Observing Notesfrom the Tuckahoe IrregularsFor those of you not at Tuckahoe on Saturday night (there were only two of us), you missed a GREAT night. Around sunset a nice breeze had started to blow and there was no dew. I brought out my 10 inch Intelliscope and had a great time. Before, it was even fully dark (around 0945 or so) I aligned my setting circles, which I got on the first time, and started looking at clusters in Scorpious-M5 and M80, and M13 and M92 in Hercules, and some others. I've really got to start writing this stuff down, right now I'm still playing with my relatively new toy. When it got dark, I started looking at galaxies in Coma Berencies, Virgo and Leo. It was so transparent that you could just see chains of them. It was extremely cool! Finally, guess who came to visit me again, that #!$%&@ deer! I can't get away from this thing. And this wasn't the nice deer who only huffed at me maybe once every couple of minutes. This one was on a war path and very upset that I was on his field. I went to go stand by Mark's stuff and Mark had taken a break! Of course, the deer was really quite by the time Mark got back. Had to leave at 12:30 because the next day was Father's day. As for Sunday, it was Tim, Leonard and Teri were there. Had a little tougher time trying to align my scope, but when I aligned on a third object, that seemed to do the trick. Again, I LOVE SETTING CIRCLES. There was a lot more dew and the temperature really dropped. The sky was mushy (after having been so clear the night before) so some of the dimmer galaxies were hard to see. Had a great time looking at similar stuff as the night before. Steve showed up a little later. He brought coordinates for the comet below Ursa Major (NEAT C/ 2001 Q4). First comet I've seen through my scope. Then Steve suggested (I believe this is the correct number) NGC 6231. It says in The Night Sky, after giving it 5 stars: "The compact NGC 6231 is one of the most beautiful and interesting open clusters in the sky. It is about 2.5 magnitudes brighter than the NGC 869 and NGC 884 components of the Perseus Double Cluster, and only 1.4 magnitudes fainter than the Pleiades. And it is intrinsically bright as well: it is about 6,200 light years away and has an absolute magnitude of -10.2, a luminosity of one million suns! NGC 6231 is about as luminous as the most brilliant globular cluster of our Galaxy, the Great Omega Centauri, which has an absolute magnitude of -10.3. NGC 6231 is not, however, anywhere near as populous as Omega Centauri: the reason of its great luminosity is the brilliance of its individual stars- extremely hot, extremely luminous B0 and O-type giants and supergiants. The cluster also includes two of the rare Wolf-Rayet stars, objects with explosively expanding envelopes driven outward by the stars great radiation pressure and stellar winds....." and so on and so on. It was a very nice little globular. Left around 1200 because I had to work the next day. It was another good night. I'm between masters classes, so I need to take these observing chances when ever I can get them. Hope we have another clear night soon. Clear skies and take care, Teri |