Observing Notesfrom the Tuckahoe IrregularsAfter a nearly two month hiatus due to a new house and a new job, it felt good just to be out among friends again. Especially friends I haven't seen since the big Leonid meteor shower. Friday was a damp night, as I had suspected it would be, but it wasn't the worst night by far although planets and double stars suffered. But for the faint fuzzies it was a really good night. I managed to bring most of my equipment to the field but forgot the most important things of all for that night; towels! Thanks to Joe Wojtecki for the loan of towels and for the new power supply. It works marvelously well. I took it both nights and it worked flawlessly. I dropped my previous power supply while taking it out of my truck and cracked the battery wide open. The acid ate into my inverter pretty well leaving a nice scar on the outside of it. I cannot believe the turnout for Friday evening. It was a small star party. I can't remember everyone's names but there were a lot of new faces, er... I mean voices, in the field that night! Like Jim Rosenstock said, hopefully I'll get to know you over time. But the people I can remember were Paul Gray, Tim Milligan, Steve Long, Dan Kidwell, Joe Wojtecki, Lyle Jones, Jim Rosenstock, and a few new gazers. What a great time it was. I really didn't find anything new at all. I just wanted to get out, see how much closer I now live to Tuckahoe and see old friends. It now takes me just over 45 minutes to get to Tuckahoe since I now live right at the beginning of 301 and it's a straight shot for me. A lot better than the hour and a half that it used to take. I also just wanted to get familiar with the equipment again and get back into the routine of setup and breakdown. Highlights of the evening included the view of the Eskimo Nebula through Steve Long's scope. His 10.5mm Pentax provided a spectacular view. Paul had some great views of open star clusters and a slow moving satellite next to one in Canis Major that was slow enough to take nearly 1 minute to move through the field of view. Joe Wojtecki had a super view of NGC40 in Cepheus. This one really stood out for me because it's one of my favorite planetary nebulae to look at. Several of us tried to hunt down the supernova but it was a tough sell because the finder charts were kinda confusing. At least I know I couldn't find it. I packed it in early and left with Paul around 10:30 or 11:00. I think. But in any case we stopped at the truck stop and had "breakfast" and talked about plans for the Messier Marathon. I am going to come up with some sort of game plan for one of the best target dates to do the marathon and try to figure out how we can get the biggest turnout at the park. It's nice to have a support group for the event because from what I remember of last year's marathon, it's heck of a long evening! It's nice to have someone watch your equipment while taking a run out to the retaurant for a mid-observing break! But anyway it was a great evening and it was nice to have everyone in the field. On Saturday night, which was by far a better night than Friday, it was just myself and Chris Mazzola. We hunted down faint companion galaxies to much more famous parent galaxies. Such as the two comanions to the Andromeda Galaxy that actually reside in Cassiopeia. NGC147 and NGC185. And also the two "companions" to M81, NGC3077 and NGC2976. NGC 147 and NGC185 proved to be difficult due to a low horizon placement. I can only say that NGC147 was easy with NGC185 eluding me. The two companions to M81 were much easier and much more pleasing in the eyepiece. Then Chris and I noticed that because of the unusually steady atmosphere in the latter part of the observing session, the Trapezium proved easy pickings for the 5th and 6th stars and in his scope many more faint stars in the same area. The only other objects I observed were the planets because of the much steadier and transparent sky. We only stayed about 3 hours before packing it in and heading for home. I haven't built up my stamina yet but it won't be long before I'm pulling all-nighters again! So all in all it was two great nights and I hope to see you out in the field in the near future. Have agood one! Doug Norton |