece.
Equipment: Orion XT-8, 40mm eye piece, 25mm eye piece, 2X barlow. Tape
recorder, winter jacket and sweat shirt and a bottle of water.

I have to be honest.  I really didn't feel much like going out of the
house tonight.  I was tired and without motivation.  I did make it to
Charlestown and my spirit picked up as I pulled into the parking lot
outside of the observatory after seeing a number of large telescopes
being set up.

The first person I saw was Steve who was standing next to someone  (Dave
B.) setting up a large 20 inch dob. Next I saw Ernie and Marcie.   Brad
was next to appear out of nowhere as he was setting up his telescope.
Seeing some of my old friends began to lift my spirits.

"A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Office".

While I was trying to align my finders with my check resting on the
optical tube.  Some old scruffy guy put his face about two feet away
from mine and said, "I thought you were sick". I'm thinking this guy
must be one of those nuts that sometimes show up on Friday nights after
the bars close but it was to early for that. I said what?  "I thought
you were sick" the grey old stranger said.  At this point I'm getting
ready to hit the guy with famous left hook but I gave him one last
chance, "Who might you be?" I asked, thinking this intruder would truly
show himself to be some fool that we would have to call the cops on to
get him out of the park."The 'Other' Les", he replied and right away I
knew he meant Les Lyton from one of the astronomy newsgroups on the
internet that I have been participating in for the past couple of years.
We shock hands and finished the greeting with a "Manly bear hug". What a
terrific surprise meeting the man I have known only by his writings.
Les doesn't look or even sound the way I pictured him in my mind but he
seems to be a terrific guy. He traveled all the way FDO from Springfield
Mass. 

I must say the appearance of the "Other" Les set the tone for the
balance of my evening.  It turned out to be a great night under the
stars because of all the people who were playing with their toys and
sharing their little piece of the universe with others. The spirit of
this hobby was strong in the yard last night.

The first objects viewed this evening were  the planets of Venus, Mars,
Saturn and Jupiter.  Not much here to right about. Venus was bright,
Mars was small, Saturn was a mess because it was low in the sky and
Jupiter was having atmosphere problems. Three of Jupiter's moons where
visible and in a straight line at the center of the planet.

Next I viewed:
M3, Mag. 6.4 a tight globular cluster, in Canes Venatici. The "Other
Les" challenged me to find this target and gave me directions to it.
After chasing it around for awhile, I found the straight line from Cor
Caroli to Arcturus the easiest way to find it using the 40mm eyepiece.
This cluster is almost halfway between these to "guide post" stars. At
100X I was starting to resolve stars on the outer edge, otherwise this
cluster appears to be a large bright disk.  I observed this globular in
Dave B. 20 inch and was "bowled over" at its resolving power with the
stars in this cluster. This cluster just my become my favorite cluster
at the rare times I have a larger telescope to observe it with.  It is
simply beautiful. 

M13 in Hercules,  because the sky was bright resolving stars was
difficult. It still was pretty. Maybe I looked at M3 to long before
viewing M13 tonight.

M104, Sombrero Galaxy in Virgo,  I located this galaxy using the  40 mm
eye piece and found the  "stargate" first, the galaxy was just  below it
and seen in the same FOV.. The view of the galaxy was dim at 100X  and
not the best I have seen this galaxy. Still my favorite galaxy. 

M68  Small faint globular cluster in Hydra. I was not able to resolve
any stars due to the brightness of the sky.

Algieba, (Gamma Leonis)  a double in the sickle of  Leo.  With a
separation of 4" (seconds) all I could see of these to relatively bright
stars in the unstable atmosphere was an occasional hair thin dark break
at 100X otherwise these two stars looked like a pregnant star with a fat
bulge bouncing around in the atmosphere.  

Nu Draconis a beautiful double in the head of the dragon (Draco) Both
stars have a magnitude of about 5 with a separation of 62" (secs). Both
stars seem to have the same color (white). This is a very pretty double
that is compared to "cats eyes" in the book "Nightwatch".

When I started my search for M81 and M82 in Ursa Major I stumbled upon
this very faint galaxy not far from the top edge of the "Big Dipper". I
didn't have a clue to which galaxy this was so I went to "plan B" and
asked Doug if he knew what galaxy this was.  Doug was in the middle of
chasing an Iridium Satellite across the sky but said he would check it
out for me.  Of course I had to bother a number other people also in the
process of trying to id this galaxy.  Doug returned later and said he
believed it was, NGC 2787  a mag.10.8, object with a size of  3.5 X 2.5
minutes which made sense to me last night. But, after looking in my
Cambridge Star Atlas I think it was NGC 3359 (?) mag. 10.5 with a size
of 6.8 X 4.3 minutes. This is based on my perception of its  proximity
to Alpha Ursa Majoris. According to my charts at home NGC 2787 is much
closer to M81 and M82, when I later panned my telescope to the area of
sky where I would find these two objects I remember moving what seemed a
large distance to these two galaxies. I am a bit uncomfortable
questioning one of my astronomy mentors but I think I maybe correct in
my assessment. 

 Comet Ikeya-Zhang in Hercules, this is the first time in a couple of
weeks that I have viewed this "out of space" visitor, and the first time
in the 8-inch telescope.  Unlike what I observed with my binoculars it
appears that the comet is breaking-up.  The nice long tail that I have
viewed in the past seems to have disappearance for the most part but the
head of the comet is large and bright.  Comets are extremely exciting to
few and I have loved every view I have seen of this one.  I just wish I
could say its name. 

M81 and M82 in Ursa Major. The sky in this area seemed darker than the
rest of the sky and these galaxies which seemed to magically appear
without effort in the telescope shown wonderfully. Dust lanes could be
seen in the edge on galaxy (M81?)

M4 in Scorpios.  Dim globular cluster but resolved into many stars in
spite of the brightness of the sky. Very pretty.

M80 in Scorpios. A small bright globular cluster that appeared as a very
large bright star with a distinct glow around its core.

http://community.webtv.net/Timetrav2/TIMETRAVELERS
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