Observing Notesfrom the Tuckahoe IrregularsWell, The Weather Channel online said it would be clear tonight. But in the beginning it looked like we were going to get clouded out. Don Surles and I were the only two in attendance and we both arrived before dark. We waited for quite a while hoping it would eventually clear off but it was looking bad. But the great thing about the clouds in the West was that it produced probably the best sunset I’ve ever seen.Dark purple clouds and the bottoms lit up with a fiery orange that reminded me of dying embers in a fireplace. Don stopped along the way to Tuckahoe to capture it on film. It was absolutely spectacular. At 8:00 the sky opened up and it was a stunning night. The sky was very clear but the upper atmosphere was swimming early on. Splitting doubles or seeing any planetary detail was almost impossible. But as the night wore on it got increasingly steady and by the time we left at 2:30 it was just awesome! The wind would blow from time to time and some of the breezes were cold and warm. It never got unbearably cold the whole night. And as has been the case the last few times I’ve been out it was completely dew free. Don set up his 25-inch and his Celestron C8. He was looking through the Obsession and taking photos through the C8. I once again brought my refractor and did a lot of Open Cluster hunting. It was a prolific night for me, finding almost 30 new objects. Most were Open Clusters in Cygnus, Perseus and Cassiopeia. I also spent time again looking at a lot of familiar and popular objects. Don once again set the 25-inch on M33 and it was even better than the last time we looked at it. The 20 Nagler really brought out some stunning detail. The spiral arm structure was starkly evident as was the stellar nucleus. You could follow the arms all the way to the core. There were star and nebula clouds peppered throughout the entire expanse of the galaxy. That’s officially the best I’ve ever seen it. M31 was awesome as well. The dust lanes were so evident as was the star cloud NGC 206. Both of the satellite galaxies had pinpoint cores as did the parent galaxy. The Dumbbell Nebula showed its ears so easily it looked better than any photograph I’ve seen of it. What amazing sights. It’s amazing how many open clusters there are in Cassiopeia. In one low power field of view there were five clusters. It was also neat to realize how many were within a low power field of view of the most popular and most looked at objects. For instance I never knew there was an open cluster right at the feet of the Owl Cluster! NGC 436 is a tight group of rich and bright stars. The best view was at 50x. In Cygnus, M29 is another popular object and it too has a cluster lying within a low power field of view, IC 4996. This cluster has a neat “Y” shaped appearance and showed itself well at 50x. Another Cygnus object with lesser known clusters in the same field is M39. This cluster has NGC 7082 and NGC 7067 as its close neighbors. M39 is a large cluster with many bright members spread out in a circular pattern. The best view is at 25x. NGC 7082 is also large with a lot of stars. Ten of these are bright members spread out in a circular disc. The best view was again at 25x. NGC 7067 in contrast is a tiny and faint cluster with most of its members in a tight ball. The best view of this object is at 25x. And a huge cluster lies within the same low power field as the Double Cluster in Perseus. Stock 2 is a large and truly rich star cluster. All the members have the appearance of having the same magnitude. It looks like an extremely rich part of the Milky Way. This one is really a beauty. Finally there are two more beautiful clusters that lie about one low power field over from the Double Cluster; NGC 957 and Collinder 29. I already discussed NGC 957 in my last observing notes but Collinder 29 is beautiful because it has an elongated core with faint stars and many bright outlying members. It has an irregular shape and the best thing of all is one orange star that stands out strongly among the whole group. This is a neat sight. There were many more clusters of varying sizes and shapes but these were the highlights. I saw many bright meteors throughout the evening. One of the best streaked straight down in the north and disappeared behind the tree line. Those are my favorite kind because they look like they might reach the ground. And on our way out of the park the moon was a blood red crescent shape coming up over the tree line and was huge in size. Back home in South Carolina when I was a kid we used to say that when the moon rose up blood red like that, it meant that the dead were walking the earth. Well I’m glad I saw it while I was driving! It was a great evening and I will be out there again tonight since I have Veteran’s Day off and can sleep late tomorrow morning. Anyone else feel like going out? Clear Skies. Douglas A. Norton strix@mindspring.com |