Observing Notesfrom the Tuckahoe IrregularsLocation: Tuckahoe State Park, Queen Anne Maryland Telescope: 18" standard coating NOVA optics, Newtonian Oculars: 31mm Nagler Type 5 giving 66x 16mm Nagler Type 2 giving 128x 9mm Nagler Type 1 giving 228x Barlow: 2.4x Dakine Vernonscope (Infrequent) Equipment problem: Dew Controller malfunction. Broken potentiometer. Warm ups: M13 M57 M56 by accident, small, resolved GC in Lyra Main observing starting around 2200 hrs: Goal: Draco Galaxies NGC 6543 Draco PN, Very Green, small, central star, next time look for nearby gxs. NGC 4125 Draco GX, nice, fairly easy but small. nice at 228x NGC 4236 Draco GX, large! faint, challenge object at 66x Draco GX Cluster: All very faint. Two somewhat brighter GXs, Two dimmer GXs, One not seen. All in same view at 128x. Tough grouping! Excellent. NGC 5693 Mag 14.1 NGC 5682 Mag 14.9 very faint NGC 5683 Mag 15.4 UNSEEN NGC 5689 Mag 12.6 NGC 5700 Mag 15.2 last one we found, extremely faint UMa GX Cluster: M81 and M82 with two nearby GXs that Doug pointed out. Mainly used 66x and 128x These were in the North-west skyglow. Would be a better earlier target. Next time, look for UGC5247, NGC 2959, NGC 2961 nearby to M81 M81 M82 NGC 3077 easy and nice, big, Mag 10.8 NGC 2976 at Mag 11.0, harder than 3077, but once located was not hard to see. Fog moving in Winding down: M8 SGR NB glad this one's back up in the night sky! M20 SGR NB NGC 6992 veil - dew becoming a real problem, not as nice as usual M51+NGC 5195 - poor due to dew. (no heater tonight!!) Done for the night approx 0100 hrs. local |