A night to remember @ Red Rock State Park

[m_j_lyons]

Second night (and last night) away on business and in proximity to dark skies. I took tonight and went to Red Rock State Park - located about 30 miles north of Edwards AFB in the California desert. It's a solid blue on the Clear Dark Sky charts - Bortle scale 3. The Milky Way was magnificent with dark veins clearly visible. Temps were in the mid 50's (13C) and the elevation was about 915m. Seeing was very good with no clouds and a very stable air mass. I arrived just before sunset and settled in for a few hours...

Old friend / new friend / missed friend

I started off with M103 in Casseopia - the skies were still blue...but getting darker blue by the minute. The cluster was easy to find and I'd say it almost had a fan shape. Only the brightest members were visible this close to sunset...but the mag 8-9 stars just S were visible also.

From there I decided to focus on cleaning up the clusters south of 103 - NGC 654, 659, and 663. It took a while and i had to wait for the sky to darken sufficiently but I bagged all three within about 30 minutes. 663 was easy in 15mm but 654 and 659 were best seen with the 6mm eyepiece. Turns out that only 659 was new...I had logged the other two back in April. Oh well...still time well spent.

Next I quickly hopped over to see ET - NGC 457. I like this cluster and it was easily found with ET's eyes blazing brightly and arms beckoning me to come home.

Then over to NGC 281 which I was motivated to find after reading another observer's posting today. Found the right spot easy enough and after some patience some slight nebulosity was visible...not enough to call it pac-man...but it was there.

To finish out my fun in CAS I went over to iota CAS for the multi-star system. I was able to clearly split 2...a third was bulging but couldn't' be split. The fourth was way beyond my scope's ability.

I took a break from DSOs and watched Jupiter for a few minutes. Io and Ganymede were coming close to going in front/behind the king. Stellarium said they'd be out of sight in an hour so I moved on and set a timer to come back.

Quick stop at Andromeda at 15mm and 6mm. M31/32/110 all visible.

I then challenged myself with NGC 891 - wasn't sure if I'd succeed here but patience paid off. The side-on mag 10 galaxy was in and out of averted vision. The longer I stayed on it the more I'd see it. Finally it was right at the edge of direct visibility. It was a fuzzy cigar with a fat center with averted vision. Direct vision was a elongated fuzzy spot at best.

M76 was next...didn't hold out hopes because everything was saying it was mag 12. After a quick jump over from phi AND it was clearly visible in both 15mm and 6mm. Nothing more than a cotton ball...and appeared closer to mag 10. But it was clearly there.

Quick stop in the Ring Nebula (M57) - found easily and upped to 6mm (75x) - nice green ring hinting towards a redish hue on the inside. Was that my imagination?

Then over to the naked eye Lagoon Nebula (M8). 15mm brought out the nebula very easily and NGC 6530 next door.

Moving up brought the Trifid nebula (M20) and cluster (M21) next to it. Both clearly visible.

After stepping up from mu SGR I found NGC 6595 with some very faint nebulosity at the heart.

Continuing on the same vector I observed the Sagittarius star cloud (M24), open cluster M18, and the Checkmark Nebula (M17). The checkmark stood out clearly and I don't know why I haven't looked up there previously.

The timer was going off so I re-caged back to Jupiter and watched Io and Ganymede disappear around Jupiter...neat to see....but sort of like watching grass grow. They'll reappear in about and hour...don't know if I can wait that long...I'm chilled to the core.

Back to clean up the Eagle nebula (M16) - star cluster was easily seen and there was a very slight nebulosity.

At this point my laptop battery died so I decided to call it quits.

I saw something strange again tonight...it seemed like a satellite that was flashing. I'm very familiar with aircraft and this didn't move like one...I could track it in my scope and the speed was like most satellites...but it brightened about once every 2 seconds. Could it have been tumbling? Is it possible to see a light from a satellite? could it have been some black program?

I saw something very similar last night but the flash was less regular and it changed intensity...almost more like a tumbling object. Thoughts?

Overall a very good evening.

Happy hunting!

[marcdearn]

What a great report of a great session

Thanks!

[swamp thing]

Hi

Great report. Very nicely written.

Impressed you could see M16's nebulosity, that isn't easy in small apertures.

The Pacman Nebula is a great find in a small scope too. Well done.

Regards Steve

[m_j_lyons]

For M16 - I'd say that it was not completely clear in the cluster...I wasn't able to pull out any detail from the nebula...but compared to the surrounding stars it was clear that a nebula was there...just the slightest fuzziness/haziness. Either way I was excited.